1296 Earl Floris V signs accord with French king
1317 Phillips V, the Tall, crowned king of France
1349 700 Jews of Basel Switzerland, burned alive in their houses
1428 Pope Martinus V declares Jacoba van Beierens marriage invalid
1464 1st meeting of States-General of Netherlands
1493 1st sight of manatees (by Christopher Columbus)
1522 Adriaan F Boeyens of Utrecht elected only Dutch/last non-Italian pope (Adrian VI)
1558 Geneva becomes independent from Berne canton, Switzerland
1570 Tsar Ivan the terrible kills 1000-2000 residents of Novgorod
1718 France declares war on Spain
1760 Afghans defeat Marathas in battle of Barari Ghat
1788 Connecticut becomes 5th state
1792 Russia & Turkey sign Peace of Jassy
1793 Jean Pierre Blanchard makes 1st balloon flight in North America (Philadelphia)
1793 Dutch Prince Willem V establishes 2 brigades Drive Artillery
1799 Income Tax introduced in UK
1811 1st Women’s Golf Tournament held
1812 Swedish Pomerania (Germany) seized by Napoleon
1834 HMS Beagle/Charles Darwin arrives in Port San Julian, Patagonia
1839 Daguerrotype photo process announced at French Academy of Science
1839 Thomas Henderson measures 1st stellar parallax (Alpha Centauri)
1847 1st San Francisco newspaper published (California Star)
1848 1st commercial bank in San Francisco established
1848 People’s uprising in Palermo Sicily
1854 Astor Library opens in New York City NY
1855 Clipper Guiding Star disappears in Atlantic, 480 dies
1857 7.9 earthquake shakes Fort Tejon CA
1861 1st hostile act of Civil War; Star of the West fired on, Sumter SC
1861 Mississippi becomes 2nd state to secede
1863 -Jan 11th] Battle of Arkansas Post AR (Fort Hindman)
1866 Fisk University establishes
1879 Cheyenne prisoners led by Dull Knife revolt at Fort Robinson
1879 Kirland Warbler discovered on Andros Island in Bahamas
1880 6’ (1.8 meters) of snow falls in Seattle in 5 days
1894 “Edison Kinetoscopic Record of a Sneeze” released in movie theaters
1894 Georges Feydeau’s “Un à la Patte” premieres in Paris
1901 New South Wales (918) defeat S Australia (157 & 156) by innings & 605
1903 Baseball’s National & American Leagues make peace
1903 Wind Cave National Park, South Dakota established
1903 Frank Farrell & Bill Devery purchase AL Baltimore franchise for $18,000 & move it to New York City NY (Yankees)
1905 Bloody Sunday-demonstrators fired on by tsarist troops
1908 Muir Woods National Monument, California established
1908 Frans Schollaert succeeds De Trooz as premier of Belgium
1909 Ernest Shackleton reaches 88º23’ south
1912 US marines invade Honduras
1915 Exposition (now Civic) Auditorium dedicated, San Francisco
1922 KQV-AM in Pittsburgh PA begins radio transmissions
1922 Rotterdam metal strike ends
1923 Juan de la Cierva makes 1st autogiro (helicopter) flight, Spain
1925 German Postal Minister A Höfle resigns due to corruption
1927 Dmitri Shostakovich’s Octet opus 11, premieres in Moscow
1927 Fire in Laurier Palace cinema in Montréal, 78 children died
1928 Eugene O'Neill’s “Marco Millions” premieres in New York City NY
1929 KDB-AM in Santa Barbara CA begins radio transmissions
1929 BG DeSylva & Lew Brown’s musical “Follow Thru” premieres in New York City NY
1930 Boston Bruins wins then NHL record 14th straight game
1933 Amsterdam confectionery worker go on strike against wage reduction
1936 Semi-automatic rifles adopted by US army
1936 Noël Coward’s “Astonished Heart” premieres in London
1937 Italian regime bans marriages between Italians & Abyssinians
1937 Maxwell Anderson’s “High Tor” premieres in New York City NY
1940 2 German officers make emergency landing in Belgium
1940 J Thurber & E Nugent’s “Male Animal” premieres in New York City NY
1941 Maiden flight by Canada’s Avro Lancaster military plane
1941 6,000 Jews exterminated in pogrom in Bucharest Romania
1942 Joe Louis KOs Buddy Baer in 1 for heavyweight boxing title
1942 US Joint Chiefs of Staff created
1943 Japanese government in Java limits sale & use of motorcars
1945 US soldiers led by General Douglas MacArthur invade Philippines
1946 “Would-Be Gentleman” opens at Booth Theater New York City NY for 77 performances
1947 “Street Scene” opens at Adelphi Theater New York City NY for 148 performances
1947 Roger Sessions’ 2nd Symphony, premieres in San Francisco
1948 Walter Piston’s 3rd Symphony in E, premieres in Boston
1951 Washington Capitals NBA club folds
1951 Life After Tomorrow, 1st film to receive an “X” rating, premieres
1952 Belgian Pholien government resigns
1952 Karel Sys wins European heavyweight boxing title
1952 Marines give notice that they will recall Ted Williams to active duty
1953 Bevo Francis, Rio Grande College, scores 116 points in basketball game
1953 Korean ferryboat “Chang Tyong-Ho” sank off Pusan killing 249
1954 Bert Olmstead, Montréal Canadiens, ties NHL record of 8 points in game
1954 -87ºF (-66ºC), Northice Station, Greenland (Greenland record)
1954 Bollingen Prize for poetry awarded to Louise Bogan & Leonie Adams
1956 Abigail Van Buren’s “Dear Abby” column 1st appears in newspapers
