Today In History – January

January 31

1862 Astronomer Alvan Graham Clark makes first observation of Sirius B (first known white dwarf star) in Cambridgeport, Massachusetts while testing his new telescope

1865 Congress passes 13th Amendment, abolishing slavery in America (121-24)

1901 Chekhov’s “Three Sisters” opens at Moscow Art Theater

1905 1st automobile to exceed 100 mph (161 kph), A G MacDonald, Daytona Beach

1906 Strongest instrumentally recorded earthquake, Colombia, 8.6 Richter

1928 Scotch tape 1st marketed by 3-M Company

1983 In an effort to reduce driving deaths, a new law in UK requires drivers and front-seat passengers to wear seatbelts

1990 1st McDonalds in Russia opens in Moscow, world’s biggest McDonalds

2006 Alan Greenspan retires as Chairman of the Federal Reserve

2015 Lydia Ko at 17, becomes the youngest golfer in men’s or women’s golf history to be ranked No. 1 in the world

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January 30

1648 Spain & Netherlands sign Peace of Munster, ending the Thirty Years War

1661 Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England is ritually executed after having been dead for two years.

1774 Captain Cook reaches 71°10′ south, 1820km from south pole (record)

1790 Lifeboat 1st tested at sea, by Mr Greathead, the inventor

1815 Burned US Library of Congress re-established with Thomas Jefferson’s 6,500 volumes

1826 The Menai Suspension Bridge, considered the world’s first modern suspension bridge, connecting the Isle of Anglesey to the north West coast of Wales is opened.

1873 “Around the World in 80 Days” by Jules Verne is published in France by Pierre-Jules Hetzel

1883 England team presented with ashes of a bail after Sydney Test

1948 Mahatma Gandhi assassinated by Nathuram Godse

1965 State funeral of Winston Churchill at St Paul’s Cathedral in London. Largest ever state funeral.

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January 29

1595 William Shakespeare’s play Romeo and Juliet is probably first performed. First published early 1597

1781 Mozart’s opera “Idomeneo” premieres, Munich

1840 First Governor of New Zealand and co-author of the Treaty of Waitangi Captain William Hobson arrives in the Bay of Islands, NZ

1856 Victoria Cross established to acknowledge valour in the face of the enemy (United Kingdom and Commonwealth countries)

1879 Custer Battlefield National Monument, Mont established

1920 Walt Disney starts work as an artist with KC Slide Co for $40 a week

1929 Seeing Eye Guide Dog organisation forms in USA

1933 German president Paul von Hindenburg appoints Adolf Hitler as chancellor

1943 New Zealand cruiser Kiwi collides with Japanese submarine I-1 at Guadalcanal

1978 Sweden outlaws aerosol sprays due to their harmful effect on the ozone layer, becoming the first nation to enact such a ban.

1996 France will no longer test nuclear weapons, its president Jacques Chirac says, following international outcry over tests in the Pacific

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January 28

1724 The Russian Academy of Sciences was founded in St. Petersburg by Peter the Great, and implemented in the Senate decree. It was called St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences until 1917.

1754 Horace Walpole, in a letter to Horace Mann, coins the word serendipity

1807 London’s Pall Mall is 1st street lit by gaslight

1813 Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice” is published by Thomas Egerton in the United Kingdom.

1819 Sir Stamford Raffles lands in Singapore

1887 Work begins on the Eiffel Tower in Paris

1914 Beverly Hills, Ca, is incorporated

1956 Elvis Presley’s 1st appearance on National TV (Dorsey Bros Stage Show)

1958 The Lego company patented their design of Lego bricks, still compatible with bricks produced today.

1985 Charity single “We Are the World” is recorded by supergroup USA for Africa (Michael Jackson, Lionel Richie and other pop stars)

1998 Michelangelo’s “Christ & the Woman of Samaria” sold for $7.4 million

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January 27

1593 – Vatican opens 7 year trial against scholar Giordano Bruno

1662 – 1st American lime kiln begins operation (Providence RI)

1671 – Pirate Henry Morgan lands at Panama City

1710 – Tsar Peter the Great sets first Russian state budget

1778 – Piccinni’s opera “Roland” premieres in Paris

1888 – National Geographic Society formed in Washington, D.C.

