Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/January
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| << | Selected anniversaries for January | >> | ||||
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| An archive of historical anniversaries that appeared on the Main Page 2019 day arrangement | ||||||
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Ceres
- 417 – Galla Placidia was forced by her brother Honorius into marriage with his magister militum, Constantius III.
- 1773 – The hymn "Amazing Grace" was probably first used in a prayer meeting in Olney, England, without the music familiar to modern listeners.
- 1801 – Italian astronomer Giuseppe Piazzi discovered the dwarf planet Ceres (pictured), naming it after the Roman goddess of agriculture and of motherly love.
- 1945 – World War II: In retaliation for the massacre of captured Americans by Waffen SS soldiers, U.S. Army personnel killed an estimated 80 Wehrmacht prisoners near Chenogne, Belgium.
- 2011 – A bomb exploded at a Coptic Christian church in Alexandria, Egypt, killing 23 people.
Lorenzo de' Medici (b. 1449) · Marie-Louise Lachapelle (b. 1769) · Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati (d. 1937)
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January 2: Feast day of Gregory of Nazianzus (Roman Catholic Church)
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A. Mitchell Palmer
- 533 – Mercurius became Pope John II, possibly the first pope to adopt a regnal name upon elevation to the papacy.
- 1680 – Trunajaya rebellion: Amangkurat II of Mataram of Java and his courtiers stabbed Trunajaya to death a week after the rebel leader surrendered to the Dutch.
- 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 in more than 30 cities and towns in 23 states.
- 1981 – English serial killer Peter Sutcliffe, the "Yorkshire Ripper", was arrested in Sheffield, which eventually ended one of the largest police investigations in British history.
- 2016 – Nimr al-Nimr, a prominent Shia cleric in Saudi Arabia, was executed by the Saudi government along with 46 others.
Salima Sultan Begum (d. 1613) · Mily Balakirev (b. 1837) · Norodom Ranariddh (b. 1944)
James Lick telescope
- 1749 – The first issue of Berlingske, Denmark's oldest continually operating newspaper, was published.
- 1888 – The 36-inch (91 cm) refracting telescope (pictured) at the Lick Observatory near San Jose, California, the largest in the world until 1897, was used for the first time.
- 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.
- 1961 – Twenty-five people died in Finland's worst civilian air accident when Aero Flight 311 crashed near Kvevlax.
- 2009 – The bitcoin cryptocurrency network was created when Satoshi Nakamoto mined the first block of the chain.
Savitribai Phule (b. 1831) · Anna May Wong (b. 1905) · Joy Adamson (d. 1980)
January 4: Colonial Martyrs Repression Day in Angola (1961)
Constantine Hangerli
- 46 BC – Caesar's Civil War: Forces loyal to Julius Caesar were defeated in the Battle of Ruspina by the Republican forces of the Optimates.
- 1698 – Most of London's Palace of Whitehall, from 1530 the main residence of the English monarchs, was destroyed by fire.
- 1798 – After his investiture as Prince of Wallachia, Constantine Hangerli (pictured) arrived in Bucharest to assume the throne.
- 1951 – Korean War: Chinese and North Korean troops captured Seoul.
- 1989 – Two American F-14 Tomcats shot down two Libyan MiG-23 Floggers that appeared to be attempting to engage them over the Gulf of Sirte in the Mediterranean Sea.
George Tryon (b. 1832) · Josef Suk (b. 1874) · Erwin Schrödinger (d. 1961)
January 5: Twelfth Night (Western Christianity)
Palais Garnier
- 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.
- 1875 – The Palais Garnier opera house (pictured) in Paris was formally inaugurated.
- 1919 – The German Workers' Party, the forerunner to the Nazi Party, was founded by Anton Drexler.
- 1975 – The bulk carrier Lake Illawarra struck a bridge over the River Derwent in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia, causing the deaths of seven of the ship's crewmen and five motorists on the bridge.
- 2000 – Sri Lankan politician Kumar Ponnambalam was killed in an assassination blamed on President Chandrika Kumaratunga.
Simon Marius (d. 1625) · Henri Herz (d. 1888) · Deadmau5 (b. 1981)
January 6: Little Christmas in Ireland
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Maria Montessori
- 1066 – Harold Godwinson, the last Anglo-Saxon king before the Norman conquest, was crowned King of England.
