Also, the Boston Tea Party.dlbpharmd wrote: Dec 16 stuff
(I know because it's the best day of the year because it also happens to be my burfday. Duh.)
Today in history
December 20
69 Vespians's supporters enter Rome and discover Vitellius in hiding. He is dragged through the streets before being brutally murdered.
1355 Stephen Urosh IV of Serbia dies while marching to attack Constantinople.
1802 The United States buys the Louisiana territory from France.
1860 South Carolina secedes from the Union.
1861 English transports loaded with 8,000 troops set sail for Canada so that troops are available if the "Trent Affair" is not settled without war.
1924 Adolf Hitler is released from prison after serving less than one year of a five year sentence for treason.
1930 Thousands of Spaniards sign a revolutionary manifesto.
1933 The German government announces 400,000 citizens are to be sterilized because of hereditary defects.
1938 First electronic television system is patented.
1941 The Flying Tigers, American pilots in China, enter combat against the Japanese over Kunming.
1943 Soviet forces halt a German army trying to relieve the besieged city of Stalingrad.
1946 Viet Minh and French forces fight fiercely in Annamite section of Hanoi.
1948 U.S. Supreme Court announces that it has no jurisdiction to hear the appeals of Japanese war criminals sentenced by the International Military Tribunal.
1960 National Liberation Front is formed by guerrillas fighting the Diem regime in South Vietnam.
1962 In its first free election in 38 years, the Dominican Republic chooses leftist Juan Bosch Gavino as president.
1963 Four thousand cross the Berlin Wall to visit relatives under a 17-day Christmas accord.
1989 U.S. troops invade Panama to oust General Manuel Noriega and replace him with Guillermo Endara.
December 21
68 Vespian, a gruff-spoken general of humble origins, enters Rome and is named emperor by the Senate.
1620 The Pilgrims land at Plymouth Rock.
1708 French forces seize control of the eastern shore of Newfoundland after winning a victory at St. John's.
1790 Samuel Slater opens the first cotton mill in the United States (in Rhode Island).
1862 The U.S. Congress authorizes the Medal of Honor to be awarded to Navy personnel who have distinguished themselves by their gallantry in action.
1866 Indians, led by Red Cloud and Crazy Horse, kill Captain William J. Fetterman and 79 other men who had ventured out from Fort Phil Kearny to cut wood.
1910 Over 2.5 million plague victims are reported in the An-Hul province of China.
1928 President Calvin Coolidge signs the Boulder Dam bill.
1944 German troops surround the 101st Airborne Division at the Bastogne in Belgium.
1945 General George S. Patton dies at the age of 60 after being injured in a car accident.
1946 An earthquake and tidal wave kill hundreds in Japan.
1963 The Turk minority riots in Cyprus to protest anti-Turkish revisions in the constitution.
1964 Great Britain's House of Commons votes to ban the death penalty.
1965 Four pacifists are indicted in New York for burning draft cards.
1969 American draft evaders gather for a holiday dinner in Montreal, Canada.
1986 500,000 Chinese students gather in Shanghai's People's Square calling for democratic reforms, including freedom of the press.
1988 Pan Am Flight 103 from London to New York explodes in midair over Lockerbie, Scotland, an hour after departure. All 259 passengers were killed in the explosion caused by a bomb-- hidden inside an audio cassette player -- that detonated inside the cargo area when the plane was at an altitude of 31,000 feet. A shower of airplane parts falling from the sky also killed 11 Lockerbie residents.
December 22
1135 Stephen of Blois is crowned the king of England.
1775 Esek Hopkins takes command of the Continental Navy -- a total of seven ships.
1807 Congress passes the Embargo Act, which halts all trading completely. It is hoped that the act will keep the United States out the European Wars.
1829 The Baltimore & Ohio Railroad opens the first passenger railway line.
1918 The last of the food restrictions, enforced because of the shortages during World War I, are lifted.
1929 Soviet troops leave Manchuria after a truce is reached with the Chinese over the Eastern Railway dispute.
1941 Japanese troops make an amphibious landing on the coast of Lingayen Gulf on Luzon, the Philippines.
1942 The Soviets drive German troops back 15 miles at the Don River.
1944 During the Battle of the Bulge, General Anthony McAuliffe responds to a German surrender request with a one word answer: "Nuts!"