1908 – Pasiphaë, a satellite of Jupiter, discovered by Melotte

1926 – Physicist Erwin Schrödinger publishes his theory of wave mechanics and presents what becomes known as the Schrödinger equation in quantum mechanics

1948 – 1st tape recorder sold

1984 – Michael Jackson is burned during filming for Pepsi commercial

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January 26

1482 – “Pentateuch” (Jewish Bible) 1st printed as a book in Bologna, Italy

1697 – Isaac Newton receives Jean Bernoulli’s 6 month time-limit problem, solves problem before going to bed that same night

1784 – Benjamin Franklin expresses unhappiness over eagle as America’s symbol

1808 – Rum Rebellion, the only successful (albeit short-lived) armed takeover of the government in Australia.

1871 – British Rugby Union forms

1875 – Electric dental drill is patented by George F Green

1905 – World’s largest diamond, the 3,106-carat Cullinan, is found in South Africa

1939 – Filming begins on “Gone With the Wind”

1954 – Ground breaking begins on Disneyland

2005 – Condoleezza Rice is sworn in as U.S. Secretary of State, becoming the first African American woman to hold the post.

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January 25

1554 – Founding of São Paulo city, Brazil.

1755 – Moscow University established on Tatiana Day.

1840 – American naval expedition under Charles Wilkes first to identify Antarctica as a new continent

1858 – Mendelssohn’s “Wedding March” first played, at wedding of Queen Victoria’s daughter Princess Victoria, to crown prince of Prussia

1881 – Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell form the Oriental Telephone Company.

1939 – 1st nuclear fission experiment (splitting of a uranium atom) in the US, in basement of Pupin Hall, Columbia University by a team including Enrico Fermi

1945 – Grand Rapids, Michigan, becomes 1st US city to fluoridate its water

1955 – Columbia University scientists develope an atomic clock accurate to within one second in 300 years

1989 – Michael Jordan scores his 10,000th NBA point in his 5th season

1998 – Britain’s Queen Mother, 97, gets an emergency hip replacement

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January 24

1722 – Tsar Peter the Great begins civil system

1839 – Charles Darwin elected Fellow of the Royal Society

1901 – 1st games played in baseball’s American League

1908 – Gen Baden-Powell starts Boy Scouts

1924 – Russian city of St Petersburg renamed Leningrad; it was changed back in 1991

1925 – Moving picture of a solar eclipse taken from dirigible over Long Island

1927 – Alfred Hitchcock releases his first film as director – The Pleasure Garden, in England.

1958 – After warming to 100,000,000 degrees, 2 light atoms are bashed together to create a heavier atom, resulting in 1st man-made nuclear fusion

1975 – Fastest Earth-bound object, 7200 kph, in vacuum centrifuge, England

1984 – Apple Computer Inc unveils its revolutionary Macintosh personal computer

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January 23

1571 – Queen Elizabeth I of England opens Royal Exchange in London

1849 – Patent granted for an envelope-making machine

1859 – Mauna Loa volcano in Hawaii begins an eruption that lasts 300 days

1909 – 1st radio rescue at sea

1923 – Taxi strike in Amsterdam begins (through March 9th)

1930 – Clyde Tombaugh photographs planet Pluto

1973 – US President Nixon announces an accord has been reached to end Vietnam War

1983 – Bjorn Borg announces his retirement from tennis

1986 – 1st induction of Rock ‘N’ Roll Hall of Fame (Chuck Berry, James Brown, Ray Charles, Domino, Everly Bros, Buddy Holly, J L Lewis & Elvis Presley)

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January 22

1673 – Postal service between New York & Boston inaugurated

1689 – Lord Halifax becomes Speaker of English House of Lords

1840 – New Zealand Company settlers arrive aboard the Aurora at Te Whanganui a Tara, which becomes Port Nicholson, Wellington

1859 – Brahms’ 1st piano concerto (in D minor) premieres, Hanover

1881 – Ancient Egyptian obelisk “Cleopatra’s Needle” erected in Central Park, New York

1901 – After 63 years Britain stops sale of Queen Victoria postage stamps series & begins King Edward VII series

1905 – In St Petersburg, Russia, a large demonstration of workers led by Father Gapon, march to the Winter Palace with a petition to the Tsar; troops fire on protesters in what becomes known as ‘Bloody Sunday’

1931 – Sir Isaac Isaacs is sworn in as the first Australian-born Governor-General of Australia.

1964 – World’s largest cheese (15,723 kg) manufactured in Wisconsin for New York’s World Fair

1973 – Roe vs Wade: US Supreme Court legalises most abortions

2006 – Evo Morales is inaugurated as President of Bolivia, becoming the country’s first indigenous president.