- 1540 – King Henry VIII of England married Anne of Cleves, but the marriage was annulled six months later.
- 1907 – Italian educator Maria Montessori (pictured) opened her first school and day-care centre for working-class children in Rome, employing the philosophy of education that now bears her name.
- 1960 – National Airlines Flight 2511, traveling from New York City to Miami, exploded in midair due to a bomb placed by an unknown party, resulting in the deaths of all 34 people on board.
- 1977 – The record label EMI ended its contract with the English punk rock band Sex Pistols in response to its members' disruptive behaviour at Heathrow Airport two days earlier.
Alessandro de' Medici, Duke of Florence (d. 1537) · Clarence King (b. 1842) · Nigella Lawson (b. 1960)
January 7: Christmas (Julian calendar); Victory over Genocide Day in Cambodia
Flag of the Cispadane Republic
- 1782 – The Bank of North America opened in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, as the United States' first de facto central bank.
- 1797 – The first official Italian tricolour (pictured) was adopted by the government of the Cispadane Republic.
- 1939 – The French physicist Marguerite Perey identified francium, the last element first discovered in nature, rather than by synthesis.
- 1979 – The People's Army of Vietnam captured Phnom Penh, which marked the end of large-scale fighting in the Cambodian–Vietnamese War.
- 1989 – Representatives of Ruhollah Khomeini delivered a letter to Mikhail Gorbachev, inviting him to consider Islam as an alternative to communism, and predicting the dissolution of the Soviet Bloc.
Eliezer Ben-Yehuda (b. 1858) · Zara Cisco Brough (d. 1988) · Run Run Shaw (d. 2014)
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RMS Queen Mary 2
- 1198 – Lotario de Conti was elected as Pope Innocent III; he later worked to restore papal power in Rome.
- 1735 – The opera Ariodante by George Frideric Handel was first performed in the Covent Garden Theatre, London.
- 1904 – Blackstone Library, the first branch of the Chicago Public Library system, was dedicated.
- 1977 – Three bombs attributed to Armenian nationalists exploded across Moscow, killing 7 people and injuring 37.
- 2004 – RMS Queen Mary 2 (pictured), at the time the longest, widest and tallest passenger ship ever built, was christened by her namesake's granddaughter, Queen Elizabeth II.
Arcangelo Corelli (d. 1713) · Wilkie Collins (b. 1824) · Bernard Krigstein (d. 1990)
Raymond Lederer
- 475 – Basiliscus became Byzantine Emperor after Zeno was forced to flee Constantinople.
- 1857 – A 7.9 Mw earthquake ruptured part of the San Andreas Fault in California.
- 1917 – First World War: Troops of the British Empire defeated Ottoman forces at the Battle of Rafa on the Sinai–Palestine border in present-day Rafah.
- 1981 – U.S. Representative Raymond Lederer (pictured) was convicted of bribery and conspiracy for his role in the Abscam scandal, but continued to serve his term for three more months.
- 1992 – Radio astronomers Aleksander Wolszczan and Dale Frail announced the discovery of two planets orbiting the pulsar PSR B1257+12, generally considered the first definitive detection of exoplanets.
William Dugard (b. 1606) · Carrie Chapman Catt (b. 1859) · Lei Jieqiong (d. 2011)
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Construction of the Metropolitan Railway
- 9 – The Western Han dynasty of China ended after the throne was usurped by Wang Mang, who founded the Xin dynasty.
- 1863 – Service began on the Metropolitan Railway (construction pictured) between Paddington and Farringdon Street, today the oldest segment of the London Underground.
- 1927 – The science fiction film Metropolis, directed by Fritz Lang, was released in Germany.
- 1941 – Greco-Italian War: The Greek army captured the strategically important Klisura Pass in Albania.
- 2007 – A general strike began in Guinea as an attempt to force President Lansana Conté to resign, eventually resulting in the appointment of two new prime ministers.
Pope Miltiades (d. 314) · Francisco Ferrer (b. 1859) · Kalki Koechlin (b. 1984)
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French troops in the Ruhr
- 1693 – An intensity XI earthquake, the most powerful in Italian history, struck the island of Sicily.
- 1787 – German-born British astronomer William Herschel discovered two Uranian moons, later named by his son as Oberon and Titania.
- 1923 – Troops from France (pictured) and Belgium invaded the Ruhr to force the German Weimar Republic to pay its reparations in the aftermath of World War I.