1945 The United States recognizes Tito's government in Yugoslavia.
1965 The EF-105F Wild Weasel makes its first kill over Vietnam.
1966 The United States announces the allocation of 900,000 tons of grain to fight the famine in India.
1989 The Romanian government of Nicolae Ceausescu is overthrown, ending 42 years of communist rule.
December 23
1861 Lord Lyons, The British minister to America presents a formal complaint to secretary of state, William Seward, regarding the Trent affair.
1900 The Federal Party, which recognizes American sovereignty, is formed in the Philippines.
1919 Great Britain institutes a new constitution for India.
1921 President Warren G. Harding frees Socialist Eugene Debs and 23 other political prisoners.
1933 Pope Pius XI condemns the Nazi sterilization program.
1937 London warns Rome to stop anti-British propaganda in Palestine.
1939 The first Canadian troops arrive in Britain.
1940 Chiang Kai-shek dissolves all Communist associations in China.
1941 Despite throwing back an earlier Japanese amphibious assault, the U.S. Marines and Navy defenders on Wake Island capitulate to a second Japanese invasion.
1944 General Dwight D. Eisenhower confirms the death sentence of Private Eddie Slovik, the only American shot for desertion since the Civil War.
1947 President Harry S Truman grants a pardon to 1,523 who had evaded the World War II draft.
1948 Japan's Prime Minister, Hideki Tojo and six other collaborators are hanged for war crimes.
1950 General Walton H. Walker, the commander of the Eighth Army in Korea, is killed in a jeep accident. Lieutenant General Matthew B. Ridgeway is named his successor.
1967 U.S. Navy SEALs are ambushed during an operation southeast of Saigon.
1974 The B-1 bomber makes its first successful test flight.
1986 The Voyager completes the first nonstop flight around the globe on one load of fuel. The experimental aircraft, piloted Americans Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager, landed at Edwards Air Force Base in California after nine days and four minutes in the sky.
December 24
1638 The Ottomans under Murad IV recapture Baghdad from Safavid Persia.
1812 Joel Barlow, aged 58, American poet and lawyer, dies from exposure near Vilna, Poland, during Napoleon's retreat from Moscow.
Barlow was on a diplomatic mission to the emperor for President Madison.
1814 A treaty of peace between the United States and Great Britain, ending the War of 1812, is signed at Ghent, Belgium. The news does not reach the United States until two weeks later (after the decisive American victory at New Orleans).
1861 The USS Gem of the Sea destroys the British blockade runner Prince of Wales off the coast at Georgetown, S.C.
1862 A Christmas present arrives a day early for the Federal troops at Columbus, Kentucky, in the way of artillery on board the USS New Era.
1914 Over 577,000 Allied soldiers are to spend Christmas as prisoners in Germany.
1917 The Kaiser warns Russia that he will use "iron fist" and "shining sword" if peace is spurned.
1943 General Dwight D. Eisenhower is appointed the Allied Supreme Commander, even though almost everyone believed the position would go to American Chief of Staff George C. Marshall.
1947 An estimated 20,000 communists, led by guerrilla General Markos Vafthiades proclaim the Free Greek Government in northern Greece. They issue a call to arms to establish the regime throughout the nation.
1956 African Americans defy a city law in Tallahassee, Florida, and occupy front bus seats.
1963 New York's Idlewild Airport is renamed JFK Airport in honor of the murdered President Kennedy.
1964 The U.S. headquarters in Saigon is hit by a bomb killing two officers.
1966 A Soviet research vehicle soft-lands on the moon.
1967 The Greek Junta frees ex-Premier Papandreou.
1968 The first pictures of an Earth-rise over the moon are seen as the crew of Apollo 8 orbits the moon.
1970 Nine GIs are killed and nine are wounded by friendly fire in Vietnam.
1972 Hanoi bars all peace talks with the United States until U.S. air raids over North Vietnam stop.
1974 An oil tanker's spill pollutes 1,600 square miles of Japan's Inland Sea.
Merry Christmas!
