Events Pre-1600 474 – Zeno is crowned as co-emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire. 1003 – Boleslaus III is restored to authority with armed support from Bolesław I the Brave of Poland. 1098 – A First Crusade army led by Bohemond of Taranto wins a major battle against the Seljuq emir Ridwan of Aleppo during the siege of Antioch. 1539 – The first recorded race is held on Chester Racecourse, known as the Roodee. 1555 – Bishop of Gloucester John Hooper is burned at the stake.
1601–1900 1621 – Gregory XV becomes Pope, the last Pope elected by acclamation.Pope Gregory XV (by S. Miranda) 1654 – The Capture of Fort Rocher takes place during the Anglo-Spanish War. 1775 – American Revolutionary War: The British Parliament declares Massachusetts in rebellion. 1778 – Rhode Island becomes the fourth US state to ratify the Articles of Confederation. References to a 1778 Virginia ratification are based on an error in the Journals of Congress: "The published Journals of Congress print this enabling act of the Virginia assembly under date of Dec. 15, 1778. This error has come from the MS. vol. 9 (History of Confederation), p. 123, Papers of the Continental Congress, Library of Congress." 1822 – Haiti attacks the newly established Dominican Republic on the other side of the island of Hispaniola. 1825 – After no candidate receives a majority of electoral votes in the US presidential election of 1824, the United States House of Representatives elects John Quincy Adams as sixth President of the United States in a contingent election. 1849 – The new Roman Republic is declared. 1861 – American Civil War: Jefferson Davis is elected the Provisional President of the Confederate States of America by the Provisional Confederate Congress at Montgomery, Alabama. 1870 – US president Ulysses S. Grant signs a joint resolution of Congress establishing the U.S. Weather Bureau. 1889 – US president Grover Cleveland signs a bill elevating the United States Department of Agriculture to a Cabinet-level agency. 1893 – Verdi's last opera, Falstaff, premieres at La Scala, Milan. 1895 – William G. Morgan creates a game called Mintonette, which soon comes to be referred to as volleyball. 1900 – The Davis Cup competition is established.
1901–present 1904 – Russo-Japanese War: Battle of Port Arthur concludes. 1907 – The Mud March is the first large procession organised by the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS). 1913 – A group of meteors is visible across much of the eastern seaboard of the Americas, leading astronomers to conclude the source had been a small, short-lived natural satellite of the Earth. 1920 – Under the terms of the Svalbard Treaty, international diplomacy recognizes Norwegian sovereignty over Arctic archipelago Svalbard, and designates it as demilitarized. 1922 – Brazil becomes a member of the Berne Convention copyright treaty. 1929 – Members of the Việt Nam Quốc Dân Đảng assassinate the labor recruiter Bazin, prompting a crackdown by French colonial authorities. 1932 – Prohibition law is abolished in Finland after a national referendum, where 70% voted for a repeal of the law.Laki väkijuomista (45/1932). (in Finnish)S. Sariola, "Prohibition in Finland, 1919–1932; its background and consequences," Quarterly Journal of Studies in Alcohol (Sep. 1954) 15(3) pp. 477–90 1934 – The Balkan Entente is formed between Greece, Romania, Yugoslavia, and Turkey. 1941 – World War II: Bombing of Genoa: The Cathedral of San Lorenzo in Genoa, Italy, is struck by a bomb which fails to detonate. 1942 – Year-round Daylight saving time (aka War Time) is reinstated in the United States as a wartime measure to help conserve energy resources. 