Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/January
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Selected anniversaries/On this day archive
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| An archive of historical anniversaries that appeared on the Main Page 2012 day arrangement |
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January 1: New Year's Day (Gregorian calendar)
- 1801 – The Kingdom of Ireland and the Kingdom of Great Britain merged to form the United Kingdom, adding Saint Patrick's Saltire to the Union Flag.
- 1808 – As a result of the lobbying efforts by the Abolitionist Movement, the importation of slaves into the United States was officially banned, although slavery itself was not yet abolished.
- 1810 – Lachlan Macquarie became Governor of New South Wales, eventually playing a major role in the shaping of the social, economic and architectural development of the colony in Australia.
- 1959 – Cuban President Fulgencio Batista (pictured) fled to the Dominican Republic as forces under Fidel Castro took control of Havana, marking the end of the Cuban Revolution.
- 1983 – The ARPANET changed its core networking protocols from NCP to TCP/IP, marking the beginning of the Internet as we know it today.
More anniversaries: December 31 – January 1 – January 2
January 2: Feast Day of Gregory of Nazianzus (Roman Catholic Church)
- 366 – The Alamanni, an alliance of west Germanic tribes, crossed the frozen Rhine in large numbers to invade the Roman Empire.
- 1920 – Under the leadership of U.S. Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer (pictured), Department of Justice agents launched a series of raids against radical leftists and anarchists across 30 cities in 23 states.
- 1941 – Second World War: Llandaff Cathedral in Cardiff, Wales, was severely damaged by German bombing during the Cardiff Blitz.
- 1971 – At Ibrox Park in Glasgow, Scotland, 66 people were killed in a stampede during an Old Firm football match.
- 2004 – The Stardust space probe flew by the comet Wild 2 and collected particle samples from its coma, which were later returned to Earth.
More anniversaries: January 1 – January 2 – January 3
- 1888 – The 36 in (91 cm) refracting telescope at the Lick Observatory (pictured) near San Jose, California, at the time the largest telescope in the world, was used for the first time.
- 1911 – A 7.7 Mw earthquake destroyed the city of Almaty in Russian Turkestan.
- 1919 – Emir Faisal of Iraq signed an agreement with Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann on the development of a Jewish homeland in Palestine and an Arab nation in a large part of the Middle East.
- 1976 – The multilateral International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, part of the International Bill of Human Rights, came into effect.
- 1990 – United States invasion of Panama: General Manuel Noriega, the deposed "strongman of Panama", surrendered to American forces.
More anniversaries: January 2 – January 3 – January 4
January 4: Independence Day in Burma (1948)
- 1698 – Most of London's Palace of Whitehall, the main residence of the English monarchs dating from 1530, was destroyed by fire.
- 1847 – American gun inventor Samuel Colt made his first large sale of his revolvers to the Texas Rangers.
- 1884 – The Fabian Society, an intellectual movement whose purpose is to advance the socialist cause by gradualist and reformist methods rather than revolutionary means, was founded in London.
- 1951 – Korean War: Chinese and North Korean troops captured Seoul.
- 2007 – Nancy Pelosi (pictured) became Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, becoming the highest-ranking woman in the history of the U.S. Government.
- 2010 – The Burj Khalifa skyscraper, the world's tallest structure, officially opened in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
More anniversaries: January 3 – January 4 – January 5
January 5: Perihelion of the Earth (01:00 UTC, 2012); Tenth of Tevet (Judaism, 2012); Twelfth Night (Western Christianity)
- 1757 – Louis XV of France survived an assassination attempt by Robert-François Damiens, who later became the last person to be executed in the country by drawing and quartering.
- 1976 – The Troubles: In response to the killings of six Catholics the night before, the South Armagh Republican Action Force killed ten Protestants in County Armagh, Northern Ireland.
- 1996 – Hamas operative Yahya Ayyash was assassinated by a bomb-laden cell phone, planted by Israel's Shin Bet.