376 In Milan, Ambrose, the Bishop of Milan, forces the emperor Theodosius to perform public penance for his massacre.
800 The pope crowns Charlemagne emperor in Rome.
1066 William I is crowned king of England.
1621 The governor of New Plymouth prevents newcomers from playing cards.
1651 The General Court of Boston levies a five shilling fine on anyone caught "observing any such day as Christmas."
1776 Patriot General George Washington crosses the Delaware River with 5,400 troops during the American Revolution. Washington hoped to surprise a Hessian force celebrating Christmas at their winter quarters in Trenton, New Jersey.
1861 Stonewall Jackson spends Christmas with his wife; their last together.
1862 John Hunt Morgan and his raiders clash with Union forces near Bear Wallow, Kentucky.
1862 President and Mrs. Lincoln visit hospitals in the Washington D.C. area on this Christmas Day.
1912 Italy lands troops in Albania to protect its interests during a revolt there.
1914 German and British troops on the Western Front declare an unofficial truce to celebrate Christmas during World War I.
1918 A revolt erupts in Berlin.
1925 U.S. troops in Nicaragua disarm insurgents in support of the Diaz regime.
1927 The Mexican congress opens land to foreign investors, reversing the 1917 ban enacted to preserve the domestic economy.
1939 Finnish troops enter Soviet territory.
1941 Free French troops occupy the French Islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon off the Canadian coast.
1944 Prime Minister Winston Churchill goes to Athens to seek an end to the Greek civil war.
1946 Chiang Kai-shek offers a new Chinese constitution in Nanking pledging universal suffrage.
1950 Scottish nationalists steal the Stone of Scone from the British coronation throne in Westminster Abbey. The 485 pound stone was recovered in April 1951.
1962 The Bay of Pigs captives, upon their return to the United States, vow to return to Cuba and topple Fidel Castro.
1965 Entertainer Chris Noel gives her first performance for the USO at two hospitals in California, she will eventually entertain in Vietnam.
1973 U.S. astronauts onboard the Skylab space station take a seven-hour walk in space and photograph the comet Kohoutek.
1976 Over 100 Muslims, returning from a pilgrimage to Mecca, die when their boat sinks.
1979 Egypt begins major restoration of the Sphinx.
1991 Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet Union's first and last executive president, resigns. The Soviet Union no longer exsists.
2006 James Brown, the "Godfather of Soul", dies at age 73.
December 26
1776 After crossing the Delaware River into New Jersey, George Washington leads an attack on Hessian mercenaries at Trenton, and takes 900 men prisoner.
1786 Daniel Shay leads a rebellion in Massachusetts to protest the seizure of property for the non-payment of debt.
1806 Napoleon's army is checked by the Russians at the Battle of Pultusk.
1862 38 Santee Sioux are hanged in Mankato, Minnesota for their part in the Sioux Uprising in Minnesota. Little Crow has fled the state.
1866 Brig. Gen. Philip St. George Cooke, head of the Department of the Platte, receives word of the Fetterman Fight in Powder River County in the Dakota territory.
1917 As a wartime measure, President Woodrow Wilson places railroads under government control, with Secretary of War William McAdoo as director general.
1925 Six U.S. destroyers are ordered from Manila to China to protect interests in the civil war that is being waged there.
1932 Over 70,000 people are killed in a massive earthquake in China.
1941 General Douglas MacArthur declares Manila an open city in the face of the onrushing Japanese Army.
1943 The German battleship Scharnhorst is sunk by British ships in an Arctic fight.
1944 Advancing Soviet troops complete their encirclement of Budapest in Hungary.
1945 The United States, Soviet Union and Great Britain, end a 10-day meeting, seeking an atomic rule by the UN Council.
1953 The United States announces the withdrawal of two divisions from Korea.
1962 Eight East Berliners escape to West Berlin, crashing through gates in an armor-plated bus.
1966 Dr. Maulana Karenga celebrates the first Kwanza, a seven-day African-American celebration of family and heritage.
1979 The Soviet Union flies 5,000 troops to intervene in the Afghanistan conflict.
2006 Former U.S. President Gerald R. Ford dies at age 93. Ford was the only unelected president in America's history.
December 27
1512 The laws of Burgos give New World natives legal protection against abuse and authorize Negro slavery.
1831 HMS Beagle, with Charles Darwin on board, departs from Plymouth. It will eventually visit the Galapagos Islands where Darwin will form his theories on evolution.