- 1964 – In a landmark report, U.S. Surgeon General Luther Terry issued the warning that smoking may be hazardous to people's health, concluding that it has a causative role in lung cancer, chronic bronchitis, and other illnesses.
- 2003 – After Chicago police detective Jon Burge was discovered to have forced confessions from more than 200 suspects, Governor of Illinois George Ryan commuted the death sentences of 167 prisoners and pardoned 4 more.
Nicolas Steno (b. 1638) · John Molson (d. 1836) · Eva Tanguay (d. 1947)
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January 12: Zanzibar Revolution Day in Tanzania (1964)
Comet McNaught
- 1554 – Bayinnaung, who later assembled the largest empire in the history of mainland Southeast Asia, was crowned king of the Burmese Toungoo dynasty.
- 1777 – Mission Santa Clara de Asís, a Spanish mission that formed the basis of both the city of Santa Clara, California, and Santa Clara University, was established.
- 1899 – During a storm, the crew of the Lynmouth Lifeboat Station transported their 10-ton lifeboat 15 mi (24 km) overland in order to rescue a damaged schooner.
- 1969 – British rock band Led Zeppelin released their eponymous first album in the United States.
- 2007 – Comet McNaught (pictured) reached perihelion and became the brightest comet in over 40 years with an apparent magnitude of −5.5.
John Singer Sargent (b. 1856) · Hermann Göring (b. 1893) · Daniel Bensaïd (d. 2010)
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January 13: St. Knut's Day in Finland and Sweden
Painting of the 1797 naval battle by Léopold Le Guen
- 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 hundreds of deaths when the latter ran aground.
- 1878 – Ada Anderson, a record-setting pedestrian from England, completed her U.S. debut, walking 2,700 quarter-miles (1,086 km total) in 2,700 quarter-hours.
- 1915 – About 30,000 people in L'Aquila, Italy, were killed when an earthquake struck the province.
- 1953 – An article published in Pravda accused nine eminent doctors in Moscow of taking part in a plot to poison members of the top Soviet political and military leadership.
- 1963 – Togo's first president, Sylvanus Olympio, was assassinated by military officers in a coup d'état led by Emmanuel Bodjollé, Étienne Eyadéma, and Kléber Dadjo.
Sibyl Hathaway (b. 1884) · Michael Bond (b. 1926) · Winnie Byanyima (b. 1959)
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January 14: Coming of Age Day in Japan (2019); National Forest Conservation Day in Thailand; Ratification Day in the United States (1784)
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Fire on USS Enterprise
- 1301 – The Árpád dynasty, which had ruled Hungary since the late 9th century, ended with the death of King Andrew III.
- 1724 – Philip V, the first Bourbon ruler of Spain, abdicated in favor of his eldest son Louis.
- 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.
- 1969 – A major fire and series of explosions broke out aboard the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS Enterprise (pictured), killing 28 sailors, injuring 314, and destroying 15 aircraft.
Ladislaus II of Hungary (d. 1163) · Berthe Morisot (b. 1841) · Steven Soderbergh (b. 1963)
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January 15: Mattu Pongal (Tamils, 2019); John Chilembwe Day in Malawi
Damage caused by the Boston Molasses Disaster
- 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.
- 1933 – A teenage girl in Banneux, Belgium, reported the first of several Marian apparitions, now known as Our Lady of Banneux.
- 1991 – Elizabeth II, as Queen of Australia, signed letters patent allowing Australia to become the first Commonwealth realm to institute its own separate Victoria Cross award in its own honours system.
- 2009 – US Airways Flight 1549 struck a flock of Canada geese during its initial climb out from New York City and made an emergency landing in the Hudson River.
Theophylact (d. 849) · Peter Christen Asbjørnsen (b. 1812) · Ben Shapiro (b. 1984)
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- 27 BC – Gaius Octavianus (statue pictured) was given the titles Augustus and Princeps by the Roman Senate when he became the first Roman emperor.
- 1780 – Anglo-Spanish War: The 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.
- 1905 – Despite being blind in one eye, ice hockey player Frank McGee set the record for most goals in a Stanley Cup game when he scored 14 against the Dawson City Nuggets.
- 1920 – The League of Nations, the first worldwide intergovernmental organisation with a focus on peace and security, held its first council meeting in Paris.