- 2008 – Mikheil Saakashvili (pictured) was decisively re-elected as President of Georgia in "the first genuinely competitive presidential election" in the history of the country.
More anniversaries: January 4 – January 5 – January 6
January 6: Theophany (Christianity); Armed Forces Day in Iraq; bicentennial of the birth of Philippine revolutionary Melchora Aquino (pictured)
- 1449 – The last Byzantine-Roman Emperor, Constantine XI Palaiologos, was crowned, four years before the Fall of Constantinople.
- 1838 – Samuel Morse and his assistant Alfred Vail successfully tested the electrical telegraph for the first time at Speedwell Ironworks in Morristown, New Jersey.
- 1912 – German geophysicist Alfred Wegener first presented his theory of continental drift.
- 1993 – Indian Border Security Force (BSF) units killed 55 Kashmiri civilians in Sopore, Jammu and Kashmir, in revenge after militants ambushed a BSF patrol.
- 1994 – Two-time American Olympic figure skating medalist Nancy Kerrigan was clubbed on the right leg by an assailant hired by Jeff Gillooly, the ex-husband of her rival Tonya Harding.
More anniversaries: January 5 – January 6 – January 7
January 7: Christmas (Julian calendar); Victory Day in Cambodia; Flag Day in Italy
- 1797 – The first official Italian tricolour (pictured) was adopted by the government of the Cispadane Republic.
- 1940 – Winter War: The outnumbered Finnish 9th Division decisively defeated Soviet forces on the Raate-Suomussalmi road.
- 1979 – The Vietnam People's Army captured the Cambodian capital city Phnom Penh, deposing Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge, which marked the end of large-scale fighting in the Cambodian–Vietnamese War.
- 1993 – The Fourth Republic of Ghana was inaugurated with Jerry Rawlings as its president.
- 2010 – In Nag Hammadi, Egypt, Muslim gunmen opened fire on a crowd of Coptic Christians leaving church after celebrating a midnight Christmas Mass, killing eight of them as well as one Muslim bystander.
More anniversaries: January 6 – January 7 – January 8
January 8: Kim Jong-un's Birthday in North Korea
- 1297 – Francesco Grimaldi, disguised as a monk, led his men to capture the fortress protecting the Rock of Monaco, establishing his family as the rulers of Monaco.
- 1746 – During the Second Jacobite Rising, Bonnie Prince Charlie occupied the town of Stirling, Scotland, but failed to capture its castle.
- 1904 – Blackstone Library (pictured), the first branch of the Chicago Public Library system, was dedicated.
- 1920 – The steel strike of 1919, an attempt to organize the United States steel industry in the wake of World War I, collapsed in complete failure for the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers.
- 2003 – Turkish Airlines Flight 634 crashed in extensive fog during final approach to Diyarbakır Airport in Turkey, leaving only five survivors out of 80 people on board.
- 2010 – Gunmen from an offshoot of the Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda attacked the bus transporting the Togo national football team to the Africa Cup of Nations, killing three.
More anniversaries: January 7 – January 8 – January 9
January 9: Coming of Age Day in Japan (2012)
- 475 – Basiliscus became Byzantine Emperor after Zeno was forced to flee Constantinople.
- 1839 – The French Academy of Sciences announced the daguerreotype photographic process, named after its inventor, French artist and chemist Louis Daguerre (pictured).
- 1923 – Lithuanian residents of the Memel Territory rebelled against the League of Nations decision to leave the area as a mandated region under French control.
- 1972 – Seawise University, formerly RMS Queen Elizabeth, an ocean liner which sailed the Atlantic Ocean for the Cunard White Star Line, was destroyed by fire in Victoria Harbour, Hong Kong.
- 1996 – First Chechen War: Chechen separatists launched raids in the city of Kizlyar, Republic of Dagestan, which turned into a massive hostage crisis involving thousands of civilians.
