- 0350 General Magnentius deposes Roman Emperor Constans, proclaims himself Emperor.
- 0474 Leo II briefly becomes Byzantine emperor
- 0532 Nika uprising at Constantinople fails, 30-40,000 die
- 1126 Emperor Huizong abdicates the Chinese throne to his son Emperor Qinzong
- 1307 German king Albrecht I makes his son Rudolf king of Bohemia
- 1478 Grand Duke Ivan II of Moscow occupies Novgorod
- 1486 King Henry VII of England marries Elizabeth, daughter of Edward IV
- 1520 Christian II of Denmark & Norway defeats the Swedes at Lake Asunde
- 1520 King Christian II of Denmark and Norway defeats the Swedes at Lake sunden.
- 1535 Francisco Pizarro founds Lima Peru
- 1535 Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro founded Lima, the capital of Peru.
- 1535 The city of Lima, capital of present-day Peru, is founded by Spanish conquistadors on the central Pacific coast of South America.
- 1562 Pope Pius IV reopens the Council of Trent for its third and final session.
- 1644 Perplexed Pilgrims in Boston reported America's first UFO sighting
- 1650 French Prince Louis II of Condé captured
- 1670 Henry Morgan captures Panama.
- 1671 Pirate Henry Morgan defeats Spanish defenders, captures Panamá
- 1691 English king Willem III travels to The Hague
- 1701 Frederick I becomes King of Prussia.
- 1701 Frederik I/Sophie Charlotte van Hanover crowned king/queen of Prussia
- 1733 The first polar bear exhibited in America (Boston)
- 1777 San Jose CA founded
- 1778 Captain James Cook stumbles over Sandwich Islands (Hawaiian Islands)
- 1778 HMS Supply, first ship of Britain's "First Fleet" to Australia, reaches Botany Bay (Sydney).
- 1778 James Cook is the first known European to discover the Hawaiian Islands, which he names the "Sandwich Islands."
- 1795 French admitted to Amsterdam without resistance
- 1795 Governor/Viceroy Willem V flees Scheveningen to England
- 1817 San Martin leads a revolutionary army over Andes
- 1840 Electro-Magnetic Intelligencer, first US electrical journal, appears
- 1850 British blockade Piræus, Greece to enforce mercantile claims
- 1854 Filibuster William Walker proclaims Republic of Sonora in NW México
- 1861 American Civil War - Georgia joins South Carolina, Florida, Mississippi, and Alabama in secession from the United States.
- 1861 Georgia joins the Confederacy during the U.S. Civil War.
- 1862 Confederate Territory of Arizona is formed
- 1865 Battle of Fort Moultrie SC
- 1871 2nd German Empire proclaimed by Kaiser Wilhelm I & Bismarck
- 1871 Wilhelm I of Germany is proclaimed the first German Emperor in the 'Hall of Mirrors' of the Palace of Versailles towards the end of the Franco-Prussian War. The empire, to the Germans, was known as The Second Reich
- 1871 William of Prussia was declared the first German emperor.
- 1884 Dr William Price attempts to cremate the body of his infant son, Jesus Christ Price, setting a legal precedent for cremation in the UK.
- 1886 Modern field hockey is born with the formation of The Hockey Association in England.
- 1896 The X-ray machine is exhibited for the first time.
- 1896 The first demonstration of an x-ray machine in the US, New York City NY
- 1905 French government of Combes falls
- 1907 Variety magazine publishes film reviews for the first time.
- 1911 Eugene B. Ely lands on the deck of the USS Pennsylvania stationed in San Francisco harbor, marking the first time an aircraft landed on a ship.
- 1911 The first shipboard landing of a plane (Tanforan Park to USS Pennsylvania)
- 1912 British explorer Robert Falcon Scott arrives at the South Pole only to find that Roald Amundsen, the Norwegian explorer, had preceded them by just over a month.
- 1912 English explorer Robert F Scott & his expedition reach South Pole, only to discover that Roald Amundsen had gotten there before
- 1913 A Greek flotilla defeats the Ottoman Navy in the Naval Battle of Lemnos during the First Balkan War, securing the islands of the Northern Aegean Sea for Greece.