1862 Union General William Rosecrans' army begins moving slowly toward Murfreesboro.
1913 Charles Moyer, president of the Miners Union, is shot in the back and dragged through the streets of Chicago.
1915 In Ohio, iron and steel workers go on strike for an eight-hour day and higher wages.
1932 Radio City Music Hall opens.
1933 Josef Stalin calls tensions with Japan a grave danger.
1939 A series of vicious earthquakes take 11,000 lives in Turkey.
1941 Japanese bombers attack Manila, despite its claim as an open city.
1944 General George S. Patton's Third Army, spearheaded by the 4th Armored Division, relieves the surrounded city of Bastogne in Belgium.
1945 The International Monetary Fund and the Bank for Reconstruction and Development are created.
1947 The new Italian constitution is promulgated in Rome.
1950 The United States and Spain resume relations for the first time since the Spanish Civil War of the 1930s.
1956 Segregation on buses in Tallahassee, Florida is outlawed.
1968 The United States agrees to sell F-4 Phantom jets to Israel.
1979 President Hafizullah Amin of Afghanistan is ousted and murdered in a coup backed by the Soviet Union, beginning a war that will last more than 10 years.
1983 President Reagan takes all responsibility for the lack of security in Beirut that allowed a terrorist on a suicide mission to kill 241 Marines.
1984 Four Polish officers are tried for the slaying of Reverend Jerzy Popieluszko.
December 28
1688 William of Orange makes a triumphant march into London as James II flees.
1694 George I of England gets divorced.
1846 Iowa is admitted as the 29th State of the Union.
1872 A U.S. Army force defeats a group of Apache warriors at Salt River Canyon, Arizona Territory, with 57 Indians killed but only one soldier.
1904 Farmers in Georgia burn two million bales of cotton to prop up falling prices.
1920 The United States resumes the deportation of communists and suspected communists.
1933 President Franklin D. Roosevelt states, "The definite policy of the United States, from now on, is one opposed to armed intervention."
1936 Benito Mussolini sends planes to Spain to support Francisco Franco's forces.
1938 France orders the doubling of forces in Somaliland; two warships are sent.
1946 The French declare martial law in Vietnam as a full-scale war appears inevitable.
1948 Premier Nokrashy Pasha of Egypt is assassinated by a member of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood because of his failure to achieve victory in the war against Israel.
1951 The United States pays $120,000 to free four fliers convicted of espionage in Hungary.
1965 The United States bars oil sales to Rhodesia.
1968 Israel attacks an airport in Beirut, destroying 13 planes.
1971 The U.S. Justice Department sues Mississippi officials for ignoring the voting ballots of blacks in that state.
December 29
1170 Thomas Becket, the archbishop of Canterbury, is murdered in Canterbury Cathedral by four knights of Henry II.
1607 Indian chief Powhatan spares John Smith's life after the pleas of his daughter Pocahontas.
1778 British troops, attempting a new strategy to defeat the colonials in America, capture Savannah.
1845 Texas (comprised of the present state of Texas and part of New Mexico, Colorado, and Wyoming) is admitted as the 28th state of the Union, with the provision that the area (389,166 square miles) should be divided into no more than five states "of convenient size."
1849 Gas lighting is installed in the White House.
1862 Union General William T. Sherman's troops try to gain the north side of Vicksburg in the Battle of Chickasaw Bluffs.
1890 The last major conflict of the Indian wars takes place at Wounded Knee Creek in South Dakota after Colonel James W. Forsyth of the 7th Cavalry tries to disarm Chief Big Foot and his followers.