More anniversaries: January 8 – January 9 – January 10
January 10: Traditional Day in Benin
- 1475 – Moldavian–Ottoman Wars: Moldavian forces under Stephen the Great defeated an Ottoman attack led by Hadân Suleiman Pasha, the Beylerbeyi of Rumelia, near Vaslui in present-day Romania.
- 1810 – Childless after 14 years of marriage, Napoleon divorced his first wife Joséphine so he could remarry in the hope of having an heir.
- 1901 – The first great gusher (pictured) of the Texas Oil Boom was discovered in the Spindletop oil field near Beaumont, Texas, US.
- 1927 – The science fiction film Metropolis, which is inscribed in UNESCO's Memory of the World Register, was released in Germany.
- 1929 – The Adventures of Tintin, a series of popular comic books created by Belgian artist Hergé, first appeared in a children's supplement to the Belgian newspaper Le Vingtième Siècle.
More anniversaries: January 9 – January 10 – January 11
January 11: Eugenio María de Hostos Day in Puerto Rico (1839); Proclamation of Independence in Morocco (1944)
- 1693 – An intensity XI earthquake, the most powerful in Italian history, struck the island of Sicily.
- 1879 – British forces under Lord Chelmsford invaded Zululand without authorisation from the British Government, beginning the Anglo-Zulu War.
- 1923 – Troops from France and Belgium invaded the Ruhr Area to force the German Weimar Republic to pay its reparations in the aftermath of World War I.
- 1946 – Enver Hoxha, First Secretary of the Party of Labour of Albania, declared the People's Republic of Albania with himself as head of state.
- 1986 – The Gateway Bridge (pictured) in Brisbane, Australia, at the time the longest prestressed concrete free-cantilever bridge in the world, opened.
More anniversaries: January 10 – January 11 – January 12
January 12: Memorial Day in Turkmenistan (1881); Zanzibar Revolution Day in Tanzania (1964)
- 1777 – Mission Santa Clara de Asís, a Spanish mission that formed the basis of both the city of Santa Clara, California, and the University of Santa Clara, was established.
- 1921 – Seeking to restore confidence after the Black Sox Scandal, owners of Major League Baseball teams elected former United States district court judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis (pictured) as the league's first commissioner.
- 1945 – World War II: The Soviet Union's Red Army crossed the Vistula River in Poland on their way to invade Germany.
- 1964 – Rebels led by John Okello overthrew Sultan Jamshid bin Abdullah, ending 200 years of Arab dominance in Zanzibar.
- 1969 – British rock band Led Zeppelin released their eponymous first album.
More anniversaries: January 11 – January 12 – January 13
- 1797 – French Revolutionary Wars: A naval battle (pictured) off the coast of Brittany between two British frigates and a French ship of the line ended with over 900 deaths when the latter ran aground.
- 1842 – First Anglo-Afghan War: William Brydon, an assistant surgeon in the British Army, arrived at Jalalabad, Afghanistan, the sole European survivor of the massacre of over 4,500 military personnel and over 10,000 civilian camp followers retreating from Kabul, excluding a few prisoners released later.
- 1967 – General Gnassingbé Eyadéma seized power in Togo after a coup d'état, ruling as head of state until his death in February 2005.
- 1968 – American singer Johnny Cash recorded his landmark album At Folsom Prison live at the Folsom State Prison in Folsom, California.
- 2001 – The first of two large earthquakes struck El Salvador, killing at least 944 people and destroying over 100,000 homes.
More anniversaries: January 12 – January 13 – January 14
January 14: New Year (Julian calendar); Arba'een (Shi'a Islam, 2012); National Forest Conservation Day in Thailand; Ratification Day in the United States (1784)
- 1900 – Giacomo Puccini's opera Tosca, based on the play La Tosca by French dramatist Victorien Sardou, premiered at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome.
- 1939 – Norway claimed Queen Maud Land in Antarctica as a dependent territory.
