January 19
1966:
Rule in India transferred to Indira Gandhi.
Following the sudden death of Indian Premier Lal Bahadur Shastri eight days earlier, Indira Gandhi became prime minister of India on this day in 1966, assuming the office first held by her father, Jawaharlal Nehru.
1955:
U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower held the first-ever televised presidential press conference.
1883:
In the North Sea the German steamer Cimbria collided with the British steamer Sultan and sank, killing 340.
1853:
Giuseppe Verdi's opera Il trovatore premiered in Rome.
1825:
Ezra Daggett and Thomas Kensett obtained a patent for a preservation process used to store food in tin cans.
1809:
Edgar Allan Poe, an American short-story writer, poet, critic, and editor famous for his cultivation of mystery and the macabre, was born.
1807:
Confederate General Robert E. Lee was born in Stratford, Virginia.
January 20
1778:
Hawaii “discovered” by James Cook.
The first European to visit Hawaii was British explorer James Cook, who landed at Waimea on Kauai island this day in 1778 and was killed the following year by Hawaiians when he returned to the islands.
1981:
The Iran hostage crisis ended when Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini released 52 Americans held hostage for 15 months.
1971:
A nationwide strike in Great Britain's postal system began.
1962:
Robinson Jeffers, one of the most controversial American poets of the 20th century, died.
1961:
U.S. President John F. Kennedy, in his Inaugural Address, said, “And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.”
1945:
U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt was inaugurated for an unprecedented fourth term in office.
1930:
American astronaut Buzz Aldrin was born in Montclair, New Jersey.
1892:
The first official basketball game was played in Springfield, Massachusetts, by YMCA students of the game's inventor, James A. Naismith.
1801:
U.S. President John Adams nominated John Marshall to be chief justice of the United States.
January 21
1976:
First commercial Concorde flight.
Generating a sonic boom as it traveled through the atmosphere at supersonic speed, the Concorde, a commercial aircraft built with funding from the British and French governments, began regular service on this day in 1976.
1996:
Cleanup of 1.8 million gallons (6.8 million litres) of oil began near Block Island National Wildlife Refuge, Rhode Island, two days after the barge North Cape had run aground and created a 12-mile (19-km) oil slick.
1905:
Fashion designer Christian Dior was born in Granville, France.
1885:
Leadbelly—an African American folk-blues singer, songwriter, and guitarist whose ability to perform a vast repertoire of songs, in conjunction with his notoriously violent life, made him a legend—is believed to have been born this day.
1793:
Louis XVI, the last Bourbon king of France, was executed by guillotine in Paris during the French Revolution.
January 22
1973:
Roe v. Wade ruling.
On this day in 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court issued one of its most momentous decisions, ruling in Roe v. Wade that a Texas statute criminalizing abortion in most instances violated a woman's constitutional right of privacy.
1998:
One of the most notorious domestic terrorists in U.S. history, Theodore Kaczynski, the so-called Unabomber, who killed three people and injured 22 in 16 attacks between 1979 and 1995, was sentenced to four terms of life in prison without parole.
1943:
All Japanese resistance in Papua, on the island of New Guinea, site of an important Allied base at Port Moresby in World War II, ceased.
1905:
On what was later known as Bloody Sunday, Russian workers marching on St. Petersburg were fired on by Russian troops.
1904:
Influential ballet choreographer George Balanchine was born in St. Petersburg.
1821:
Russian explorer Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen discovered Peter I Island, the first sighting of land within the Antarctic Circle.
January 23
1997:
Madeleine Albright sworn in as U.S. secretary of state.
On this day in 1997, Madeleine Albright, who had earlier served as U.S. ambassador to the UN, assumed under President Bill Clinton the office of secretary of state, becoming the first woman to hold that cabinet post.
2002:
American journalist Daniel Pearl was kidnapped in Karachi, Pakistan, and later executed.
1997:
The Age of Aquarius dawned, some astrologers believe, because for the first time since 1475 a number of planets, the Sun, and the Moon were aligned in a perfect six-pointed star in the first degrees of Aquarius.
1898:
Sergey Mikhaylovich Eisenstein, a Russian film director and theorist known for such classics as Potemkin (1925), Alexander Nevsky (1938), and Ivan the Terrible (released in two parts, 1944 and 1958), was born.
1849:
Born in England, Elizabeth Blackwell received her M.D. degree from Geneva Medical College in New York, becoming the first American-trained woman physician.
