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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