- 1957 – Kripalu Maharaj became the fifth Jagadguru ("world teacher"), a Hindu spiritual leader.
- 1960 – The Reserve Bank of Australia (headquarters pictured), the country's central bank and banknote-issuing authority, was established.
- 1967 – The counterculture Human Be-In was held in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park, launching the Summer of Love.
More anniversaries: January 13 – January 14 – January 15
January 15: Pongal (Tamils, 2012); Armed Forces Day in Nigeria; Army Day in India
- 1759 – The British Museum in London, today containing one of the largest and most comprehensive collections in the world, opened to the public in Montagu House, Bloomsbury.
- 1919 – A large molasses tank in Boston, Massachusetts, burst and a wave of molasses rushed through the streets (damage pictured), killing 21 people and injuring 150 others.
- 1937 – Spanish Civil War: Nationalists and Republican forces both withdrew after suffering heavy losses, ending the Second Battle of the Corunna Road.
- 1975 – Portugal signed the Alvor Agreement with UNITA, the MPLA, and the FNLA, ending the Angolan War of Independence.
- 1993 – Salvatore "The Beast" Riina, one of the most powerful members of the Sicilian Mafia, was arrested after three decades as a fugitive.
More anniversaries: January 14 – January 15 – January 16
January 16: Mattu Pongal (Tamils, 2012); Teachers' Day in Thailand; Martin Luther King, Jr. Day in the United States (2012)
- 27 BC – Gaius Octavianus (bust pictured) was given the title Augustus by the Roman Senate when he became the first Roman emperor.
- 1780 – American Revolutionary War: The British Royal Navy gained their first major naval victory over their European enemies in the war when they defeated a Spanish squadron in the Battle of Cape St. Vincent.
- 1938 – Benny Goodman performed a concert at New York City's Carnegie Hall which has been considered instrumental in establishing jazz as a legitimate form of music.
- 1969 – Student Jan Palach set himself on fire in Wenceslas Square in Prague as a protest against the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia the previous year.
- 2008 – Five days after proposing lyrics for the wordless Marcha Real, the Spanish national anthem, the Spanish Olympic Committee withdrew the proposal due to widespread criticism.
More anniversaries: January 15 – January 16 – January 17
January 17: National Day in Minorca (1287)
- 1524 – Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano set sail westward from Madeira to find a sea route to the Pacific Ocean.
- 1893 – The Citizens' Committee of Public Safety led by Lorrin A. Thurston (pictured) overthrew the government of Queen Liliʻuokalani of the Kingdom of Hawaii.
- 1966 – A U.S. Air Force B-52 Stratofortress collided with a KC-135 Stratotanker during aerial refueling over the Mediterranean Sea, dropping three hydrogen bombs on land near Palomares, Spain, and a fourth one into the sea.
- 1989 – Patrick Purdy opened fire in an elementary school in Stockton, California, killing five and wounding 30 others.
- 2010 – The first spate of violence between Muslims and Christians began in Jos, Nigeria, and would end in more than 200 deaths.
More anniversaries: January 16 – January 17 – January 18
January 18: Royal Thai Armed Forces Day (Thailand, 1591); the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity begins
- 1126 – Emperor Huizong of the Song Dynasty of China abdicated the throne in favour of his son Qinzong.
- 1884 – Welsh physician William Price was arrested for attempting to cremate his deceased infant son; he was acquitted in the subsequent trial, which led to the legalisation of cremation in the United Kingdom.
- 1919 – World War I: The Paris Peace Conference opened in Versailles, France, to set the peace terms for the Central Powers.
- 1943 – World War II: As part of Operation Iskra, the Soviet Red Army broke the Siege of Leningrad, opening a narrow land corridor to the city.
- 1958 – African Canadian Willie O'Ree of the Boston Bruins played his first game in the National Hockey League, breaking the colour barrier in professional ice hockey.
