1491 – Jacques Cartier, French navigator and explorer (d. 1557) was born.
1600 – The British East India Company is chartered.
1695 – A window tax is imposed in England, causing many householders to brick up windows to avoid the tax.
1757 – Empress Elizabeth I of Russia issues her ukase incorporating Königsberg into Russia.
1759 – Arthur Guinness signs a 9,000 year lease at £45 per annum and starts brewing Guinness.
1775 – American Revolutionary War: Battle of Quebec: British forces repulse an attack by Continental Army General Richard Montgomery.
1790 – Efimeris, the oldest Greek newspaper of which issues have survived till today, is published for the first time.
1796 – The incorporation of Baltimore as a city.
1831 – Gramercy Park is deeded to New York City.
1853 – A dinner party is held inside a life-size model of an iguanodon created by Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins and Sir Richard Owen in south London, England.
1857 – Queen Victoria chooses Ottawa, then a small logging town, as the capital of Canada.
1862 – American Civil War: Abraham Lincoln signs an act that admits West Virginia to the Union, thus dividing Virginia in two.
1862 – American Civil War: The Battle of Stones River begins near Murfreesboro, Tennessee.
1878 – Karl Benz, working in Mannheim, Germany, filed for a patent on his first reliable two-stroke gas engine, and he was granted the patent in 1879.
1879 – Thomas Edison demonstrates incandescent lighting to the public for the first time, in Menlo Park, New Jersey.
1907 – The first New Year’s Eve celebration is held in Times Square (then known as Longacre Square) in New York, New York.
1909 – Manhattan Bridge opens.
1923 – The chimes of Big Ben are broadcast on radio for the first time by the BBC.
1937 – Anthony Hopkins, Welsh-American actor, director, and composer was born.
1942 – Andy Summers, English guitarist, songwriter, and producer (The Police and Zoot Money’s Big Roll Band) was born
1943 – John Denver, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and actor (The John Denver Band and Chad Mitchell Trio) (d. 1997) was born.
1943 – Pete Quaife, English bass player (The Kinks) (d. 2010) was born.
1944 – World War II: Hungary declares war on Nazi Germany.
1944 – World War II: Operation Nordwind, the last major German offensive on the Western Front begins.
1946 – President Harry S. Truman officially proclaims the end of hostilities in World War II.
1947 – Burton Cummings, Canadian keyboard player and songwriter (The Guess Who) was born.
1948 – Donna Summer, American singer-songwriter and actress (d. 2012) was born.
1951 – The Marshall Plan expires after distributing more than US$13.3 billion in foreign aid to rebuild Europe.
1951 – Tom Hamilton, American bass player and songwriter (Aerosmith) was born.
1955 – General Motors becomes the first U.S. corporation to make over US$1 billion in a year.
1959 – Paul Westerberg, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (The Replacements) was born.
1960 – The farthing coin ceases to be legal tender in the United Kingdom.
1961 – RTÉ, Ireland’s state broadcaster, launches its first national television service.
1963 – Scott Ian, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (Anthrax, Stormtroopers of Death, The Damned Things, and Damnocracy) was born.
1964 – Michael McDonald, American comedian, actor, and director was born.
1972 – Joey McIntyre, American singer-songwriter and actor (New Kids on the Block) was born.
1972 – Henry Gerber, German-American activist, founded the Society for Human Rights (b. 1892) died.
1977 – Psy, South Korean singer-songwriter, producer, and dancer was born.
1983 – The AT&T Bell System is broken up by the United States Government.
1988 – Pittsburgh Penguins’ Mario Lemieux becomes the only National Hockey League player to score goals in five different ways: even strength, shorthanded, power play, penalty shot, and empty net, during an 8–6 win over the New Jersey Devils.
1991 – All official Soviet Union institutions have ceased operations by this date and the Soviet Union is officially dissolved.
1992 – Czechoslovakia is peacefully dissolved in what is dubbed by media as the Velvet Divorce, resulting in the creation of the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
1994 – The First Chechen War: Russian army began a New Year’s storming of Grozny.
1997 – Michael LeMoyne Kennedy, American son of Robert F. Kennedy (b. 1958) died.
1998 – The European Exchange Rate Mechanism freezes the values of the legacy currencies in the Eurozone, and establishes the value of the euro currency.
1999 – First President of Russia, Boris Yeltsin, resigns from office, leaving Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as the acting President and successor.
1999 – The United States Government hands control of the Panama Canal (as well all the adjacent land to the canal known as the Panama Canal Zone) to Panama. This act complied with the signing of the 1977 Torrijos–Carter Treaties.
2011 – NASA succeeds in putting the first of two Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory satellites in orbit around the Moon.
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