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January 21

1677 – 1st medical publication in America (pamphlet on smallpox), Boston

1749 – The Verona Philharmonic Theatre was destroyed by fire. It was rebuilt in 1754.

1813 – Pineapple introduced to Hawaii

1864 – The Tauranga Campaign of the New Zealand Wars begins

1903 – Harry Houdini escapes from Halvemaansteeg police station in Amsterdam

1976 – Supersonic Concorde, 1st commercial flights, by Britain & France

1979 – Neptune becomes outermost planet (Pluto moves closer)

1987 – B.B. King donates his 7,000 record collection to the University of Mississippi

1990 – John McEnroe becomes 1st ever player to be expelled from the Australian Open

2008 – The Eyak language in Alaska becomes extinct as its last native speaker dies.

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January 20

1502 – The present-day location of Rio de Janeiro is first explored.

1869 – Elizabeth Cady Stanton becomes 1st woman to testify before US Congress

1920 – The American Civil Liberties Union is founded.

1930 – 1st radio broadcast of “Lone Ranger”

1945 – Franklin D. Roosevelt sworn-in for an unprecedented (and never to be repeated) 4th term as US President

1961 – Robert Frost recites “Gift Outright” at JFK’s inauguration

1965 – The Byrds record “Mr Tambourine Man”

1971 – John Lennon meets Yoko Ono’s parents in Japan

1986 – Chunnel announced (railroad tunnel under Canal)

1997 – Comet Hale-Bopp crosses Mars’ orbit

1998 – Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inducts Mama & Papas & Eagles

1999 – The China News Service announces new government restrictions on Internet use aimed especially at Internet cafés.

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January 19

1607 – San Agustin Church in Manila is officially completed; it is currently the oldest church in the Philippines

1785 – First manned balloon flight in Ireland

1825 – Ezra Daggett & nephew Thomas Kensett patent food storage in tin cans

1903 – New bicycle race “Tour de France” announced

1915 – Neon Tube sign patented by George Claude

1922 – Geological survey says US oil supply would be depleted in 20 years

1935 – Coopers Inc. sells the world’s first men’s briefs in Chicago, calls it the “Jockey”

1937 – Millionaire Howard Hughes sets transcontinental air record (7h28m25s)

1955 – “Scrabble” debuts on board game market

1966 – Indira Gandhi elected India’s 4th Prime Minister

2013 – Lance Armstrong admits to doping in all seven of his Tour de France victories

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January 18

1535 – Francisco Pizarro founds the city of Lima, Peru

1778 – Capt James Cook stumbles over Sandwich Islands (Hawaiian Islands)

1919 – Bentley Motors Limited is founded

1943 – US rations bread & metal – banning pre-sliced bread reduced bakery demand for metal parts

1948 – 1st courses begin at University of Ibadan, Nigeria

1951 – 1st use of lie detector in Netherlands

1964 – Beatles 1st appear on Billboard Chart (I Want to Hold Your Hand-#35)

1964 – Plans for World Trade Centre announced (NYC)

1977 – Scientists identify a previously unknown bacterium as the cause of the mysterious Legionnaires’ disease.

1991 – Longest tennis match at the Australian Open, Boris Becker beats Italy’s Omar Camporese in 5 hours & 11 mins

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January 17

1773 – Capt James Cook becomes 1st to cross Antarctic Circle (66° 33′ S)

1827 – Duke of Wellington appointed British supreme commander

1871 – 1st cable car patented, by Andrew S Hallidie (begins service in 1873)

1882 – 1st Dutch female physician Aletta Jacobs opens office

1893 – Queen Liliuokalani deposed, Kingdom of Hawaii becomes a republic

1895 – French president Casimir-Perier resigns

1895 – Félix Faure installed as president of France

1916 – 1st PGA Championship: Jim Barnes at Siwanoy CC Bronxville NY/Professional Golfer Association (PGA) forms in NYC

1946 – United Nations Security Council holds its first meeting

1954 – Jacques Cousteau’s 1st network telecast airs on “Omnibus” (CBS)

1962 – NASA civilian pilot Neil Armstrong takes X-15 to 40,690m

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January 16

1412 – The Medici family is appointed official banker of the Papacy.

1492 – The first grammar of a modern language, Spanish, is presented to Queen Isabella.