- 1990 – In a sting operation conducted by the FBI, Mayor of Washington, D.C., Marion Barry (pictured) was arrested for possession of crack cocaine.
More anniversaries: January 17 – January 18 – January 19
- 1607 – San Agustin Church (pictured) in Manila, the oldest church in the Philippines, was completed.
- 1764 – English radical and politician John Wilkes was expelled from the British Parliament and declared an outlaw for seditious libel.
- 1917 – Approximately 50 tons of TNT exploded at a munitions factory in Silvertown in West Ham, present-day Greater London, killing over 70 people and injuring over 400 others.
- 1983 – The Nazi SS officer Klaus Barbie was arrested in Bolivia, 32 years after the US Army Counterintelligence Corps helped him flee to Argentina.
- 2006 – In the deadliest aviation accident in Slovak history, an Antonov An-24 aircraft operated by the Slovak Air Force crashed in northern Hungary, killing 42 of the 43 people on board.
More anniversaries: January 18 – January 19 – January 20
January 20: Martyrs' Day in Azerbaijan (1990); Army Day in Mali
- 1843 – Honório Hermeto Carneiro Leão, Marquis of Paraná (pictured), became the de facto first prime minister of the Empire of Brazil.
- 1942 – The Holocaust: SS-Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich and other senior Nazi officials met at the Wannsee Conference in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee to discuss implementation of the "Final Solution to the Jewish Question".
- 1969 – Bengali student activist Amanullah Asaduzzaman was shot and killed by East Pakistani police, one of the catalysts that led to the Bangladesh Liberation War.
- 1990 – The Soviet Red Army violently cracked down on Azeri pro-independence demonstrations in Baku, Azerbaijan SSR.
- 2007 – A three-man team, using only skis and kites, completed a 1,093-mile (1,759 km) trek to reach the southern pole of inaccessibility for the first time since 1958, and for the first time ever without mechanical assistance.
More anniversaries: January 19 – January 20 – January 21
January 21: Feast Day of Saint Agnes (Christianity); Flag Day in Quebec; National Hug Day in the United States
- 1789 – The Power of Sympathy by William Hill Brown, widely considered to be the first American novel, was published.
- 1931 – Sir Isaac Isaacs (pictured) became the first Australian-born Governor-General of Australia.
- 1941 – Sparked by the murder of a German officer in Bucharest, Romania, the day before, members of the Iron Guard engaged in a rebellion and pogrom, killing 125 Jews.
- 1968 – Vietnam War: The Vietnam People's Army attacked Khe Sanh Combat Base, a U.S. Marines outpost in Quang Tri Province, South Vietnam, starting the Battle of Khe Sanh.
- 2008 – The Eyak language in Alaska became extinct after Marie Smith Jones, the language's last native speaker, died, an event that became a symbol in the fight against language extinction.
More anniversaries: January 20 – January 21 – January 22
January 22: Reunion Day in Ukraine (1919)
- 565 – Justinian the Great deposed Eutychius, Patriarch of Constantinople, after he refused the Byzantine Emperor's order to adopt the tenets of the Aphthartodocetae, a sect of Monophysites.
- 1689 – The Convention Parliament convened to justify the overthrow of James II, the last Roman Catholic king of England, who had vacated the throne when he fled to France in 1688.
- 1944 – World War II: The Allies commenced Operation Shingle, an amphibious landing against Axis forces in the area of Anzio (pictured) and Nettuno, Italy.
- 1946 – Iran Crisis: The Republic of Mahabad declared its independence, seeking autonomy for the Kurds within Iran.
- 1987 – After being convicted of receiving bribes, Pennsylvania Treasurer R. Budd Dwyer committed suicide during a televised press conference.
More anniversaries: January 21 – January 22 – January 23
January 23: Lunar New Year (Chinese calendar, 2012)
- 3102 BCE – According to Hindu scriptures, Kali Yuga, the last of the four stages that the world goes through as part of the cycle of yugas, began.