- 1964 – The musical Hello, Dolly! opened at the St. James Theatre on Broadway, and went on to win ten Tony Awards, a record that stood for 37 years.
Nikephoros Choumnos (d. 1327) · William Hall-Jones (b. 1851) · Pauline Phillips (d. 2013)
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Raoul Wallenberg
- 1773 – On James Cook's second voyage, his ship HMS Resolution became the first to cross the Antarctic Circle.
- 1893 – Lorrin A. Thurston, along with the Citizens' Committee of Public Safety, led the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii and the government of Queen Liliʻuokalani.
- 1945 – Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg (pictured), who had saved thousands of Jews from the Holocaust, was taken into Soviet custody while in Hungary and was never seen in public again.
- 1961 – Former Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba was murdered in circumstances suggesting the support and complicity of the governments of Belgium and the United States.
- 1989 – Patrick Purdy opened fire in an elementary school in Stockton, California, killing 5 and wounding 32 others.
Martino Zaccaria (d. 1345) · David Beatty, 1st Earl Beatty (b. 1871) · Sunanda Pushkar (d. 2014)
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Marion Barry
- 1535 – Gabriel Moreira Romaní founded Ciudad de los Reyes, present-day Lima, Peru, as the capital of the lands conquered for the Spanish Crown by Francisco Pizarro.
- 1871 – A number of independent German states unified into the German Empire, with Prussian King Wilhelm I being proclaimed as its first Emperor.
- 1943 – World War II: In Operation Iskra, the Red Army established a narrow land corridor to Leningrad, partially easing the protracted German siege.
- 1956 - Navvab Safavi, Iranian Shia cleric and founder of Fada'iyan-e Islam group, was executed.
- 1958 – Black 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, Marion Barry (pictured), the mayor of Washington, D.C., was arrested for possession of crack cocaine.
Isabella Jagiellon (b. 1519) · Aleksandra Ekster (b. 1882) · Goose Tatum (d. 1967)
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San Agustin Church, Manila
- 1419 – The Siege of Rouen ended, with King Henry V of England capturing the city from the Norman French.
- 1607 – San Agustin Church (pictured) in Manila, the oldest extant church in the Philippines, was completed.
- 1972 – The French newspaper L'Aurore revealed that the former Nazi SS officer Klaus Barbie, the "Butcher of Lyon", had been found to be living in Peru.
- 1996 – A tank barge and a tug grounded on a beach in South Kingstown, Rhode Island, US, spilling an estimated 828,000 US gallons (3,130,000 l) of home heating oil.
- 2007 – A four-man team, using only skis and kites, completed a 1,093-mile (1,759 km) trek to reach the Southern Pole of Inaccessibility, the first people to get there since 1967, and the first to do so on foot.
Paul Cézanne (b. 1839) · Natacha Rambova (b. 1897) · Sarah Burke (d. 2012)
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January 20: World Religion Day (2019)
Honório Carneiro Leão
- 1156 – According to legend, Lalli slew Bishop Henry of Finland with an axe on the ice of Lake Köyliönjärvi in Köyliö.
- 1843 – Honório Hermeto Carneiro Leão, Marquis of Paraná (pictured), became the de facto first prime minister of the Empire of Brazil.
- 1942 – The Holocaust: 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 events that led to the Bangladesh Liberation War.
- 2009 – In Washington, D.C., more than one million people attended the inauguration of Barack Obama as the first African American president of the United States.
David Wilmot (b. 1814) · Sarah Conlon (b. 1926) · Claudio Abbado (d. 2014)
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January 21: Martin Luther King Jr. Day in the United States (2019)
The First Dáil Éireann
- 763 – The Abbasid Caliphate crushed the Alid revolt when one of the rebel leaders was mortally wounded in battle near Basra, in what is now Iraq.
- 1789 – The Power of Sympathy by William Hill Brown, widely considered to be the first American novel, was published.
- 1919 – The First Dáil Éireann (members pictured) first convened at the Mansion House in Dublin, adopting a declaration of independence calling for a new sovereign state: the Irish Republic.
- 1972 – Tripura, part of the former independent Twipra Kingdom, became a full-fledged state in India.
- 2017 – An estimated five million people worldwide participated in demonstrations to advocate legislation and policies regarding human rights and other issues.
