Events Pre-1600 49 BC – The Senate of Rome says that Caesar will be declared a public enemy unless he disbands his army, prompting the tribunes who support him to flee to where Caesar is waiting in Ravenna. 1078 – The people of Constantinople revolt, lynch the unpopular official Nikephoritzes and proclaim Nikephoros Botaneiates as emperor. 1325 – Afonso IV becomes King of Portugal. 1558 – French troops, led by Francis, Duke of Guise, take Calais, the last continental possession of England.
1601–1900 1608 – Fire destroys Jamestown, Virginia. 1610 – Galileo Galilei makes his first observation of the four Galilean moons: Ganymede, Callisto, Io and Europa, although he is not able to distinguish the last two until the following night. 1708 – Battle of Zlatoust: Battle between Bashkir and Tatar rebels and the government troops of the Tsardom of Russia. It is one of the events of the Bashkir rebellion of 1704–1711. 1708 – Bashkir rebels besiege Yelabuga. 1738 – A peace treaty is signed between Peshwa Bajirao and Jai Singh II following Maratha victory in the Battle of Bhopal. 1782 – The first American commercial bank, the Bank of North America, opens. 1785 – Frenchman Jean-Pierre Blanchard and American John Jeffries travel from Dover, England, to Calais, France, in a gas balloon. 1835 – , with Charles Darwin on board, drops anchor off the Chonos Archipelago. 1867 – The Kingstree jail fire kills 22 freedmen in Reconstruction-era South Carolina. 1894 – Thomas Edison makes a kinetoscopic film of someone sneezing. On the same day, his employee, William Kennedy Dickson, receives a patent for motion picture film.
1901–present 1904 – The distress signal "CQD" is established only to be replaced two years later by "SOS". 1919 – Montenegrin guerrilla fighters rebel against the planned annexation of Montenegro by Serbia, but fail. 1920 – The New York State Assembly refuses to seat five duly elected Socialist assemblymen. 1922 – Dáil Éireann ratifies the Anglo-Irish Treaty by a 64–57 vote. 1927 – The first transatlantic commercial telephone service is established from New York City to London. 1928 – A disastrous flood of the River Thames kills 14 people and causes extensive damage to much of riverside London. 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. 1935 – Benito Mussolini and French Foreign Minister Pierre Laval sign the Franco-Italian Agreement. 1940 – Winter War: Battle of Raate Road: The Finnish 9th Division finally defeat the numerically superior Soviet forces on the Raate-Suomussalmi road. 1948 – Kentucky Air National Guard pilot Thomas Mantell crashes while in pursuit of a supposed UFO. 1950 – In the Sverdlovsk air disaster, all 19 of those on board are killed, including almost the entire national ice hockey team (VVS Moscow) of the Soviet Air Force – 11 players, as well as a team doctor and a masseur. 1954 – Georgetown–IBM experiment: The first public demonstration of a machine translation system is held in New York at the head office of IBM. 1955 – Contralto Marian Anderson becomes the first person of color to perform at the Metropolitan Opera in Giuseppe Verdi's Un ballo in maschera. 1959 – The United States recognizes the new Cuban government of Fidel Castro. 1968 – Surveyor program: Surveyor 7, the last spacecraft in the Surveyor series, lifts off from Cape Canaveral Launch Complex 36A. 1972 – Iberia Flight 602 crashes near Ibiza Airport, killing all 104 people on board. 1973 – In his second shooting spree of the week, Mark Essex fatally shoots seven people and wounds five others at Howard Johnson's Hotel in New Orleans, before being shot to death by police officers. 1979 – Third Indochina War: Cambodian–Vietnamese War: Phnom Penh falls to the advancing Vietnamese troops, driving out Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge. 1980 – U.S. President Jimmy Carter authorizes legislation giving $1.5 billion in loans to bail out the Chrysler Corporation. 1984 – Brunei becomes the sixth member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). 