321 Roman Emperor Constantine I decrees that the dies Solis Invicti (sun-day) is the day of rest in the Empire
- 1138 Conrad II von Hohenstaufen re-elected German king
- 1277 Condemnation of 219 philosophical and theological theses by Stephen Tempier, Bishop of Paris
- 1560 Christian fleet under Gian Andrea lands at Djerba, North Africa
- 1573 Turkey and Venice sign a peace treaty
- 1621 John Pieterszoon Coen's troops land on Lontor, East Indies
- 1633 Prince Frederick Henry appoints himself viceroy of Limburg
- 1644 Massachusetts establishes 1st two-chamber legislature in colonies
- 1696 English King William III departs Netherlands
1774 King George III charges colonists in Boston with attempting to injure British commerce, paving the way for the closing of the port to punish colonists for the Boston Tea Party
Cook Sights Oregon Coast
1778 Captain James Cook 1st sights Oregon coast at Yaquina Bay
Uniformitarianism
1785 Geologist James Hutton presents his full theory of uniformitarianism at a meeting of the Royal Society of Edinburgh
- 1798 The French army enters Rome: the birth of the Roman Republic
- 1799 The Royal Institution of Great Britain founded; dedicated to scientific research and education.
- 1801 Massachusetts enacts first state voter registration law
- 1808 Portugal's Prince Regent John VI arrives in Rio de Janeiro
Battle of Craonne
1814 Napoleon I of France wins the Battle of Craonne against combined Russian and Prussian force in northern France
- 1824 Giacomo Meyerbeers opera "Il Crociati in Egitto" (The Crusader in Egypt) premieres at La Fenice in Venice with famous castrato Giovanni Battista Velluti singing
- 1827 Shrigley Abduction: Ellen Turner, a wealthy heiress in Cheshire, England, is abducted by Edward Gibbon Wakefield, a future politician in colonial New Zealand
- 1829 US Senate confirms John McLean as associate justice of the US Supreme Court
- 1835 HMS Beagle returns from Concepcion to Valparaiso
- 1843 1st Catholic governor in US, Edward Kavanagh of Maine, takes office
- 1847 US General Scott occupies Vera Cruz, Mexico
- 1848 In Hawaii, Great Mahele (division of lands) signed
1850 Daniel Webster endorses Compromise of 1850, proposed by Henry Clay to settle issues over slavery between states
- 1851 Poll tax levied on Russo-Polish Jews entering Austrian Galicia ends
- 1852 Dutch telegraph traffic regulated by law
- 1854 Charles Miller patents the first US sewing machine to stitch buttonholes
- 1857 Baseball decides 9 innings constitutes an official game, not 9 runs
- 1862 US Civil War: Battle of Pea Ridge (aka Elkhorn Tavern) (Arkansas), Day 2, Confederate Generals Ben McCulloch & James McIntosh killed
- 1865 -10] Battles around Kinston, North Carolina
- 1870 Cincinnati Red Stockings, 1st pro BB team, begin 8-mo tour of Midwest & East
- 1872 -8°F (-22°C) in Boston, Massachusetts
- 1876 Battle at Gura: Ethiopian emperor Yohannes beats Egyptians
- 1881 Southern University opens in New Orleans
- 1887 North Carolina State University is founded by the North Carolina General Assembly.