1765 – Charles Messier catalogs M41 (galactic cluster in Canis Major)

1868 – Refrigerator car patented by William Davis, a fish dealer in Detroit

1909 – British explorers David, Mawson & Mackay reach south magnetic pole as part of the Nimrod Expedition

1936 – 1st photo finish camera installed at Hialeah Race track in Hialeah Fla

1920 – The 18th Amendment is ratified, prohibiting the sale and distribution of alcoholic beverages (repealed 1933)

1938 – 1st jazz concert held at Carnegie Hall (Benny Goodman)

1974 – “Jaws” by Peter Benchley is published by Doubleday

2003 – The Space Shuttle Columbia takes off for mission STS-107 which would be its final one. Columbia disintegrated 16 days later on re-entry.

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January 15

1759 – British Museum opens in Montague House, London

1785 – Mozart’s string quartet opus 10 premieres

1861 – Steam elevator patented by Elisha Otis

1889 – The Coca-Cola Company, then known as the Pemberton Medicine Company, is incorporated in Atlanta, Georgia

1895 – Tchaikovsky’s ballet “Swan Lake” premieres, St Petersburg

1943 – World’s largest office building, the Pentagon is completed

1973 – Four Watergate burglars plead guilty in federal court

1982 – Mark Thatcher, son of UK prime minister Margaret Thatcher, makes his way home after six days missing in the Sahara

1994 – Queen Elizabeth falls off her horse & breaks her left wrist

1997 – Diana, Princess of Wales, calls for an international ban on landmines, angering ministers in the UK

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January 14

1514 – Pope Leo X issues a papal bull against slavery.

1690 – Clarinet invented, in Nurnberg, Germany

1699 – Massachusetts holds day of fasting for wrongly persecuting “witches”

1794 – Dr Jessee Bennet of Edom, Virginia, performs 1st successful Ceasarean section operation in the US on his wife

1914 – Henry Ford introduces an assembly line for Model T

1932 – 1st totalisator (to record racetrack bets) in US installed, Hialeah

1952 – Rationing of coffee in Netherlands ends

1960 – US Army promoted Elvis Presley to Sergeant

1966 – David Bowie releases his 1st record (Can’t Help Thinking About Me)

1994 – The Duchess of Kent converts to Catholicism, the first member of the Royal Family to do so in more than 300 years

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January 13

1559 – Elizabeth I crowned Queen of England in Westminster Abbey

1610 – Galileo Galilei discovers Callisto, 4th satellite of Jupiter

1695 – Jonathan Swift ordained an Anglican priest in Ireland

1842 – Dr. William Brydon, a surgeon in the British Army during the First Anglo-Afghan War, becomes famous for (reputedly) being the sole survivor of an army of 16,500 when he reaches the safety of a garrison in Jalalabad.

1854 – Anthony Foss patents accordion

1895 – Oscar Wilde’s “Ideal Husband” premieres in London

1943 – Hitler declares “Total War”

1978 – NASA select its first American women astronauts

1989 – Ruins of Mashkan-shapir (occupied 2050-1720 BC) found in Iraq

2007 – Two thirds of the Venus’s southern hemisphere suddenly brightened as something triggered aerosols to form at a furious rate.

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January 12

1528 – Gustav I of Sweden “father of the nation” crowned King of Sweden & rules for 37 years

1723 – Handel’s opera “Ottone” premieres at the King’s Theatre London

1755 – Tsarina Elisabeth establishes 1st Russian University

1903 – Harry Houdini performs at Rembrandt theater, Amsterdam
1948 – 1st Supermarket in UK opens

1954 – Queen Elizabeth II opens NZ parliament

1981 – Soap opera “Dynasty” produced by Aaron Spelling and starring John Forsythe, Linda Evans and Joan Collins premieres on ABC-TV

2004 – The world’s largest ocean liner, RMS Queen Mary 2, makes its maiden voyage.

2007 – Comet McNaught reaches perihelion becoming the brightest comet in more than 40 years.