1985 – Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency launches Sakigake, Japan's first interplanetary spacecraft and the first deep space probe to be launched by any country other than the United States or the Soviet Union. 1989 – Sutton United, a team in the fifth tier of English league football, defeated top-tier Coventry City in one of the biggest upsets in FA Cup history. 1991 – Roger Lafontant, former leader of the Tonton Macoute in Haiti under François Duvalier, attempts a coup d'état, which ends in his arrest. 1993 – The Fourth Republic of Ghana is inaugurated with Jerry Rawlings as president. 1993 – Bosnian War: The Bosnian Army executes a surprise attack at the village of Kravica in Srebrenica. 1994 – A British Aerospace Jetstream 41 operating as United Express Flight 6291 crashes in Gahanna, Ohio, killing five of the eight people on board. 1999 – The Senate trial in the impeachment of U.S. President Bill Clinton begins. 2012 – A hot air balloon crashes near Carterton, New Zealand, killing all 11 people on board. 2015 – Two gunmen commit mass murder at the offices of Charlie Hebdo in Paris, executing twelve people and wounding eleven others. 2015 – A car bomb explodes outside a police college in the Yemeni capital Sanaa with at least 38 people reported dead and more than 63 injured. 2020 – The 6.4 2019–20 Puerto Rico earthquakes kill four and injure nine in southern Puerto Rico. 2023 – The longest U.S. House of Representatives speaker election since the December 1859 – February 1860 U.S. speaker election concludes and Kevin McCarthy is elected 55th Speaker of the United States House of Representatives. 2025 – A series of wildfires ravage the Greater Los Angeles area, resulting in at least 16 deaths and 13,401 structures destroyed.
Births Pre-1600 889 – Li Bian, emperor of Southern Tang (died 943) 1355 – Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester, English politician, Lord High Constable of England (died 1397) 1414 – Henry II, Count of Nassau-Siegen (died 1451) (1882). Het vorstenhuis Oranje-Nassau. Van de vroegste tijden tot heden (in Dutch). Leiden: A. W. Sijthoff/Utrecht: J. L. Beijers. p. 92. 1502 – Pope Gregory XIII (died 1585)
1601–1900 1634 – Adam Krieger, German organist and composer (died 1666) 1647 – William Louis, Duke of Württemberg (died 1677) 1685 – Jonas Alströmer, Swedish agronomist and businessman (died 1761) 1706 – Johann Heinrich Zedler, German publisher (died 1751) 1713 – Giovanni Battista Locatelli, Italian opera director and manager (died 1785) 1718 – Israel Putnam, American general (died 1790) 1746 – George Elphinstone, 1st Viscount Keith, Scottish admiral and politician (died 1823) 1768 – Joseph Bonaparte, Italian king (died 1844) 1797 – Mariano Paredes, Mexican general and 16th president (1845–1846) (died 1849) 1800 – Millard Fillmore, American politician, 13th President of the United States (died 1874) 1814 – Robert Nicoll, Scottish poet (died 1837) 1815 – Elizabeth Louisa Foster Mather, American writer (died 1882) 1827 – Sandford Fleming, Scottish-Canadian engineer, created Universal Standard Time (died 1915) 1830 – Albert Bierstadt, American painter (died 1902) 1831 – Heinrich von Stephan, German postman, founded the Universal Postal Union (died 1897) 1832 – James Munro, Scottish-Australian publisher and politician, 15th Premier of Victoria (died 1908) 1834 – Johann Philipp Reis, German physicist and academic, invented the Reis telephone (died 1874) 1837 – Thomas Henry Ismay, English businessman, founded the White Star Line Shipping Company (died 1899) 1844 – Bernadette Soubirous, French nun and saint (died 1879) 1856 – Evald Relander, Finnish teacher, agronomist and banker (died 1926) 1858 – Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, Belarusian lexicographer and journalist (died 1922) 1863 – Anna Murray Vail, American botanist and first librarian of the New York Botanical Garden (died 1955) 1871 – Émile