1956 Samir el-Rifai forms government in Jordan
1957 Checheno-Ingush ASSR reformed in RSFSR
1957 Karachayevo-Cherkess Autonomous Region reestablished in RSFSR
1957 British premier Anthony Eden resigns
1957 Dutch Newspaper Society expels communist daily paper “Truth”
1958 In basketball Oscar Robertson (Cincinnati OH) scores 56, Seton Hall team 54
1959 “Rawhide” with Clint Eastwood premieres on CBS TV
1959 Dam across Tera River collapses after heavy winter rains, 135 die
1959 Pat O'Connor beats Dick Hutton in St Louis MO, to become NWA champ
1960 Building of Aswan dam in Egypt, begins
1961 Twins agree on $500,000 payment to AA for Minneapolis/St Paul territory
1962 NFL prohibits grabbing of face masks
1962 Mister M (Dr X) beats Verne Gagne in Minnesota, to become NWA champ
1962 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
1963 Mao Tse-tung writes his poem “Reply to Comrade Kuo Mo-jo”
1964 Anti-US rioting breaks out in the Panamá Canal Zone
1965 “Beatles’ ‘65” album goes #1 & stays #1 for 9 weeks
1966 Polish government denies exit visa to Cardinal Wyszynski revisionism
1967 Georgia legislature seats Representative Julian Bond
1967 The NFL New Orleans franchise takes the name “Saints”
1968 Surveyor 7 space probe soft lands on the Moon
1968 1st ABA All-Star Game East 126 beats West 120 at Indiana
1969 Concorde jetliner’s 1st test flight (Bristol England)
1970 Constitution of Singapore enacted
1971 “Lovely Ladies, Kind Gentlemen” closes at Majestic New York City NY after 19 performances
1972 Billionaire Howard Hughes said Clifford Irving’s biography is a fake
1972 Marlene Hagge wins LPGA Burdine’s Golf Invitational
1972 Passenger ship Queen Elizabeth destroyed by fire
1973 Luna 21 launched, to Moon
1975 600 employees of Royal Canadian Mint go on strike
1975 Australia beat England by 171 runs in 4th Test to regain Ashes
1976 Bryan Trottier failed in 4th Islander penalty shot
1976 Ringo releases “Oh My My” in UK
1976 CW McCall CB song “Convoy” hit #1 on the country music charts
1977 Super Bowl XI Oakland Raiders defeat Minnesota Vikings, 32-14, in Pasadena; Super Bowl MVP Fred Biletnikoff, Oakland, Wide Receiver
1977 “Porgy & Bess” closes at Uris Theater New York City NY after 122 performances
1978 Commonwealth of Northern Marianas established
1979 High-school player Daryl Moreau makes 126th consecutive free throws
1979 Supreme Court strikes down (6-3) PA law requiring doctors performing an abortion to try to preserve lives of potentially viable fetuses
1979 Bollingen Prize for poetry awarded to WS Merwin
1979 K-Mart pulls Steve Martin’s “Let’s Get Small” for being in “bad taste”
1980 63 beheaded in Mecca, Saudi Arabia
1981 Francisco Balsamao elected President of Portugal
1982 5.9 earthquake in New England & Canada; 1st since 1855
1982 Steve D'Innocenzo scores 3 hockey goals in 12 seconds in Massachusetts high school game
1983 British PM Margaret Thatcher visits the Falkland Islands
1984 “TV’s Bloopers & Practical Jokes” premieres on NBC TV (Whoops)
1984 EAA moves operations to Oshkosh
1984 John Lennon’s “Nobody Told Me” is released
1984 Braves pitcher Pascual Perez is arrested for cocaine possession
1985 Flames set NHL record 264th regular season game without being shut-out
1986 New York Islanders greatest shutout margin (9-0) vs Pittsburgh Penguins
1987 New Nicaraguan constitution takes effect
1987 Sir Rudolf Bing (of New York Met Opera) marries Lady Carroll Douglass
1987 Chinese/Vietnamese border fights, 1500 killed
1988 August Wilson’s “Piano Lesson” premieres in Boston
1988 English Earl of St Andrews marries Sylvana Tomaselli
1988 US male Figure Skating championship won by Brian Boitano
1989 “Pat Sajak Show” premieres on CBS
1989 Johnny Bench & Carl Yastrzemski elected to Baseball Hall of Fame
1990 64th US manned space mission STS 32 (Columbia 10) launches into orbit
1990 Boston Celtics worst-ever (6 points in 2nd vs New Jersey Nets) & lose 87-78
1990 Supreme Court strikes down Dallas’ ordinance imposing strict zoning on sexually oriented businesses
1990 Jim Palmer & Joe Morgan elected to Baseball Hall of Fame
1991 Baker & Aziz meet in Geneva; talks fail to defuse the gulf crisis
1991 Baseball officially bans Pete Rose from being elected to Hall of Fame
1991 Dean Smith of North Carolina is 6th to win 700 career coaching basketball games
1993 Franziska van Almsick swims world record 100 meter free style (53.33)
1994 14th United Negro College Fund raises $11,000,000
1994 Gunda Niemann skates world record (167.282 points)
1994 Rintje Ritsma skates world record (156.201 points)
1995 Ecuador & Peru involve in boundary fight
1995 Worker accidentally cuts electrical wires at Newark Airport
1997 Heart attacks sends Frank Sinatra back to hospital
1998 Anatoly Karpov defeats Viswanathan Anand to retain chess title
1998 Anatoly Solovyov & Pavel Vinogradov spacewalk record 3 hours 8 minutes
1998 Boston Red Sox Mo Vaughn pleads not guilty to drunken driving
1998 Decapitated head of Danish Little Mermaid is returned
1998 Hockey News selects Wayne Gretzky best NHL player ever