2013 – Beijing’s level of air pollution is declared to be at levels that are hazardous to human health

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January 11

1569 – 1st recorded lottery in England is drawn in St Paul’s Cathedral

1693 – Mt Etna in Sicily erupts

1813 – 1st pineapples planted in Hawaii

1838 – 1st public demonstration of telegraph message sent using dots & dashes at Speedwell Ironworks, Morristown, New Jersey by Samuel Morse and Alfred Vail

1849 – Elizabeth Blackwell becomes 1st woman in US to earn medical degree

1864 – Charing Cross Station opens in London

1935 – Amelia Earhart flies from Honolulu to Oakland Ca (non-stop, of course)

1940 – Sergei Prokofiev’s ballet “Romeo & Juliet” premieres in Leningrad

1981 – Brit team led by Ranulph Fiennes completes longest & fastest crossing of Antarctica, reaching Scott base after 75 days (2,500 miles)

2007 – Author J. K. Rowling finishes the 7th and last Harry Potter novel in room 552 of the Bamoral Hotel, Edinburgh

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January 10

49 BC – Julius Caesar crosses the Rubicon, signalling the start of civil war.

1839 – Tea from India 1st arrives in UK

1845 – Poets Elizabeth Barrett & Robert Browning begin corresponding

1901 – Oil discovered in Texas

1943 – 1st US president to visit a foreign country in wartime – FDR leaves for Casablanca, Morocco

1949 – RCA introduces 45 RPM record

1951 – 1st jet passenger trip made

1969 – Pirate Radio Station Free Derby begins operation by Northern Ireland

1979 – The Sun paper headline is ‘Crisis? What Crisis?’ as UK Prime Minister James Callaghan denies that the country is in chaos during the ‘Winter of Discontent’ strike wave

1990 – China lifts martial law (imposed after Tiananmen Square massacre)

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January 9

1431 – Judges’ investigations for the trial of Joan of Arc begin in Rouen, France, the seat of the English occupation government.

1493 – 1st sight of manatees (by Christopher Columbus)

1799 – British Prime Minister William Pitt introduces income tax to raise funds for the war against Napoleon.

1854 – Astor Library opens in NYC

1956 – Abigail Van Buren’s “Dear Abby” column 1st appears in newspapers

1965 – Beatles’ 65 album goes #1 & stays #1 for 9 weeks

1983 – British PM Margaret Thatcher visits Falkland Islands

1986 – After losing a patent battle with Polaroid, Kodak must give up its instant camera business.

1997 – Heart attacks sends Frank Sinatra back to hospital

2001 – Apple announced iTunes at the Macworld Expo in San Francisco, for organizing and playing digital music and videos. Now widely used by Windows and Mac users.

2007 – Apple Inc CEO, Steve Jobs announces the iPhone.

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January 8

794 – Vikings attacked Lindisfarne Island

1760 – Comet C/1760 A1 (Great comet) approaches within 0.0682 AUs of Earth

1790 – 1st US President George Washington delivers 1st state of the union address

1800 – Wild Boy of Aveyron discovered in southern France

1835 – The United States national debt is 0 for the first and only time.

1951 – Thought extinct since 1615, a Cahow (the Bermuda petrel) is rediscovered in Bermuda

1963 – “Mona Lisa”, on loan, unveiled in America’s National Gallery of Art

1974 – Loch Ness Monster “photographed”

1993 – Elvis Presley Commemorative Postage Stamp goes on sale

2004 – The RMS Queen Mary 2, the largest passenger ship ever built, is christened by her namesake’s granddaughter, Queen Elizabeth II.

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January 7

1610 – Galileo discovers first three satellites of Jupiter, Io, Europa & Ganymede

1698 – Russian Tsar Peter the Great departs Netherlands for England

1785 – 1st balloon flight across English Channel (Jean Pierre Blanchard & John Jeffries)

1797 – The modern Italian flag is first used.

1927 – Harlem Globetrotters play 1st game (Hinckley, Illinois)

1931 – Guy Menzies flies the first solo non-stop trans-Tasman flight (from Australia to New Zealand) in 11 hours and 45 minutes, crash-landing on New Zealand’s west coast.

1949 – 1st photo of genes taken at University of Southern California by Pease & Baker

1980 – Indira Gandhi voted back into power in India

1990 – Tower of Pisa closed to the public after leaning too far

1992 – AT&T releases video-telephone ($1,499)

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January 6

1494 – The first Mass in the New World is celebrated at La Isabela, Hispaniola.

1681 – 1st recorded boxing match (Duke of Albemarle’s butler vs his butcher)

1839 – 2 day storm off Irish & English coast immortalized as “Big Wind”

1907 – Maria Montessori opens her 1st (Montessori) school (Rome)

1912 – Alfred Wegener, geophysicist and meteorologist, presents his controversial theory of continental drift in a lecture at a the Geological Association (Geologischen Vereinigung) at the Senckenberg-Museum, Frankfurt.

1914 – Stock brokerage firm of Merrill Lynch founded

1929 – Mother Teresa arrives in Calcutta to begin a her work amongst India’s poorest and diseased people.