- 1570 – James Hamilton shot and killed James Stewart, 1st Earl of Moray, in the first recorded assassination using a firearm.
- 1719 – Emperor Charles VI established Liechtenstein, the only principality in the Holy Roman Empire still remaining today.
- 1849 – Elizabeth Blackwell (pictured) received her M.D. from Geneva Medical College in New York, making her the first female physician in the United States and the first openly identified woman to graduate from medical school.
- 1960 – The bathyscaphe Trieste reached the record depth of 10,916 m (35,814 ft) in the Challenger Deep of the Mariana Trench.
More anniversaries: January 22 – January 23 – January 24
- 1848 – James W. Marshall (pictured) discovered gold at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California, leading to the California Gold Rush.
- 1900 – Second Boer War: Boer forces stopped a British attempt to break the Siege of Ladysmith in the Battle of Spion Kop.
- 1961 – A Boeing B-52 Stratofortress carrying two Mark 39 nuclear weapons broke up in mid-air near Goldsboro, North Carolina; one bomb was recovered intact, the other disintegrated.
- 1972 – Japanese soldier Shoichi Yokoi was found hiding in a Guam jungle, where he had been since the end of World War II.
- 1993 – Turkish journalist and writer Uğur Mumcu was assassinated by a car bomb outside his home in Ankara.
More anniversaries: January 23 – January 24 – January 25
January 25: Feast Day of Gregory of Nazianzus (Eastern Orthodox Church); Burns Night (Scots culture)
- 1554 – Jesuit missionaries José de Anchieta and Manoel da Nóbrega established a mission at São Paulo dos Campos de Piratininga, which grew to become São Paulo, Brazil.
- 1890 – American journalist Nellie Bly completed a circumnavigation of the globe, inspired by Jules Verne's Around the World in Eighty Days, in a then-record 72 days.
- 1971 – Idi Amin Dada seized power in a military coup d'état from President Milton Obote, beginning eight years of military rule in Uganda.
- 1993 – Five people were shot outside the Central Intelligence Agency headquarters in Langley, Virginia, resulting in two deaths.
- 2011 – The first wave of the Egyptian revolution began (protests pictured), eventually leading to the removal of Hosni Mubarak after nearly 30 years of rule.
More anniversaries: January 24 – January 25 – January 26
January 26: Australia Day (1788); Republic Day in India (1950); Liberation Day in Uganda (1986)
- 1841 – Commodore Sir James Bremer (pictured) raised the Union Jack at Possession Point and formally claimed Hong Kong as a colony for the British Empire.
- 1907 – The Short Magazine Lee-Enfield Mk III, the second oldest military rifle still in official use, was introduced into British military service.
- 1950 – Indian independence movement: India officially became a republic under a new constitution, with Rajendra Prasad as its first president.
- 1998 – In a nationally televised press conference, U.S. President Bill Clinton denied having "sexual relations" with intern Monica Lewinsky.
- 2009 – Rioting broke out in Antananarivo, Madagascar, sparking a political crisis that led to deposing of President Marc Ravalomanana.
More anniversaries: January 25 – January 26 – January 27
January 27: International Holocaust Remembrance Day and various commemorations of the liberation of Auschwitz (1945)
- 447 – An earthquake destroyed large sections of the Walls of Constantinople (restored walls pictured).
- 1868 – Boshin War: The Battle of Toba-Fushimi, where pro-Imperial forces defeated those of the Tokugawa shogunate and which was a catalyst for the Meiji Restoration, began in Fushimi-ku, Kyoto.
- 1888 – The National Geographic Society, publisher of National Geographic magazine, was incorporated in Washington, D.C., as "a society for the increase and diffusion of geographical knowledge".
- 1980 – With the assistance of Canadian government officials, six American diplomats who had avoided capture in the Iran hostage crisis escaped to Zurich, Switzerland.
- 2002 – An explosion at a military storage facility in Lagos, Nigeria, killed at least 1,100 people and displaced over 20,000 others.