1943 – World War II: Pacific War: Allied authorities declare Guadalcanal secure after Imperial Japan evacuates its remaining forces from the island, ending the Battle of Guadalcanal. 1945 – World War II: Battle of the Atlantic: sinks U-864 off the coast of Fedje, Norway, in a rare instance of submarine-to-submarine combat. 1945 – World War II: A force of Allied aircraft unsuccessfully attack a German destroyer in Førdefjorden, Norway. 1950 – Second Red Scare: US Senator Joseph McCarthy accuses the United States Department of State of being filled with Communists. 1951 – Korean War: The two-day Geochang massacre begins as a battalion of the 11th Division of the South Korean Army kills 719 unarmed citizens in Geochang, in the South Gyeongsang district of South Korea. 1959 – The R-7 Semyorka, the first intercontinental ballistic missile, becomes operational at Plesetsk, USSR. 1961 – The Beatles at the Cavern Club: Lunchtime – The Beatles perform under this name at The Cavern Club for the first time following their return to Liverpool from Hamburg.The Cavern Club retrieved 2024-2-1 1964 – The Beatles make their first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, performing before a record-setting audience of 73 million viewers across the United States. 1965 – Vietnam War: The United States Marine Corps sends a MIM-23 Hawk missile battalion to South Vietnam, the first American troops in-country without an official advisory or training mission. 1971 – The 6.5–6.7 Sylmar earthquake hits the Greater Los Angeles Area with a maximum Mercalli intensity of XI (Extreme), killing 64 and injuring 2,000. 1971 – Satchel Paige becomes the first Negro league player to be voted into the USA's Baseball Hall of Fame. 1971 – Apollo program: Apollo 14 returns to Earth after the third human Moon landing. 1975 – The Soyuz 17 Soviet spacecraft returns to Earth. 1976 – Aeroflot Flight 3739, a Tupolev Tu-104, crashes during takeoff from Irkutsk Airport, killing 24. 1978 – The Budd Company unveils its first SPV-2000 self-propelled railcar in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. 1982 – Japan Air Lines Flight 350 crashes near Haneda Airport in an attempted pilot mass murder-suicide, killing 24 of the 174 people on board. 1986 – Halley's Comet last appeared in the inner Solar System. 1987 – Civil unrest broke out across Palestine. 1991 – Dissolution of the Soviet Union: Voters in Lithuania vote for independence from the Soviet Union. 1996 – The Provisional Irish Republican Army declares the end to its 18-month ceasefire and explodes a large bomb in London's Canary Wharf, killing two people. 1996 – Copernicium is discovered by Sigurd Hofmann, Victor Ninov et al. 2001 – The Ehime Maru and USS Greeneville collision takes place, killing nine of the thirty-five people on board the Japanese fishery high-school training ship Ehime Maru, leaving the USS Greeneville (SSN-772) with US $2 million in repairs, at Pearl Harbor. 2016 – Two passenger trains collide in the German town of Bad Aibling in the state of Bavaria. Twelve people die and 85 others are injured. 2018 – Winter Olympics: Opening ceremony is performed in Pyeongchang County in South Korea. 2020 – Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele has the army soldiers enter the Legislative Assembly to assist in pushing for the approval for a better government security plan, causing a brief political crisis. 2021 – Second impeachment trial of Donald Trump begins. 2025 – The Baltic states synchronize their electric power transmission infrastructure with the Continental Europe Synchronous Area (CESA), in objective to disconnect from the Russo-Belarussian agreement to use the IPS/UPS system.