1939 – Daily newspaper comic strip “Superman” debuts

1942 – Pan American Airlines becomes the first commercial airline to schedule a flight around the world (“Pacific Clipper”).

1994 – Ice skater Nancy Kerrigan is attacked by Tonya Harding’s bodyguard

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January 5

1649 – Francesco Cavalli’s opera “Giasone” premieres in Venice

1834 – Kiowa Indians record this as the night the stars fell

1892 – 1st successful auroral photograph made

1896 – “Die Presse” newspaper (Germany) publicly announces Wilhelm Röntgen’s discovery of X-rays and their potential for new methods of medical diagnoses in a front-page article

1914 – Ford Motor Co wages jump from $2.40/9-hr day to $5.00/8-hr day

1930 – Mao Zedong writes “A Single Spark Can Start a Prairie Fire”

1930 – Bonnie Parker meets Clyde Barrow for the first time at Clarence Clay’s house

1933 – Work on Golden Gate Bridge begins, on Marin County side

1944 – The Daily Mail becomes the first transoceanic newspaper.

2005 – Eris, the largest known dwarf planet in the solar system, is discovered by the team of Michael E. Brown, Chad Trujillo, and David L. Rabinowitz using images originally taken on October 21, 2003, at the Palomar Observatory.

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January 4

46 BC – Titus Labienus defeats Julius Caesar in the Battle of Ruspina.

1698 – Most of the Palace of Whitehall in London, the main residence of the English monarchs, is destroyed by fire.

1754 – Columbia University founded, as Kings College (NYC)

1847 – Samuel Colt sells his first revolver pistol to the United States government.

1865 – The New York Stock Exchange opens its first permanent headquarters at 10-12 Broad near Wall Street in New York City.

1884 – Last sighting of an eastern cougar (Ontario)

1885 – Dr W W Grant of Iowa, performs 1st appendectomy (on Mary Gartside, 22)

1912 – Smallest earth-moon distance this century, 356,375 km centre-to-centre

1912 – The Scout Association is incorporated throughout the British Commonwealth by Royal Charter.

1954 – Elvis Presley records a 10 minute demo in Nashville

1972 – Rose Heilbron becomes the first female judge to sit at the Old Bailey in London.

1975 – Ice thickness measured at 4776 m, Wilkes Land, Antarctica

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January 3

1431 – Joan of Arc handed over to Bishop Pierre Cauchon

1496 – Leonardo da Vinci unsuccessfully tests a flying machine.

1780 – Danish national anthem “Kong Kristian…,” first sung

1870 – Construction begins on Brooklyn Bridge in New York; completed May 24, 1883

1888 – 1st wax drinking straw patented, by Marvin C Stone in Washington, D.C.

1925 – Benito Mussolini dissolves Italian parliament/becomes dictator

1956 – A fire damages the top part of the Eiffel Tower.

1958 – Edmund Hillary reaches South Pole overland

1977 – Apple Computer, Inc incorporates

1988 – Margaret Thatcher becomes longest-serving British PM this century

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January 2

1570 – Tsar Ivan the Terrible’s march to Novgorod begins

1839 – 1st photo of the Moon (French photographer Louis Daguerre)

1879 – 1st Test match hat-trick, Fred Spofforth at the MCG

1919 – Anti-British uprising in Ireland

1929 – US & Canada agree to preserve Niagara Falls

1938 – Book publisher Simon and Schuster founded

1960 – Senator John F Kennedy, announces his candidacy for the US Presidency

1969 – Australian Rupert Murdoch gains control of the ‘News of the World’

1995 – Most distant galaxy yet discovered found by scientists using Keck telescope in Hawaii (est 15 billion light years away)

2004 – Stardust successfully flies past Comet Wild 2, collecting samples that it will return to Earth two years later.

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January 1

1 – Origin of Christian Era

404 – Last gladiator competition in Rome

1600 – Scotland begins its numbered year on January 1 instead of 25 March.

1772 – First traveler’s cheques go on sale in London, can be used in 90 European cities

1785 – “Daily Universal Register” (Times of London) publishes 1st issue

1818 – Official reopening of the White House

1853 – 1st practical fire engine (horse-drawn) in US enters service

1907 – US President Roosevelt shakes a record 8,513 hands in 1 day

1934 – Alcatraz officially becomes a federal prison

1947 – Britain nationalises its coal industry

1966 – All US cigarette packs have to carry “Caution Cigarette smoking may be hazardous to your health”

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