- 1900 Battle at Poplar Grove South Africa, President Kruger flees
- 1902 Boers beat British troops at Tweebosch, Transvaal
The Return of Sherlock Holmes
1905 Arthur Conan Doyle publishes "The Return of Sherlock Holmes" collection in London after public pressure to revive his famous detective (Feb New York)
- 1906 Finnish Senate accepts universal suffrage, except for poor
- 1908 Cincinnati Mayor Mark Breith stands before the city council and announces that "women are not physically fit to operate automobiles"
- 1911 US sends 20,000 troops to Mexican border
- 1911 Willis Farnsworth of Petaluma, California, patents coin-operated locker
Amundsen Reaches South Pole
1912 Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen announces his team was the first to reach the South Pole on December 14, 1911, 34 days before British explorer Robert Falcon Scott
- 1914 Prince Wilhelm von Wied becomes King of Albania
- 1917 First jazz record is released on a 78 by the Original Dixieland Jass Band for Victor Talking Machine Company ("Dixie Jazz Band One Step" on one side, "Livery Stable Blues" on the other)
- 1918 H Carroll & J McCarthy's musical "Oh, Look!" premieres in NYC
Distinguished Service Medal
1918 President Woodrow Wilson authorizes US Army's Distinguished Service Medal
- 1918 World War I: Finland forms an alliance with Germany
Red Army Attacks Naval Base
1921 Red Army under Trotsky attacks sailors of Kronstadt naval base near St Petersburg, Russia
Gardel Argentine Citizenship
1923 French-born tango singer-songwriter Carlos Gardel applies for Argentine citizenship
- 1925 American Negro Congress organizes
- 1926 First transatlantic telephone call is between London and New York
- 1927 Earthquake measuring 8 on Richter scale strikes Tango, Japan
1st Nonstop America to Asia Flight
1929 First nonstop flight made from America to Asia across the Bering Strait (Nome to North Cape) by Noel Wien and Calvin Cripe for Wien Air Alaska
- 1930 Georgetown High of Chicago defeats Homer 1-0 in basketball
- 1930 NY Times agrees to capitalize the n in "Negro"
- 1932 Riots at Ford factory in Dearborn, Michigan, 4 killed
Bluebird Sets Land Speed Record
1935 Malcolm Campbell sets world land speed record speed of 276.71 mph driving his famous Blue Bird car; last record set at Daytona Beach, Florida
- 1935 Saar incorporated into Germany
Hitler Breaks Treaty of Versailles
1936 German dictator Adolf Hitler breaks the Treaty of Versailles by sending troops into the demilitarized Rhineland
- 1937 Bucharin, Jagoda & Rykov pushed out of CPSU in USSR
- 1939 Glamour magazine begins publishing
- 1939 Guy Lombardo & his Royal Canadians 1st record "Auld Lang Syne"
- 1940 Montreal Canadiens lose record tying NHL 15th straight game at home
- 1941 3rd largest snowfall then in NYC history (18.1")
- 1941 50,000 British soldiers land in Greece during WWII
- 1941 British troops invade Abyssinia (Ethiopia)
- 1942 15 Mk-VB Spitfires reach Malta
- 1942 1st cadets graduated from flying school at Tuskegee, Alabama
- 1944 Japan begins offensive in Burma
- 1945 Attack on car of Netherlands SS Police Chief Hans Rauter by Dutch resistance, Rauter injured
- 1945 Cologne taken by allied armies
- 1945 US 9th Armoured Division attacks Remagen Germany, crosses Rhine
Tito Forms Government
1945 Yugoslavia government of Josep Broz Tito forms
1946 Bikini Atoll islanders are evacuated by the US government to make way for a nuclear testing site
- 1946 Max Frisch's play "Santa Cruz" premieres in Zürich
- 1947 The Kuomintang and Communist Party of China resume full-fledged Civil War.
- 1948 The Dodecanese islands officially become part of Greece again, ending Italian rule
- 1950 Ice Pairs Championship at London won by K Kennedy & P Kennedy (USA)
Sports History
1950 Men's Figure Skating World Championship in London won by Dick Button (USA)
- 1953 South African cricket opening batsman Jackie McGlew scores an unbeaten 255 in 1st Test win against New Zealand in Wellington
- 1954 Russia wins their 1st international ice hockey competition
Sports History
1955 Baseball Commissioner Ford Frick says he favors legalization of spitter
Peter Pan
1955 The musical "Peter Pan," starring Mary Martin, is broadcast live on NBC as part of the "Producers' Showcase" series and attracts a then-record 65 million viewers
- 1958 Chicago Cardinals announce they will play their 1958 opener in Buffalo
- 1959 First aviator to fly a million miles (1.61 million km) in a jet (MC Garlow)
- 1960 Dutch Builders strike for CLA
- 1962 Ground-breaking report "Smoking and Health" published by the British Royal College of Physicians, first major report to warn of the dangers of smoking
- 1962 Launch of OSO 1, 1st astronomy satellite (solar flare data)