- 1913 Greek and Turkish naval forces battle off Tendos Isle.
- 1913 Turkish-Greek sea battle near Troy
- 1915 Japan issues the "Twenty-One Demands" to the Republic of China in a bid to increase its power in East Asia.
- 1915 The Germans perform the first aerial bombing of Britain, from a pair of Zeppelin dirigibles during WWI.
- 1915 Train crashes at Colima-Guadalajara Mexico, about 600 die
- 1915 With the European powers preoccupied with World War I, Japan secretly presents China with Twenty-one Demands for privileges.
- 1916 A 611 gram chondrite type meteorite struck a house near the village of Baxter in Stone County, Missouri.
- 1918 World War I : Woodrow Wilson delivers his Fourteen Points speech in front of Congress.
- 1919 Bentley Motors Limited is founded.
- 1919 WWI Peace Congress opens in Versailles, France
- 1919 World War I: The Paris Peace Conference opens in Versailles, France. Ignacy Jan Paderewski becomes Prime Minister of the newly independent Poland.
- 1922 Irish author Liam O'Flaherty & others occupy the Rotunda in Dublin
- 1927 Empress Charlotte, wife of Mexico's ill-fated Emperor Maximilian, dies.
- 1929 "New York Daily Mirror" columnist Walter Winchell debuts on radio
- 1929 Stalin proposes to ban Trotsky from the Politburo
- 1930 -27ºF (-33ºC), Watts OK (state record)
- 1933 White Sands National Monument, NM established
- 1937 Future billionaire Howard Hughes sets a record for transcontinental air flight, making the trip from Los Angeles to New York City in 7 hours, 28 minutes.
- 1939 South African wicketkeeper Bradman gets his 6th straight ton, 135* vs New South Wales
- 1942 Nazi's arrest Frans Goedhart & Wiardi Beckman
- 1943 Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto begin resistance of Nazis
- 1943 Moscow announced the 16-month Nazi siege of Leningrad was lifted.
- 1943 Presliced bread sale banned to reduce bakery demand for metal parts
- 1943 Soviets announce they broke the long Nazi siege of Leningrad
- 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising: The first uprising of Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto.
- 1944 Soviet forces liberate Leningrad, effectively ending a three year Nazi siege, known as the Siege of Leningrad.
- 1944 The first Chinese naturalized US citizen since repeal of exclusion acts
- 1945 Approximately 800 prisoners remaining in the Lodz Ghetto are liberated by Soviet troops, after 74,600 have been deported to Auschwitz.
- 1945 Liberation of the Budapest ghetto by the Red Army
- 1947 Small river steamer sank on Yangtze River, kills 400
- 1948 Ted Mack's "Original Amateur Hour" begins, DuMont (later NBC/ABC/CBS)
- 1949 "They Stand Accused" courtroom drama premieres on CBS (later DuMont)
- 1949 South African Reverend Andries P Treurnicht marries Engela Dreyer
- 1951 Hermann Flake sentenced to death due to "hate campaign against German Democratic Republic"
- 1951 The first use of lie detector in Netherlands
- 1954 Fanfani forms Italian government
- 1955 Battle of Yijiangshan occurred.
- 1957 3 B-52's set record for around-the-world flight, 45 hours 19 minutes
- 1958 The first black in the NHL (William O'Ree, Boston Bruins)
- 1958 Willie O'Ree, the first African American National Hockey League player, makes his NHL debut.
- 1960 US & Japan sign joint defense treaty
- 1961 Zanzibar's Afro-Shirazi party wins 1 seat by a single vote & parliament by a single seat
- 1962 Southern University closed due to demonstrations
- 1962 US begins spraying foliage in Vietnam to reveal Viet Cong guerrillas
- 1964 Beatles first appearance in Billboard Chart (I Want to Hold Your Hand-#35)
- 1964 Plans are revealed for the World Trade Center in New York City.
