1579 – England signs an offensive & defensive alliance with Netherland (House of Orange)
1584 – Last day of the Julian calendar in Bohemia & Holy Roman empire
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 day.
1618 – Francis Bacon becomes Lord Chancellor of England
1695 – Mary II Stuart, queen of England, dies at 32 [OS=Dec 28 1694]
1714 – Typewriter patented by Englishman Henry Mill (built years later)
1782 – The first American commercial bank, the Bank of North America, opens.
1797 – The modern Italian flag is first used.
1800 – Millard Fillmore, American politician, 13th President of the United States (d. 1874) was born
1797 – The modern Italian flag is first used.
1817 – 2nd Bank of US opens
1822 – Liberia colonized by Americans
1827 – Sandford Fleming, Scottish-Canadian engineer, created Universal Standard Time (d. 1915) was born.
1837 – Thomas Henry Ismay, English businessman, founded the White Star Line Shipping Company (d. 1899) was born.
1864 – Caleb Blood Smith, American journalist and politician, 6th U.S. Secretary of the Interior (b. 1808) died.
1873 – Adolph Zukor, Hungarian film producer, co-founded Paramount Pictures (d. 1976) was born.
1892 – Mine explosion kills 100 in Krebs, Oklahoma; blacks trying to help rescue white survivors, driven away with guns
1894 – William Kennedy Dickson receives a patent for motion picture film.
1894 – Early 5 second film of Fred Ott sneezing shot by Edison Manufacturing – 1st ever copyrited
1904 – The distress signal “CQD” is established only to be replaced two years later by “SOS”.
1910 – Alain JG de Rothschild, France, banker/baron is Birthed
1911 – 1st airplane bombing experiments with explosives, SF
1912 – Charles Addams, American cartoonist (d. 1988), created The Addams Family, was born.
1920 – The New York State Assembly refuses to seat five duly elected Socialist assemblymen.
1927 – The first transatlantic telephone service is established – from New York, New York to London, United Kingdom.
1927 – Harlem Globetrotters play 1st game (Hinckley, Illinois)
1928 – William Peter Blatty, author/director (The Exorcist), born in NYC, New York, Born
1929 – The current Influenza Epidemic is considered to be growing more serious with the number of additional deaths due rising to over 200,000, and have issued the following guidelines avoid crowds and persons infected with the disease. Also when noticing a fever spend the time in bed until the fever has passed . The government does not believe this epidemic will reach catastrophic proportions of 1918.
1935 – Benito Mussolini and French Foreign minister Pierre Laval sign the Franco-Italian Agreement.
1938 – Paul Revere, Harvard Nebraska, pianist (Paul Revere & Raiders) Born
1943 – Nikola Tesla, Serbian-American physicist (tesla motor), dies at 86
1945 – World War II: British General Bernard Montgomery holds a press conference in which he claims credit for victory in the Battle of the Bulge.
1946 – Jann Wenner, American publisher, co-founded Rolling Stone was born.
1948 – Kentucky Air National Guard pilot Thomas Mantell crashes while in pursuit of a supposed UFO.
1948 – Kenny Loggins, Everett WA, American singer (Loggins and Messina-This is it, Footloose) Born
1949 – John Christopher Parry, rocker (Cure) Born
1950 – Mental health wing of Mercy Hospital burns, kills 41 (Davenport Ia)
1953 – President Harry Truman announced the U.S. has developed a hydrogen bomb (H-Bomb). He made this announcement in his final State of the Union Address.
1953 – Earl Wilber Force “Wire” Lindo, rocker (Bob Marley & the Wailers) Born
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 – Sandra Bernhard, Arizona (Follow That Bird, King of Comedy) Born
1959 – The United States recognizes the new Cuban government of Fidel Castro. American gangster Meyer Lansky flees Cuba for the Bahamas due to the Cuban Revolution and rise of Fidel Castro
1959 – Kathy Valentine, American bass player and songwriter (The Go-Go’s) was born.
1962 – Assassination attempt fails on Indonesian president Sukarno
1963 – Rand Paul, American politician was born.
1963 – An Iowan Representative was reported on this date to have proposed to have the secret voting policy changed. If this policy is amended, this area’s house sifting and steering committees would be required to make a public record of how each member would vote on each bill.
1964 – Nicolas Cage, American actor, producer, and director was born.
1965 – Five for Fighting, American singer-songwriter was born.
1966 – Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, model/wife of John Kennedy Jr, Born
1973 – Mark Essex fatally shoots 10 people and wounds 13 others at Howard Johnson’s Hotel in New Orleans, Louisiana, before being shot to death by police officers.
1977 – Dustin Diamond, American actor was born.
1978 – Jean Charles de Menezes, Brazilian shooting victim (d. 2005) was born. He was shot dead by the London Metropolitan police at Stockwell tube station on the London Underground after he was misidentified as one of the fugitives involved in the previous day’s failed bombing attempts.
1980 – U.S. President Jimmy Carter authorizes legislation giving $1.5 billion in loans to bail out the Chrysler Corporation.
1980 – Indira Gandhi voted back into power in India
1983 – President Reagan ends US arms embargo against Guatemala
1984 – Brunei becomes the sixth member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
1989 – Hirohito, Japanese emperor (b. 1901) died.
1990 – Bronislau “Bronko” Nagurski, football hall of famer, dies at 81
1990 – The interior of the Leaning Tower of Pisa is closed to the public for safety reasons.
1992 – Tom Seaver & Rollie Fingers elected to Baseball’s Hall of Fame
1992 – Richard Hunt, American puppeteer and voice actor (b. 1951) died.
1995 – Murray Rothbard, American economist, father of Libertarianism, Voluntaryism (b. 1926) Dies
1999 – The Senate trial in the impeachment of U.S. President Bill Clinton begins.
2006 – Tom DeLay steps down as House majority leader following newspaper articles and possible charges of corruption
2009 – Russia fully closes down Gas Supplies to Ukraine due to a dispute over a debt of $2.4 billion to Gazprom. Reduced supply had started on January 1st but due to negotiations breaking down all supplies were cut on January 7th.
2010 – Underwear Bomber: Following the attempted bombing on Christmas Day of a US-bound jet by a terrorist ( Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab )with explosives sewn into Mr Abdulmutallab’s underwear containing the high explosive PETN – pentaerythritol. The current sceeening at airports use Metal detectors and would not have picked up the explosives, but a full body scan device would have spotted something strapped to his body. The issue with using a full body scanner is they produce a “near naked” image of the person being scanned which raises concerns over child protection laws and invasion of people’s privacy.