1914 The production of Belgian newspapers is halted to protest German censorship.
1921 Sears Roebuck president Julius Rosenwald pledges $20 million of his personal fortune to help Sears through hard times.
1926 Germany and Italy sign an arbitration treaty.
1934 Japan formally denounces Washington Naval Treaty of 1922.
1940 In a radio interview, President Roosevelt proclaims the United States to be the "arsenal of democracy."
1940 London suffers its most devastating air raid when Germans firebomb the city on the evening of December 29.
1948 Tito declares Yugoslavia will follow its own path to Communism.
1956 President Dwight Eisenhower asks Congress for the authority to oppose Soviet aggression in the Middle East.
1965 A Christmas truce is observed in Vietnam, while President Johnson tries to get the North Vietnamese to the bargaining table.
1981 President Ronald Reagan curtails Soviet trade in reprisal for its hash policies on Poland.
December 30
1460 The Duke of York is defeated and killed by Lancastrians at the Battle of Wakefield.
1803 The United States takes possession of the Louisiana area from France at New Orleans with a simple ceremony, the simultaneous lowering and raising of the national flags.
1861 Banks in the United States suspend the practice of redeeming paper money for metal currency, a practice that would continue until 1879.
1862 The draft of the Emancipation Proclamation is finished and circulated among President Abraham Lincoln's cabinet for comment.
1905 Governor Frank Steunenberg of Idaho is killed by an assassin's bomb.
1922 Soviet Russia is renamed the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
1932 The Soviet Union bars food handouts for housewives under 36 years of age. They must now work to eat.
1947 Romania's King Michael is forced to abdicate by Soviet-backed Communists. Communists now control all of Eastern Europe.
1965 Ferdinand E. Marcos is sworn in as the Philippine Republic's sixth president.
1972 After two weeks of heavy bombing raids on North Vietnam, President Nixon halts the air offensive and agrees to resume peace negotiations with Hanoi representative Le Duc Tho.
1976 Governor Carey of New York pardons seven inmates, closing the book on the Attica uprising.
2006 Saddam Hussein, former Iraq dictator, is executed by hanging for crimes committed against his own people during his rule.
December 31
1775 George Washington orders recruiting officers to accept free blacks into the army.
1852 The richest year of the gold rush ends with $81.3 million in gold produced.
1862 Union General William Rosecrans' army repels two Confederate attacks at the Battle of Murfreesboro (Stone's River).
1910 John B. Moisant and Arch Hoxsey, two of America's foremost aviators, die in separate plane crashes.
1911 Helene Dutrieu wins the Femina aviation cup in Etampes. She sets a distance record for women at 158 miles.
1915 The Germans torpedo the British liner Persia without any warning killing 335 passengers.
1923 The Sahara is crossed by an automobile for the first time.
1930 Brewery heir Adolphus Busch is kidnapped.
1941 General MacArthur reports that U.S. lines in Manila have been pushed back by the Japanese.
1942 After five months of battle, Emperor Hirohito allows the Japanese commanders at Guadalcanal to retreat.
1944 Hungary declares war on Germany.
1965 California becomes the largest state in population.
1977 Cambodia breaks relations with Vietnam.
January 1
1500 The Portuguese explorer Pedro Alvares Cabral searches the coast of Brazil and claims the region for Portugal.
1586 Sir Francis Drake launches a surprise attack on the heavily fortified city of Santo Domingo in Hipanola.
1698 The Abenaki Indians and Massachusetts colonists sign a treaty halting hostilities between the two.
1766 The Old Pretender, son of James III, dies.
1788 The Times, London's oldest running newspaper, publishes its first edition.
1808 A U.S. law banning the import of slaves comes into effect, but is widely ignored.
1824 The Camp Street Theatre opens as the first English-language playhouse in New Orleans.
1830 William Lloyd Garrison publishes the first edition of a journal entitled The Liberator, calling for the complete and immediate emancipation of all slaves in the United States.
1863 Confederate General Braxton Bragg and Union General William Rosecrans readjust their troops as the Battle of Murfreesboro continues.
1863 President Abraham Lincoln issues the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing the slaves in the Confederacy.