1789:
Georgetown College (now Georgetown University) was established in Washington, D.C.
January 24
2004:
Opportunity's Mars landing.
Launched in mid-2003, the six-wheeled robotic rover Opportunity landed on Mars this day in 2004 and—like its twin rover, Spirit, which had landed on January 3—analyzed rocks and soils and relayed pictures back to Earth.
1908:
The first Boy Scout troop was organized by Lieutenant General Robert Baden-Powell in England.
1849:
Carpenter James Wilson Marshall found nuggets of gold in California's American River near the site of a sawmill he was building for John Sutter, ushering in a gold rush.
1556:
An earthquake in Shensi (Shaanxi) province, China, killed 830,000 people.
41:
The Roman emperor Caligula was murdered at the Palatine Games by Cassius Chaerea (a tribune of the Praetorian Guard), Cornelius Sabinus, and others.
January 25
41:
Claudius affirmed as Roman emperor.
On this day in AD 41, Claudius I, who extended Roman rule in North Africa and made Britain a province of Rome, was affirmed as emperor, ascending to the post one day after the murder of his nephew, Gaius Caesar (Caligula).
1882:
British writer Virginia Woolf, who made an original contribution to the form of the novel and was one of the most distinguished critics of her time, was born in London.
1874:
English author W. Somerset Maugham, best known for the novels Of Human Bondage (1915), The Moon and Sixpence (1919), Cakes and Ale (1930), and The Razor's Edge (1944), was born.
1759:
Robert Burns, national poet of Scotland, was born in Alloway in Ayrshire.
1554:
Jesuit missionaries founded the city of S鉶 Paulo (now in Brazil) on the anniversary of the conversion of St. Paul.
1533:
Henry VIII, king of England, married his second wife, Anne Boleyn, in a secret ceremony.
844:
A Roman archdeacon named John was elected antipope against the nobility's candidate, Pope Sergius II.
January 26
1788:
First European settlement in Australia.
On this day in 1788, Arthur Phillip, who had sailed into what is now Sydney Cove with a shipload of convicts, hoisted the British flag and established the first permanent European settlement on the continent of Australia.
1950:
India became a republic, achieving full independence from Great Britain.
1942:
The first U.S. expeditionary force to land in Europe during World War II reached Ireland.
1885:
British General Charles Gordon and other defenders of Khartoum were killed by Sudanese rebels.
1880:
Douglas MacArthur, the U.S. general who commanded the Southwest Pacific Theatre in World War II, administered postwar Japan during the Allied occupation that followed, and led United Nations forces during the first nine months of the Korean War, was born.
1837:
Michigan became the 26th U.S. state admitted to the Union.
January 27
1973:
Vietnam War ended.
The Paris accord ending the Vietnam War, America's longest war, was signed this day in 1973, providing for an exchange of prisoners and for the unilateral withdrawal of U.S. forces from South Vietnam.
1996:
Colonel Ibrahim Baré Ma?nassara led a successful military coup in Niger against the democratically elected government of President Mahamane Ousmane.
1967:
U.S. astronauts Virgil I. Grissom, Edward H. White, and Roger B. Chaffee perished in a fire aboard Apollo 1.
1945:
The Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz, Poland, was liberated by Soviet troops.
1944:
The Soviet Red Army ousted German and Finnish forces from Leningrad (St. Petersburg), concluding an 872-day siege.
1880:
American inventor Thomas Edison patented the incandescent lamp.
1832:
Mathematician and novelist Lewis Carroll was born in Daresbury, Cheshire, England.
January 28
1986:
Explosion of the space shuttle Challenger.
On this day in 1986, the U.S. space shuttle Challenger exploded 73 seconds after its liftoff from Florida, killing all seven aboard, including a schoolteacher who was the first private citizen to fly on a shuttle.
1915:
Congress created the U.S. Coast Guard by combining the Revenue Cutter Service with the U.S. Lifesaving Service.
1912:
American painter Jackson Pollock, a leading exponent of Abstract Expressionism who received widespread publicity and serious recognition for the radical poured, or “drip,” technique he used to create his major works, was born.
1881:
Russian novelist and short-story writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky died in St. Petersburg.
1873:
French writer Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette was born in Saint-Sauveur-en-Puisaye.
1871:
The French capital, Paris, fell following a four-month siege during the Franco-German War.