Borel, French mathematician and politician (died 1956) 1873 – Charles Péguy, French poet and journalist (died 1914) 1873 – Adolph Zukor, Hungarian-American film producer, co-founded Paramount Pictures (died 1976) 1875 – Gustav Flatow, German gymnast (died 1945) 1876 – William Hurlstone, English pianist and composer (died 1906) 1877 – William Clarence Matthews, American baseball player, coach, and lawyer (died 1928) 1889 – Vera de Bosset, Russian-American ballerina (died 1982)In "Stravinsky: Discoveries and Memories" (Craft, Robert, Naxos Books, 2013, , p. 154), Robert Craft recalls that "after an emotionally and physically exhausting day...Vera abruptly announced that she could not keep up, and that she was four years older than the dates on her passport." This would mean her true birth date was 1/7/1885, and her age at death 97. 1890 – Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson, American soldier, pulp magazine writer, and pioneer of the American comic book (died 1965) 1891 – Zora Neale Hurston, American novelist, short story writer, and folklorist (died 1960) 1895 – Hudson Fysh, Australian pilot and businessman, co-founded Qantas Airways Limited (died 1974) 1898 – Al Bowlly, Mozambican-English singer-songwriter (disputed; (died 1941) 1899 – Francis Poulenc, French pianist and composer (died 1963) 1899 – F. Orlin Tremaine, American magazine executive, writer, and magazine editor (Astounding Stories) (died 1956); 1900 – John Brownlee, Australian actor and singer (died 1969)
1901–present 1903 – Alan Napier, English actor (died 1988) 1903 – Hooley Smith, Canadian ice hockey player (died 1963) 1904 – Joseph Whitty, Irish Republican died while on hunger strike at Curragh Internment camp (died 1923) 1908 – Red Allen, American trumpet player (died 1967) 1910 – Orval Faubus, American soldier and politician, 36th Governor of Arkansas (died 1994) 1912 – Charles Addams, American cartoonist, created The Addams Family (died 1988) 1913 – Francis de Wolff, English actor (died 1984) 1913 – Johnny Mize, American baseball player, coach, and sportscaster (died 1993) 1916 – W. L. Jeyasingham, Sri Lankan geographer and academic (died 1989) 1916 – Babe Pratt, Canadian ice hockey player (died 1988) 1920 – Vincent Gardenia, Italian-American actor (died 1992) 1921 – Esmeralda Arboleda Cadavid, Colombian politician (died 1997) 1921 – Chester Kallman, American poet and translator (died 1975) 1922 – Alvin Dark, American baseball player and manager (died 2014) 1922 – Jean-Pierre Rampal, French flute player (died 2000) 1923 – Hugh Kenner, Canadian scholar and critic (died 2003) 1923 – Vaklush Tolev, Bulgarian theologian, educator, public figure and lecturer (died 2013) 1924 – Geoffrey Bayldon, English actor (died 2017) 1925 – Gerald Durrell, Indian-English zookeeper, conservationist and author, founded Durrell Wildlife Park (died 1995) 1926 – Kim Jong-pil, South Korean lieutenant and politician, 11th Prime Minister of South Korea (died 2018) 1928 – William Peter Blatty, American author and screenwriter (died 2017) 1929 – Robert Juniper, Australian painter and sculptor (died 2012) 1929 – Terry Moore, American actress 1931 – Mirja Hietamies, Finnish skier (died 2013)Mirja Eteläpää. hs.fi (obituary in Finnish) 1933 – Elliott Kastner, American-English film producer (died 2010) 1934 – Jean Corbeil, Canadian lawyer and politician, 29th Canadian Minister of Labour (died 2002) 1934 – Tassos Papadopoulos, Cypriot lawyer and politician, 5th President of Cyprus (died 2008) 1935 – Kenny Davern, American clarinet player and saxophonist (died 2006) 1935 – Valery Kubasov, Russian engineer and astronaut (died 2014) 1935 – Li Shengjiao, Chinese diplomat and international jurist (died 2017) 1936 – Hunter Davies, Scottish author and journalist 1938 – Bob Boland, Australian rugby league player and coach 1938 – Lou Graham, American golfer 1938 – Rory Storm, English singer-songwriter (died 1972) 1941 – Iona Brown, English violinist and conductor (died 2004)