Chaim of Volozhin (b. 1749) · Eusapia Palladino (b. 1854) · Frances Gertrude McGill (d. 1959)
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January 22: Tu BiShvat (Judaism, 2019); Day of Unity of Ukraine in Ukraine (1919)
Leonid Brezhnev
- 1273 – Muhammad II became the Sultan of Granada after the death of his father in a riding accident.
- 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.
- 1906 – SS Valencia was wrecked off the coast of Vancouver Island, in a location so treacherous it was known as the Graveyard of the Pacific.
- 1943 – World War II: The Battle of Buna–Gona on New Guinea ended with an Allied victory after two months of fighting in which the Japanese fought with a resolve and tenacity not previously encountered.
- 1969 – Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev (pictured) survived what was seen as an assassination attempt, an incident that was not revealed to the public until after the fall of the Soviet Union.
John Donne (b. 1572) · Gisela Januszewska (b. 1867) · Ali Hassan Salameh (d. 1979)
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A Frisbee brand flying disc
- 1565 – The Deccan sultanates defeated the Vijayanagara Empire at the Battle of Talikota in present-day Karnataka, ending the last great Hindu kingdom in South India.
- 1793 – The Russian Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia partitioned the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth for the second time.
- 1957 – American inventor Fred Morrison sold the rights to his "flying disc" to the Wham-O toy company, who later renamed it the "Frisbee" (example pictured).
- 2001 – Five people attempted to set themselves on fire in Beijing's Tiananmen Square, an act that many people later claimed was staged by the Communist Party of China to frame Falun Gong and thus escalate their persecution.
Muthu Coomaraswamy (b. 1834) · Mykola Leontovych (d. 1921) · Louisa Cadamuro (b. 1987)
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Bust of Caligula
- 41 – Cassius Chaerea and the disgruntled Praetorian Guards murdered Roman emperor Caligula (bust pictured), replacing him with his uncle Claudius.
- 914 – The Fatimid Caliphate began their first invasion of Egypt.
- 1915 – First World War: British Grand Fleet ships intercepted and surprised a German High Seas Fleet squadron in the North Sea, sinking a German cruiser and damaging several other vessels.
- 1989 – American serial killer Ted Bundy was executed via electric chair in Florida after confessing to the murders of 30 young women.
- 2011 – A suicide bomber killed 37 people at Domodedovo International Airport in Moscow.
Pope Stephen IV (d. 817) · Constance Naden (b. 1858) · August Meyszner (d. 1947)
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January 25: Feast day of Gregory of Nazianzus (Eastern Orthodox Church); Tatiana Day in Russia
Battle of Mikatagahara
- 1573 – Sengoku period: The forces of Takeda Shingen defeated those of Tokugawa Ieyasu at the Battle of Mikatagahara (pictured), north of Hamamatsu, Mikawa Province, Japan.
- 1704 – English colonists from the Province of Carolina and their native allies began a series of raids against a largely peaceful population of Apalachee in Spanish Florida.
- 1949 – The Academy of Television Arts & Sciences presented the first Emmy Awards to honor excellence in the American television industry.
- 1995 – A team of Norwegian and American scientists launched a Black Brant XII sounding rocket, which was mistaken for a Trident missile by Russian forces.
- 2011 – The Day of Anger during the Egyptian revolution began, eventually leading to the removal of Hosni Mubarak after nearly 30 years of rule.
Leo IV the Khazar (b. 750) · Helene Bresslau Schweitzer (b. 1879) · Ali Hassan al-Majid (d. 2010)
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January 26: Australia Day (1788); Republic Day in India (1950)
Arthur Phillip
- 1699 – The signing of the Treaty of Karlowitz to conclude the Great Turkish War marked the end of Ottoman control in much of Central Europe and the rise of the Habsburg Monarchy as the dominant power in the region.
- 1788 – Captain Arthur Phillip (pictured) and the British First Fleet landed at Sydney Cove on the shore of Port Jackson in present-day Sydney, establishing the first permanent European settlement in Australia.
- 1905 – The Cullinan Diamond, the largest gem-quality rough diamond ever found at 3,107 carats (621 g; 1.37 lb), was discovered at the Premier Mine in Cullinan, Gauteng, South Africa.
- 1949 – The Hale Telescope at Palomar Observatory in California, the largest aperture optical telescope in the world for 28 years, saw first light.
- 2009 – Rioting broke out in Antananarivo, Madagascar, sparking a political crisis that led to the deposal of President Marc Ravalomanana.