- 1964 Plans for the World Trade Center announced (New York City NY)
- 1965 H L de Vries appointed Dutch Governor of Suriname
- 1966 Indira Gandhi is elected prime minister of India.
- 1967 Albert DeSalvo (Boston Strangler) sentenced to life in prison
- 1967 Visitor posting - tracey daw born - Canada
- 1967 Yellowknife replaces Ottawa as capital of NW Territories, Canada
- 1969 Expanded 4 party Vietnam peace talks began in Paris
- 1969 Soyuz 5 returns to Earth
- 1973 John Cleese's final episode on "Monty Python's Flying Circus," on BBC
- 1974 "The $6 Million Man" starring Lee Majors premieres on ABC TV
- 1974 A Disengagement of Forces agreement is signed between the Israeli and Egyptian governments, ending conflict on the Egyptian front of the Yom Kippur War.
- 1974 Israel & Egypt sign weapons accord
- 1974 The Secretary officially named the Navy's fourth nuclear-powered carrier the Carl Vinson
- 1975 "The Jeffersons" spin-off from "All in the Family" premieres on CBS
- 1975 Number one hit on UK music charts - Status Quo - Down Down
- 1975 Visitor posting - Judith Teitelman is born
- 1977 Australia's worst rail crash, at Granville, Sydney, kills 83 when train hits concrete bridge.
- 1977 Imran Khan takes 12 wickets in match for Pakistan win at the SCG
- 1977 On his last day as U.S. President, Gerald Ford pardons Iva Toguri D'Aquino, better known to U.S. troops as Tokyo Rose, from her acts of treason during WWII.
- 1977 Visitor posting - Crystal Lynn Starr born. Pet, gizmo - USA
- 1977 Scientists identify a previously unknown bacterium as the cause of the mysterious Legionnaires' disease.
- 1978 Geoff Boycott captains England for the first time, vs Pakistan Karachi
- 1978 Roof of 3-year-old Civic Center in Hartford CT collapses (no injuries)
- 1978 The European Court of Human Rights finds the United Kingdom government guilty of mistreating prisoners in Northern Ireland, but not guilty of torture.
- 1978 Thiokol conducts 2nd test firing of space shuttle's SRB
- 1980 Gold reaches $1,000 an ounce
- 1980 Pink Floyd's "The Wall" hits #1
- 1980 Studio 54 owners Steve Rubell & Ian Schrager sentenced to 3½ years in prison for tax evasion & fined $20,000
- 1981 Iran accepts US offer of $7.9 billion in frozen assets
- 1981 Iran agrees in principle to the release of 52 Americans held hostage for more than 14 months.
- 1981 Wendy O Williams arrested in Milwaukee for on-stage obscenity
- 1982 U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds: "Diamond Crash" kills four team members.
- 1983 IOC restores Jim Thorpe's Olympic medals 70 years after they were taken from him for being paid $25 in semipro baseball
- 1983 The International Olympic Committee restores Jim Thorpe Olympic medals to his family.
- 1985 US renounces jurisdiction of World Court despite previous promise
- 1986 24th Space Shuttle (61-C) Mission-Columbia 7-returns to Earth
- 1986 AIDS charity record "That's What Friends are For," hits #1
- 1986 Fierce fighting in South Yemen's capital city of Aden interrupts evacuation of foreigners.
- 1986 Visitor posting - Sakthivel. S born - India
- 1987 11th Soap Opera Digest Poll Awards - Days of Our Live wins
- 1988 Airliner crashes in SW China, killing all 108 on board
- 1989 Astronomers discover pulsar in remnants of Supernova 1987A (LMC)
- 1989 Candace Thomas marries Steve Garvey
- 1989 IBM announces earnings up 10.4% in 1988
- 1989 Otis Redding, Dion, Rolling Stones, Temptations & Stevie Wonder inducted into Rock & Roll Hall of Fame
- 1989 West Indies beat Australia 2-1 to win the World Series Cup
- 1990 Arthur J. Goldberg, former Supreme Court justice, and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, is found dead in his Washington, D.C. apartment at age 81.