- 1962 The Beatles made their broadcasting debut on BBC radio
Music History
1963 John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman record their self-titled album "John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman" at Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey
Event of Interest
1965 Alabama state troopers and 600 black protesters clash in Selma during "Bloody Sunday", protesters, including future congressman John Lewis beaten and hospitalized
- 1965 Bruce Taylor takes 5-86 in debut innings for NZ after ton
- 1965 Christian-democrats win parliament in Chile
- 1966 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
- 1967 Teamster president Jimmy Hoffa begins 8-year jail sentence for defrauding the union & jury tampering (commuted Dec 23, 1971)
- 1968 The BBC broadcasts the news for the first time in color on television
- 1969 USSR performs nuclear test at the Semipalatinsk Test Site in northeast Kazakhstan
- 1970 Ice Dance Championship at Ljubljana won by Pakhomova & Gorshkov (URS)
- 1970 Ice Pairs Championship at Ljubljana won by Rodnina & Ulanov (URS)
- 1970 Ladies' Figure Skating Champ in Ljubljana won by Gabriele Seyfert (GDR)
- 1970 WXOW TV channel 19 in La Crosse, WI (ABC) begins broadcasting
- 1971 Egypt refuses to renew the Suez cease fire
The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face
1972 "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" single written by Ewan MacColl, released by Roberta Flack (Billboard Song of the Year 1972)
- 1973 Comet (Lubos) Kohoutek discovered at Hamburg Observatory
- 1974 "USS Monitor", Union Ship sunk in 1862 during US Civil War, restored at Cape Hatteras
- 1974 1st general strike in Ethiopia
Mirror
1975 "Mirror," a Russian film directed by Andrei Tarkovsky and starring Margarita Terekhova and Ignat Daniltsev, is released
Young Americans
1975 RCA releases "Young Americans," David Bowie's 9th studio album, recorded in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and New York City; featuring appearances by John Lennon on two tracks, it peaks on the U.S. charts at No. 9 and No. 2 in the U.K.
- 1975 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
- 1975 US Senate revises filibuster rule, allows 60 senators to limit debate
- 1976 Morocco & Mauretania break diplomatic relations with Algeria
- 1977 Ali Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party wins elections
- 1978 Belgian baron Charles Bracht kidnapped
- 1978 Canuck's Ron Sedlbauer fails on 5th penalty shot against Islanders
- 1978 Dutch 2nd Chamber votes against neutron bomb
- 1979 Baseball exhibition season opens with semi-pro & amateur umpires
- 1981 First homicide at Disneyland, 18-year-old Mel Yorba is stabbed to death during a fight with James O'Driscoll after allegedly pinching his girlfriend’s bottom
- 1982 Jarmilla Kratochvilova run world record 400 m indoor (49.59 sec)
- 1982 NCAA Tournament Selection televised live for 1st time
- 1983 Balkan Bulgarian Airlines flight 013 is hijacked by four men with knives demanding to fly to Vienna, Austria
- 1983 TNN (The Nashville Network) begins on Cable TV
- 1984 CIA employes attack San Juan del Sur in Nicaragua
- 1985 IBM-PC DOS Version 3.1 (update) released
- 1986 South-Africa emergency crisis in Brabant & Limburg ends
- 1987 Gavaskar becomes 1st cricket batsman to score 10,000 Test runs
Boxing Title Fight
1987 Mike Tyson beats James 'Bonecrusher' Smith by unanimous decision in 12 rounds in Las Vegas for WBC / WBA heavyweight boxing titles
- 1988 Colombia becomes a member of the Berne Convention copyright treaty
Film & TV History
1988 Howard Stern's 1st pay-per-view special "Underpants & Negligee Party" premieres
- 1988 Jim Abbott, 1-handed pitcher, wins 58th James E Sullivan Award as the top amateur athlete in the US, becoming 1st baseball player to win the award
Sports History
1989 Dino Ciccarelli is traded by the Minnesota North Stars to the Washington Capitals
Event of Interest
1989 Iran drops diplomatic relations with Britain over Salman Rushdie's book "Satanic Verses"
- 1989 Partial eclipse of the Sun (Hawaii, NW North America, Greenland)
- 1990 3 passengers killed & 162 injured as subway train derails (Philadelphia)
- 1990 Wayne Huizenga buys ½ of Joe Robbie Stadium and 15% of Dolphins for $30m
- 1991 Iraq continues to explode oil fields in Kuwait
- 1992 Nicole Stevenson swims world record 200m backstroke (2:06.78)
- 1993 Diff'rent Strokes actor Todd Bridges arrested for stabbing a tenant
Event of Interest
1994 ANC chief Nelson Mandela rejects demand by white right-wingers for separate homeland in South Africa