Births Pre-1600 1060 – Honorius II, pope of the Catholic Church (died 1130) 1274 – Louis of Toulouse, French bishop (died 1297) 1313 – Maria of Portugal, Queen of Castile, Portuguese infanta (died 1357) 1344 – Meinhard III, count of Tyrol (died 1363) 1441 – Ali-Shir Nava'i, Turkic poet, linguist, and painter (died 1501) 1533 – Shimazu Yoshihisa, Japanese daimyō (died 1611) 1579 – Johannes Meursius, Dutch classical scholar (died 1639)
1601–1900 1651 – Procopio Cutò, French entrepreneur (died 1727) 1666 – George Hamilton, 1st Earl of Orkney, Scottish field marshal (died 1737) 1711 – Luis Vicente de Velasco e Isla, Spanish sailor and commander (died 1762) 1737 – Thomas Paine, English-American philosopher, author, and activist (died 1809) 1741 – Henri-Joseph Rigel, German-French composer (died 1799) 1748 – Sir John Duckworth, 1st Baronet, English admiral and politician, Commodore Governor of Newfoundland (died 1817) 1763 – Louis I, Grand Duke of Baden (died 1830) 1769 – George W. Campbell, Scottish-American lawyer and politician, 5th United States Secretary of the Treasury (died 1848) 1773 – William Henry Harrison, American general and politician, 9th President of the United States (died 1841) 1775 – Farkas Bolyai, Hungarian mathematician and academic (died 1856) 1781 – Johann Baptist von Spix, German biologist and explorer (died 1826) 1783 – Vasily Zhukovsky, Russian poet and translator (died 1852) 1789 – Franz Xaver Gabelsberger, German engineer, invented Gabelsberger shorthand (died 1849) 1800 – Hyrum Smith, American religious leader (died 1844) 1814 – Samuel J. Tilden, American lawyer and politician, 28th Governor of New York (died 1886) 1815 – Federico de Madrazo, Spanish painter (died 1894) 1826 – Keelikōlani, Hawaiian royal and governor (died 1883) 1830 – Abdülaziz, Ottoman Sultan and Caliph (died 1876) 1834 – Felix Dahn, German lawyer, historian, and author (died 1912) 1837 – José Burgos, Filipino priest and revolutionary (died 1872) 1839 – Silas Adams, American colonel, lawyer, and politician (died 1896) 1846 – Wilhelm Maybach, German engineer and businessman, founded Maybach (died 1929) 1846 – Whitaker Wright, English businessman and financier (died 1904) 1847 – Hugh Price Hughes, Welsh-English clergyman and theologian (died 1902) 1854 – Aletta Jacobs, Dutch physician and suffrage activist (died 1929) 1856 – Hara Takashi, Japanese politician, 10th Prime Minister of Japan (died 1921) 1859 – Akiyama Yoshifuru, Japanese general (died 1930) 1863 – Anthony Hope, English author and playwright (died 1933) 1864 – Miina Härma, Estonian organist, composer, and conductor (died 1941) 1865 – Mrs. Patrick Campbell, English-French actress (died 1940) 1865 – Erich von Drygalski, German geographer and geophysicist (died 1949) 1867 – Natsume Sōseki, Japanese author and poet (died 1916) 1871 – Howard Taylor Ricketts, American pathologist and physician (died 1910) 1874 – Amy Lowell, American poet, critic, and educator (died 1925) 1876 – Arthur Edward Moore, New Zealand-Australian politician, 23rd Premier of Queensland (died 1963) 1878 – Jack Kirwan, Irish international footballer (died 1959) 1880 – Lipót Fejér, Hungarian mathematician and academic (died 1959) 1883 – Jules Berry, French actor and director (died 1951) 1885 – Alban Berg, Austrian composer and educator (died 1935) 1885 – Clarence H. Haring, American historian and author (died 1960) 1889 – Larry Semon, American actor, producer, director and screenwriter (died 1928) 1891 – Ronald Colman, English-American actor (died 1958) 1891 – Kristian Krefting, Norwegian footballer and chemical engineer (died 1964) 1891 – Pietro Nenni, Italian journalist and politician, Secretary of the Italian Socialist Party (died 1980) 1892 – Peggy Wood, American actress (died 1978) 1893 – Georgios Athanasiadis-Novas, Greek lawyer and politician, 163rd Prime Minister of Greece (died 1987) 1895 – Hermann Brill, German lawyer and politician, 8th Minister-President of Thuringia (died 1959) 1896 – Alberto Vargas, Peruvian-American painter and illustrator (died 1982) 1897 – Charles Kingsford Smith, Australian captain and pilot (died 1935) 1898 – Jūkichi Yagi, Japanese poet and educator (died 1927)
1901–present 1901 – Brian Donlevy, American actor (died 1972) 1901 – James Murray, American actor (died 1936) 1905 – David Cecil, 6th Marquess of Exeter, English hurdler and politician (died 1981) 1906 – André Kostolany, Hungarian-French economist and journalist (died 1999) 1907 – Trường Chinh, Vietnamese politician, 4th President of Vietnam (died 1988) 1907 – Dit Clapper, Canadian ice hockey player and coach (died 1978)