1457:
King Henry VII of England, who succeeded in ending the Wars of the Roses, was born in Pembrokeshire, Wales.
814:
Charlemagne, ruler of the Holy Roman Empire, died at Aachen (Germany).
January 29
2002:
Iraq, Iran, and North Korea called an “axis of evil”.
On this day in 2002, U.S. Pres. George W. Bush, delivering a State of the Union address, described Iraq, Iran, and North Korea as an “axis of evil” for their attempts to develop nuclear, chemical, or biological weaponry.
1924:
The first machine for rolling ice cream cones was patented by Carl Rutherford Taylor of Cleveland, Ohio.
1919:
The Prohibition (Eighteenth) Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified and went into effect the following year.
1900:
The American League of Professional Baseball Clubs was organized in Philadelphia.
1886:
German mechanical engineer Karl Benz patented the first practical automobile powered by an internal-combustion engine.
1880:
American actor and comedian W.C. Fields was born in Philadelphia.
1819:
British East India Company administrator Sir Stamford Raffles established the port of Singapore.
January 30
1649:
King Charles I of England executed.
Charles I, king of Great Britain and Ireland (1625–49), was viewed as an authoritarian ruler by members of Parliament—whose quarrels with him led to the English Civil Wars—and was executed in London this day in 1649.
1995:
Flooding forced the evacuation of more than 100,000 people from low-lying areas of The Netherlands.
1948:
Indian nationalist Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated by an orthodox Hindu Brahman.
1933:
President Paul von Hindenburg named Adolf Hitler chancellor of Germany.
1933:
The fictional character the Lone Ranger was introduced on radio station WXYZ in Detroit, Michigan.
1912:
Barbara Tuchman, one of the foremost popular historians in the United States in the second half of the 20th century and a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, was born.
1667:
The Truce of Andrusovo ended the Thirteen Years' War between Russia and Poland.
9:
The Roman emperor Augustus dedicated the shrine Ara Pacis (“Altar of Peace”).
January 31
1606:
Guy Fawkes executed in London.
On this day in 1606, British provocateur Guy Fawkes—one of the Gunpowder Plot conspirators, who sought to blow up Parliament and to assassinate King James I for his repression of Roman Catholics—was executed in London.
1977:
The Pompidou Centre, a French national cultural centre named for former president Georges Pompidou, opened in Paris.
1966:
The Soviets launched Luna 9, the first spacecraft to make a soft landing on the Moon.
1958:
Explorer 1 was the first artificial space satellite orbited by the United States, marking the country's entry into the space race.
1943:
German Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus surrendered to the Soviet Red Army at Stalingrad (now Volgograd), his troops surrendering two days later.
1797:
Austrian composer Franz Schubert was born near Vienna.
February 1
2003:
Space shuttle Columbia destroyed.
On this day in 2003, while returning to Earth from an orbital mission, the U.S. space shuttle Columbia broke up catastrophically at an altitude of about 60 km (40 miles) over Texas, killing all seven crew members.
1979:
The spacecraft Voyager 1 photographed Jupiter from a distance of 32.7 million km (20.3 million miles).
1923:
The private army of Blackshirts that had helped Benito Mussolini come to power in Italy was officially transformed into a national militia, the Voluntary Fascist Militia for National Security.
1901:
American motion-picture star Clark Gable was born in Cadiz, Ohio.
1896:
Giacomo Puccini premiered his opera La Bohème at the Teatro Regio in Turin, Italy.
1884:
The first of 10 volumes of the Oxford English Dictionary was published in London, the final volume being published April 19, 1928.
1820:
In a battle fought at Cepeda, Argentina, federalist forces defeated unitarios, who were advocates of strong central government.
February 2
1990:
Ban on African National Congress lifted.
On this day in 1990, South African President F.W. de Klerk lifted the 30-year ban on the African National Congress, resulting in the release from prison of Nelson Mandela and marking the beginning of the end of apartheid.
1979:
Sid Vicious of the Sex Pistols, early proponents of British punk rock, died of a drug overdose in New York City.
1943:
The Battle of Stalingrad in World War II ended with the surrender of German troops to the Soviets.
1927:
American jazz saxophonist Stan Getz was born in Philadelphia.
1912:
Frederick Rodman Law performed what was considered the first motion-picture stunt, parachuting from the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor.