1891 Facilities opened on Ellis Island, New York, to cope with the vast flood of immigrants coming into the United States.
1907 The Pure Food and Drug Act becomes law in the United States.
1915 The German submarine U-24 sinks the British battleship Formidable off the coast of Plymouth Massachusetts.
1918 The first gasoline pipeline begins operation. Along the 40 miles and three inches of pipe from Salt Creek to Casper, Wyoming.
1923 Sadi Lecointe sets a new aviation speed record flying an average of 208 mph at Istres.
1937 At a party at the Hormel Mansion in Minnesota, a guest wins $100 for naming a new canned meat--Spam.
1945 In Operation Bodenplatte, German planes attack American forward air bases in Europe. This is the last major offensive of the Luftwaffe.
1959 Fidel Castro seizes power in Cuba as General Fulgencio Batista flees.
1986 As the United States builds its strength in the Mediterranean, Libyan leader Muammar al-Qaddafi threatens to retaliate if attacked.
January 2
1492 Catholic forces under King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella take the town of Granada, the last Muslim kingdom in Spain.
1758 The French begin bombardment of Madras, India.
1839 Photography pioneer Louis Daguerre takes the first photograph of the moon.
1861 The USS Brooklyn is readied at Norfolk to aid Fort Sumter.
1863 In the second day of hard fighting at Stone's River, near Murfreesboro, Tenn., Union troops defeat the Confederates.
1903 President Theodore Roosevelt closes a post office in Indianola, Mississippi, for refusing to hire a Black postmistress.
1904 U.S. Marines are sent to Santo Domingo to aid the government against rebel forces.
1905 After a six-month siege, Russians surrender Port Arthur to the Japanese.
1918 Russian Bolsheviks threaten to re-enter the war unless Germany returns occupied territory.
1932 Japanese forces in Manchuria set up a puppet government known as Manchukuo.
1936 In Berlin, Nazi officials claim that their treatment of Jews is not the business of the League of Nations.
1942 In the Philippines, the city of Manila and the U.S. Naval base at Cavite fall to Japanese forces.
1943 The Allies capture Buna in New Guinea.
1963 In Vietnam, the Viet Cong down five U.S. helicopters in the Mekong Delta. 30 Americans are reported dead.
1966 American G.I.s move into the Mekong Delta for the first time.
1973 The United States admits the accidental bombing of a Hanoi hospital.
1980 President Jimmy Carter asks the U.S. Senate to delay the arms treaty ratification in response to Soviet action in Afghanistan.
January 3
1521 Martin Luther is excommunicated from the Catholic Church.
1777 General George Washington defeats the British led by British General Lord Charles Cornwallis, at Princeton, New Jersey.
1861 Delaware rejects a proposal that it join the South in seceding from the Union.
1903 The Bulgarian government renounces the Treaty of Commerce tying it to the Austro-Hungarian empire.
1910 The Social Democratic Congress in Germany demands universal suffrage.
1912 Plans are announced for a new $150,000 Brooklyn stadium for the Trolley Dodgers baseball team.
1916 Three armored Japanese cruisers are ordered to guard the Suez Canal.
1920 The last of the U.S. troops depart France.
1921 Italy halts the issuing of passports to those emigrating to the United States.
1924 King Tutankhamen's sarcophagus is uncovered near Luxor, Egypt.
1930 The second conference on Germany's war reparations begins at the Hague, in the Netherlands.
1931 Hundreds of farmers storm a small town in depression-plagued Arkansas demanding food.
1933 The Japanese take Shuangyashan, China, killing 500 Chinese.
1946 President Harry S. Truman calls on Americans to spur Congress to act on the on-going labor crisis.
1958 The British create the West Indies Federation with Lord Hailes as governor general.
1959 Alaska is admitted into the Union as the 49th and largest state.
1959 Fidel Castro takes command of the Cuban army.
1961 The United States breaks diplomatic relations with Cuba.
1966 Cambodia warns the United Nations of retaliation unless the United States and South Vietnam end intrusions.
1978 North Vietnamese troops reportedly occupy 400 square miles in Cambodia. North Vietnamese Army (NVA) troops were using Laos and Cambodia as staging areas for attacks against allied forces.