- 1990 South Africa says its reconsidering ban on African National Congress
- 1990 Washington DC, Mayor Marion Barry arrested in drug enforcement sting
- 1991 Eastern Air Lines shuts down after 62 years citing financial problems.
- 1991 Iraq launches SCUD missiles against Israel
- 1991 Longest tennis match at the Australian Open, Boris Becker beats Italy's Omar Camporese in 5 hours & 11 minutes
- 1991 US acknowledges CIA and US Army paid Noriega $320,000 over his career
- 1992 49th Golden Globes
- 1992 Actress Joan Chen (Twin Peaks) marries Dr Peter Hui
- 1992 Comedian Pat McCormick injured in a car accident
- 1992 Nammy Le's birthday
- 1993 For the first time, Martin Luther King Jr. holiday is officially observed in all 50 United States states.
- 1993 Visitor posting - Nathalie Holtsater was born - Sweden
- 1993 West Indies win the World Series Cup, beating Australia 2-0
- 1994 Iran-Contra independent counsel Lawrence Walsh issued his final report on the scandal. He blasted former President Bush for his Christmas Eve 1992 pardons of six Iran-Contra defendants.
- 1994 The Cando event, a possible bolide impact in Cando, Spain. Witnesses claim to have seen a fireball in the sky lasting for almost one minute.
- 1994 Visitor posting - Samantha B, the greatest girl alive was born.
- 1995 In southern France near Vallon-Pont-d'Arc cave paintings and engravings over 17,000 years old discovered.
- 1995 Kumble takes 16-99 in match for Karnataka vs Kerala
- 1995 Officials in Paris announced the discovery of a magnificent display of Paleolithic cave art in southern France.
- 1996 Lisa Marie Presley filed for divorce from Michael Jackson in NY
- 1997 Boerge Ousland of Norway becomes the first person to cross Antarctica alone and unaided.
- 1997 In north west Rwanda, Hutu militia members kill 3 Spanish aid workers, 3 soldiers and seriously wound one other.
- 1997 Norway's Boerge Ousland emerges on the Pacific edge of Antarctica to become the first person to cross the continent alone and unaided.
- 1997 Norwegian Borge Ousland completed a 1,675-mile trek across Antarctica, the first time anyone transversed the continent alone.
- 1998 Lewinsky scandal: Matt Drudge breaks the Bill Clinton - Monica Lewinsky affair story on his website The Drudge Report.
- 2000 The strange Tagish Lake meteorite impacted the Earth.
- 2001 Civil rights leader Rev. Jesse Jackson admitted he had fathered a daughter born out of wedlock in 1999 to an employee of his Rainbow/PUSH coalition.
- 2001 The British digital television channel e4 (TV) was launched.
- 2002 A Canadian Pacific Railway train carrying anhydrous ammonia derails outside of Minot, North Dakota, killing one man and calling into question the maintenance of CP track and the policy of voice-tracking used by Clear Channel Communications.
- 2002 In another anti-terrorist step ordered by Congress, U.S. airlines began inspecting every piece of luggage checked by passengers.
- 2002 Sierra Leone Civil War is finally declared over.
- 2003 A bushfire kills 4 people and destroys more than 500 homes in Canberra, Australia.
- 2003 Protesters nationwide demonstrated in opposition to possible war in Iraq.
- 2004 At least 23 people were reported killed when a powerful car bomb exploded in Baghdad. No Americans were listed among the dead.
- 2005 A U.N. World Conference on Disaster Reduction in Kobe, Japan begins.
- 2007 The strongest storm in the UK for 17 years kills 14 people, Germany sees the worst storm since 1999 with 13 deaths. Hurricane Kyrill, caused at least 44 deaths across 20 countries in Western Europe. Other losses include the Container Ship MSC Napoli destroyed by the storm of the coast of Devon, England.
- 2008 Important Islamic date - Aashura: January 18, 2008
- 2010 Visitor posting - Joseph N Malouf IV born in Detroit (Love Daddy!) - USA
- 2010 Visitor posting - The Frozen Heroes's guild bank is hacked by an inside user. Reports were made. - USA
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