1876:
The National League, the oldest existing major-league professional baseball organization in the United States, began play as the National League of Professional Baseball Clubs.
1848:
The United States and Mexico signed the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.
1653:
New Amsterdam (New York City) was incorporated as a city.
February 3
1870:
Fifteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution ratified.
On this day in 1870, the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States was ratified, guaranteeing the right to vote regardless of race and intending to ensure, with the Fourteenth Amendment, the civil rights of former slaves.
1959:
American rock 'n' roll singer Buddy Holly was killed in a plane crash at age 22.
1924:
Former U.S. president Woodrow Wilson died in Washington, D.C.
1917:
Not yet involved in World War I, the United States broke off diplomatic relations with Germany after the Germans announced their intention to practice unrestricted submarine warfare.
1913:
The Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, granting Congress the authority to levy income taxes, was ratified.
1894:
The first American steel ship, the Dirigo, was launched from Bath, Maine.
1865:
In a personal meeting with Confederate representatives, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln offered liberal pardons in exchange for the South quitting the Civil War, with reunion as a precondition of peace—an offer that was rejected.
1690:
Massachusetts issued the first paper money in the American colonies.
1468:
German craftsman, inventor, and printer Johannes Gutenberg died in Mainz.
February 4
1945:
Yalta Conference opened.
On this day in 1945, during the final stages of World War II, the Yalta Conference opened with Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin meeting to plan the final defeat and occupation of Nazi Germany.
2003:
Yugoslavia officially changed its name to Serbia and Montenegro.
1974:
Newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst was kidnapped by members of the Symbionese Liberation Army.
1948:
Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) gained independence from Great Britain.
1932:
The United States hosted its first Winter Olympic Games, in Lake Placid, New York.
1906:
German Protestant theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer was born in Breslau, Germany (now Wrocław, Poland).
1902:
American aviator Charles A. Lindbergh was born in Detroit, Michigan.
1789:
George Washington was elected to serve as the first U.S. president by a unanimous vote in the first electoral college.
1787:
Shays's Rebellion, an uprising in western Massachusetts in opposition to high taxes and stringent economic conditions, was defeated by the Springfield militia.
February 5
146 :
Punic Wars ended.
The Third Punic War, the last of three between Rome and Carthage, came to an end this day in 146 BC, culminating in the final destruction of Carthage, the enslavement of its people, and Roman hegemony over the Mediterranean.
2003:
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell appeared before the United Nations Security Council to present evidence that Iraq possessed proscribed weapons of mass destruction and posed an immediate danger.
1943:
American middleweight boxer Jake La Motta, the “Bronx Bull,” handed Sugar Ray Robinson his first defeat.
1917:
Mexico adopted its present constitution.
1900:
The first of two Hay-Pauncefote treaties was signed between the United States and Great Britain over control of the proposed Panama Canal.
February 6
1952:
Ascension of Elizabeth II.
Elizabeth II, who celebrated her Golden Jubilee in 2002, ascended the throne of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland this day in 1952, following the death of her father, King George VI.
1919:
A German constitutional assembly met to form the Weimar Republic.
1862:
Union naval commodore Andrew Foote, leading a flotilla of ironclads, captured Fort Henry, Tennessee, a strategic Confederate position during the American Civil War.
1840:
Maori tribes of New Zealand signed the Treaty of Waitangi with Great Britain, a historic agreement purported to protect Maori rights that was the immediate basis of the British annexation of New Zealand.
46:
Julius Caesar's forces delivered the final blow against supporters of Pompey the Great at the Battle of Thapsus.
February 7
1964:
British Invasion launched with Beatles' arrival in U.S..
The musical British Invasion began when the Beatles landed in New York City this day in 1964, and two nights later, as Beatlemania stormed America, their performance on The Ed Sullivan Show was watched by 73 million viewers.
1986:
In the wake of political unrest, Haitian President Jean-Claude Duvalier fled his country, with U.S. assistance, for France.
1974:
Grenada gained independence from the United Kingdom.
1885:
Sinclair Lewis, an American novelist and social critic who punctured national complacency with his broadly drawn, widely popular satiric novels and who in 1930 became the first American to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, was born.
1812:
One of the largest earthquakes in U.S. history occurred along the New Madrid Fault.
1613:
Michael Romanov, founder of the Romanov dynasty, became tsar of Russia.
1477:
English humanist and statesman Sir Thomas More was born in London.