1985 President Ronald Reagan condemns a rash of arson attacks on abortion clinics.
January 4
1757 Robert Francois Damiens makes an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate King Louis XV of France.
1863 Union General Henry Halleck, by direction of President Abraham Lincoln, orders General Ulysses Grant to revoke his infamous General Order No. 11 that expelled Jews from his operational area.
1896 Utah becomes the 45th state of the Union.
1902 France offers to sell their Nicaraguan Canal rights to the United States.
1904 The U.S. Supreme Court decides in the Gonzales v. Williams case that Puerto Ricans are not aliens and can enter the United States freely, yet stops short of awarding citizenship.
1920 The Negro National League, the first black baseball league, is organized by Rube Foster.
1923 The Paris Conference on war reparations hits a deadlock as the French insist on the hard line and the British insist on Reconstruction.
1935 President Franklin D. Roosevelt claims in his State of the Union message that the federal government will provide jobs for 3.5 million Americans on welfare.
1936 Billboard magazine publishes its first music hit parade.
1941 On the Greek-Albanian front, the Greeks launch an attack towards Valona from Berat to Klisura against the Italians.
1942 Japanese forces begin the evacuation of Guadalcanal.
1951 UN forces abandon Seoul, Korea to the Chinese Communist Army.
1952 The French Army in Indochina launches Operation Nenuphar in hopes of ejecting a Viet Minh division from the Ba Tai forest.
1969 Spain returns the Ifni province to Morocco.
1974 President Richard Nixon refuses to hand over tape recordings and documents that had been subpoenaed by the Senate Watergate Committee.
1975 The Khmer Rouge launches its newest assault in its five-year war in Phnom Penh. The war in Cambodia would go on until the spring of 1975.
1979 Ohio officials approve an out-of-court settlement awarding $675,000 to the victims and families in the 1970 shootings at Kent State University, in which four students were killed and nine wounded by National Guard troops.
1999 The euro, the new money of 11 European nations, goes into effect on the continent of Europe.
2007 Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-California) became the first female speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives.
January 5
1477 Swiss troops defeat the forces under Charles the Bold of Burgundy at the Battle of Nancy.
1815 Federalists from all over New England, angered over the War of 1812, draw up the Hartford Convention, demanding several important changes in the U.S. Constitution.
1861 The merchant vessel Star of the West sets sail from New York to Fort Sumter, in response to rebel attack, carrying supplies and 250 troops.
1904 American Marines arrive in Seoul, Korea, to guard the U.S. legation there.
1914 Henry Ford astounds the world as he announces that he will pay a minimum wage of $5 a day and will share with employees $10 million in the previous year's profits.
1917 Bulgarian and German troops occupy the Port of Braila.
1919 British ships shell the Bolshevik headquarters in Riga.
1920 GOP women demand equal representation at the Republican National Convention in June.
1921 Wagner's "Die Walkyrie" opens in Paris. This is the first German opera performed in Paris since the beginning of World War I.
1923 The U.S. Senate debates the benefits of Peyote for the American Indian.
1925 Nellie Tayloe Ross of Wyoming is sworn in as the first woman governor in the United States.
1936 Daggha Bur, Ethiopia, is bombed by the Italians.
1942 U.S. and Filipino troops complete their withdrawal to a new defensive line along the base of the Bataan peninsula.
1947 Great Britain nationalizes its coal mines.
1951 Inchon, South Korea, the sight of General Douglas MacArthur's amphibious flanking maneuver, is abandoned by United Nations force to the advancing Chinese Army.
1952 Prime Minister Winston Churchill arrives in Washington to confer with President Harry S. Truman.
1968 U.S. forces in Vietnam launch Operation Niagara I to locate enemy units around the Marine base at Khe Sanh.
1969 President Richard M. Nixon appoints Henry Cabot Lodge as negotiator at the Paris Peace Talks.
1971 President Richard M. Nixon names Robert Dole as chairman of the Republican National Party.
1982 A Federal judge voids a state law requiring balanced classroom treatment of evolution and creationism.