More anniversaries: January 26 – January 27 – January 28
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- 98 – Trajan succeeded his adoptive father Nerva as Roman emperor; under his rule the Roman Empire would reach its maximum extent.
- 1813 – The novel Pride and Prejudice by English author Jane Austen (pictured) was published, using material from an unpublished manuscript that she originally wrote between 1796 and 1797.
- 1933 – Choudhry Rahmat Ali published a pamphlet entitled "Now or Never" in which he called for the creation of a Muslim state in northwest India that he termed "Pakstan".
- 1964 – An unarmed US Air Force T-39 Sabreliner on a training mission was shot down over Erfurt, East Germany, by a Soviet MiG-19, killing all three aboard.
- 1984 – Tropical Storm Domoina made landfall in southern Mozambique, causing some of the most severe flooding recorded in the region.
More anniversaries: January 27 – January 28 – January 29
January 29: Constitution Day in Gibraltar
- 1845 – American poet Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven" appeared in the New York Evening Mirror, its first publication attributed to Poe.
- 1886 – German engine designer and engineer Karl Benz filed a patent for the Motorwagen, the first purpose-built, gasoline-driven automobile.
- 1944 – World War II: At least 38 people were killed and about a dozen injured when the Polish village of Koniuchy (present-day Kaniūkai, Lithuania) was attacked by Soviet partisan units.
- 1967 – The Mantra-Rock Dance, called the "ultimate high" of the hippie era, took place in San Francisco, featuring Swami Bhaktivedanta, Janis Joplin, Grateful Dead, and Allen Ginsberg (poster pictured).
- 2009 – The Supreme Constitutional Court of Egypt ruled that people who did not adhere to one of the three government-recognised religions are also eligible to receive government identity documents.
More anniversaries: January 28 – January 29 – January 30
January 30: Martyrs' Day in India
- 1649 – English Civil War: King Charles I (pictured), who was defeated in both the First and the Second Civil Wars, was beheaded for high treason in front of the Banqueting House in London.
- 1930 – Soviet meteorologist Pavel Molchanov launched one of the world's first radiosondes, a device attached to weather balloons to measure various atmospheric parameters.
- 1945 – World War II: Allied forces liberated over 500 prisoners of war from a Japanese POW camp near Cabanatuan City, Nueva Ecija, Philippines.
- 1959 – On the return leg of her maiden voyage, the "unsinkable" Danish ocean liner Hans Hedtoft struck an iceberg and sank with all 95 passengers and crew lost.
- 2000 – Kenya Airways Flight 431 crashed into the Atlantic Ocean near Côte d'Ivoire shortly after takeoff, killing 169 on board.
More anniversaries: January 29 – January 30 – January 31
January 31: Independence Day in Nauru (1968)
- 1747 – The London Lock Hospital, the first clinic specialising in the treatment of venereal diseases, opened.
- 1919 – Intense rioting over labour conditions broke out in Glasgow, Scotland, and was only quelled when the British government sent tanks to restore order.
- 1942 – Second World War: Allied forces retreated from British Malaya to Singapore, ceding control of the country to Japan.
- 1961 – Aboard NASA's Mercury-Redstone 2, Ham the Chimp (pictured) became the first hominid launched into outer space.
- 1996 – Japanese amateur astronomer Yuji Hyakutake discovered Comet Hyakutake, which was one of the closest cometary approaches of the previous 200 years.
- 2001 – Scottish judges sitting in court in the Netherlands convicted Libyan national Abdelbaset al-Megrahi of 270 counts of murder in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103.
More anniversaries: January 30 – January 31 – February 1
Selected anniversaries/On this day archive
January – February – March – April – May – June – July – August – September – October – November – December
Recent changes to Selected anniversaries – Selected anniversaries editing guidelines
It is now 17:02 on Sunday, February 12, 2012 (UTC) – Purge cache for this page