- 1994 The United States Supreme Court rules in Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc. that parodies of an original work are generally covered by the doctrine of fair use
- 1994 US Navy issues first permanent order assigning women to combat ships
- 1995 NY becomes 38th state to have the death penalty
- 1995 US dollar worth record 1.5330 Dutch guilders
- 1996 British Steel in Workington wins Lithuanian multi-million pound order
- 1996 First surface photos of Pluto are taken by the Hubble Space Telescope
Sports History
1996 Magic Johnson becomes the second NBA player to reach 10,000 career assists
- 1996 The first democratically elected Palestinian parliament formed
- 1997 Athens, Buenos Aires, Cape Town, Rome, and Stockholm are selected as finalists to host the 2004 Olympics
- 1997 Five individuals sue Japanese Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto, claiming his smoking violates the country's constitution, which guarantees a wholesome life
- 2004 New Democracy wins the national elections in Greece
- 2005 Mass protest outside the National Assembly of Kuwait building for women's voting rights in Kuwait
- 2007 British House of Commons votes to make the upper chamber, the House of Lords, 100% elected
Neymar Debuts
2009 Despite being only 17 years old, Brazilian soccer star Neymar makes his professional debut for Santos
Sports History
2009 The Al Oerter Recreation Center opens in Flushing Meadows Corona Park in Flushing, Queens
- 2011 "Crazy Girl" single released by Eli Young Band (ACM Awards Song of the Year 2012, Billboard Song of the Year 2011)
Film & TV History
2011 Charlie Sheen is fired from the CBS sitcom "Two and a Half Men"
- 2013 Hilary Mantel is awarded the 2013 David Cohen Prize for literature
- 2013 UN Security Council approves further North Korean sanctions for its nuclear testing
- 2015 54 people are killed & 143 are wounded by 5 Boko Haram suicide bombings in Maiduguri city, Nigeria
Sports History
2015 Chris Sharma completes the first ascent of El Bon Combat in Cova de l'Ocell, Spain, initially considered close to 9b+ (5.15c)
Sports History
2016 Peyton Manning announces his retirement from the Denver Broncos and the NFL
Sports History
2016 Russian tennis star Maria Sharapova reveals failed drug test for meldonium at Australian Open in January, subsequently suspended for 15 months
- 2017 19 girls killed in a fire at a government-run care center in San José Pinula, Guatemala
- 2017 Malta's famous landmark the Azure Window collapses into the sea after a storm
- 2019 Chinese telecommunications company Huawei sues the US government over a federal ban on its products
- 2019 Power and communications blackout begins in Venezuela
- 2019 Thailand's Constitutional Court dissolves opposition party Thai Raksa Chart, after it nominated the King's sister as candidate for Prime Minister
- 2021 Explosions at a military base in Bata, Equatorial Guinea, likely from faulty storage of dynamite, kills at least 98 and injures over 400 [1]
No Way I Resign (He Did)
2021 NY Governor Andrew Cuomo says "no way I resign' amid accusations of sexual assault and his office concealing nursing home deaths
- 2022 Global death toll from Covid-19 passes 6 million according to Johns Hopkins figures, with 57% of the world's population fully vaccinated [1]
- 2022 UN refugee agency says Russian invasion of Ukraine has now led to 1.7 million people fleeing the country, civilian deaths recorded at 406 with 801 injured [1]
- 2023 1.28 million people protest in nationwide demonstrations throughout France against government plans tp raise the pension age from 62 to 64 [1]
- 2023 British architect David Chipperfield is awarded Architecture's Pritzker Prize [1]
- 2023 China and America are heading toward inevitable "confrontation and conflict", unless America changes course warns Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang [1]
Gender Equality Slips Away
2023 Gender equality now "300 years away” and "vanishing before our eyes" for reasons including maternal mortality and early marriage, according to UN Secretary General António Guterres in speech for International Woman's Day [1]
- 2024 More than 300 children kidnapped from their school in Kuriga town, northwest Nigeria, the latest in a run of kidnappings to the area [1]
- 2024 Sweden officially joins NATO as the alliance's 32nd member, abandoning its 200-year policy of neutrality [1]
State of the Union
2024 US President Joe Biden gives a fiery state of the union speech to Congress, addressing the question of his age head on [1]
Jokić Makes History
2025 Nikola Jokić makes NBA history recording the league's first ever 30-point, 20-rebound, 20-assist game as his Denver Nuggets beat the Phoenix Suns 149-141 OT