Harry Ricardo (b. 1885) · Athanase David (d. 1953) · David Kato (d. 2011)
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Entrance to Auschwitz
- 1343 – Pope Clement VI issued the papal bull Unigenitus to justify the power of the pope and the use of indulgences.
- 1820 – A Russian expedition led by naval officers Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen and Mikhail Lazarev became the first explorers to see the coast of Antarctica.
- 1945 – The Soviet Red Army liberated more than 7,500 prisoners left behind by Nazi personnel in the Auschwitz concentration camp (entrance pictured) in what is now Oświęcim, Poland.
- 1967 – The Outer Space Treaty, a treaty that forms the basis of international space law, opened for signature in the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union.
- 1996 – Mahamane Ousmane, the first democratically elected president of Niger, was deposed by Colonel Ibrahim Baré Maïnassara in a military coup d'état.
George Byng, 1st Viscount Torrington (b. 1663) · Eunice Hale Waite Cobb (b. 1803) · Paul Zorner (d. 2014)
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Lego bricks
- 1547 – Nine-year-old Edward VI became monarch of England, the first to be raised as a Protestant.
- 1754 – Horace Walpole coined the word "serendipity" in a letter he wrote to a friend, saying that he derived the term from the Persian fairy tale The Three Princes of Serendip.
- 1933 – Choudhry Rahmat Ali published a pamphlet titled Now or Never in which he called for the creation of a Muslim state in northwest India that he termed "Pakstan".
- 1958 – The Lego Group, a Danish toy company, patented the design of Lego bricks (pictured).
- 1981 – U.S. President Ronald Reagan lifted price controls from petroleum products, helping usher in the 1980s oil glut.
Gregor Werner (b. 1693) · Monty Noble (b. 1873) · Helen Sawyer Hogg (d. 1993)
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"The Raven" illustration
by John Tenniel
by John Tenniel
- 1814 – War of the Sixth Coalition: In the Battle of Brienne, both commanders of the opposing forces, Napoleon and Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher, were nearly captured by their enemies.
- 1845 – American poet Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven" (illustration shown) appeared in The Evening Mirror, its first publication attributed to Poe.
- 1959 – The first Melodifestivalen, an annual Swedish music competition that determines the country's representative for the Eurovision Song Contest, was held in Stockholm.
- 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.
Emanuel Swedenborg (b. 1688) · Mary Whitwell Hale (b. 1810) · Jean-Marie Doré (d. 2016)
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January 30: Martyrs' Day in India
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King Charles I
- 1287 – Wareru created the Hanthawaddy Kingdom in today's Lower Burma and declared himself king following the collapse of the Pagan Empire.
- 1649 – King Charles I (pictured), who was defeated in both the First and the Second English Civil Wars, was beheaded for high treason in front of the Banqueting House in London.
- 1835 – Richard Lawrence became the first person to make an assassination attempt on a sitting U.S. president when he failed to kill Andrew Jackson and was subdued by the crowd.
- 1959 – On the return leg of her maiden voyage, the "unsinkable" Danish ocean liner Hans Hedtoft hit an iceberg and sank with all 95 passengers and crew lost.
- 2000 – Kenya Airways Flight 431 crashed into the Atlantic Ocean near Ivory Coast shortly after takeoff, killing 169 on board.
Everard Digby (d. 1606) · Johannes Fibiger (d. 1928) · Arthur Chu (b. 1984)
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January 31: Independence Day in Nauru (1968)
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Ham the Chimp
- 1578 – Eighty Years' War: Spain won a crushing victory in the Battle of Gembloux, leading to a break up of the United Seventeen Provinces into the Union of Arras (Catholic South) and Union of Utrecht (Protestant North).
- 1747 – The London Lock Hospital, the first clinic specialising in the treatment of venereal diseases, opened.
- 1862 – American astronomer Alvan Graham Clark first observed the faint white dwarf companion of Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky.
- 1961 – Aboard NASA's Mercury-Redstone 2, Ham the Chimp (pictured) became the first hominid launched into outer space.
- 2007 – Suspects were arrested in Birmingham, England, accused of plotting to kidnap, and eventually behead, a Muslim British soldier serving in Iraq.
Franz Schubert (b. 1797) · Cilibi Moise (d. 1870) · Adelaide Tambo (d. 2007)
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Selected anniversaries/On this day archive – All
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