794 – Vikings attacked Lindisfarne Island
1297 – Monaco gains its independence.
1324 – Marco Polo, Venetian explorer, dies at 69
1598 – Jews are expelled from Genoa, Italy
1642 – Galileo Galilei, Italian physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher (b. 1564) died.
1697 – Last execution for blasphemy in Britain; of Thomas Aikenhead, student, at Edinburgh.
1705 – George F Handel’s 1st opera “Almira” premieres in Hamburg
1760 – Comet C/1760 A1 (Great comet) approaches within 0.0682 AUs of Earth
1790 – George Washington delivers the first State of the Union address in New York, New York.
1798 – 11th Amendment ratified, judicial powers construed
1806 – Lewis & Clark find skeleton of 105′ blue whale in Oregon
1811 – An unsuccessful slave revolt is led by Charles Deslondes in St. Charles and St. James, Louisiana.
1815 – War of 1812: Battle of New Orleans – Andrew Jackson leads American forces in victory over the British.( the war had ended on 24th December 1814, but none of the combatants knew)
1825 – Eli Whitney, American inventor, invented the cotton gin (b. 1765) died.
1833 – Boston Academy of Music, 1st US music school, established
1835 – The United States national debt is 0 for the first and only time.
1867 – African American men granted the right to vote in Washington, D.C. despite President Johnson’s veto (This struggle will continue for the next 100 years)
1877 – Crazy Horse and his warriors fight their last battle with the United States Cavalry at Wolf Mountain (Montana Territory).
1878 – Secret meeting of King Leopold II’s agent & Henry Morton Stanley
1889 – Herman Hollerith is issued US patent #395,791 for the ‘Art of Applying Statistics’ — his punched card calculator.
1894 – Columbus World’s fair in Chicago destroyed by fire
1896 – Paul Verlaine, French poet, Discovered Arthur Rimbaud… (b. 1844) Dies
1902 – 1st National Bowling Championship held (Chicago, Ill)
1902 – The United Irish League, a leading force for unification in all Ireland and independence from Britain, holds its convention in Dublin
1912 – The African National Congress is founded.
1918 – President Woodrow Wilson announces his “Fourteen Points” for the aftermath of World War I.
1918 – Mississippi becomes 1st state to ratify 18th amendment (prohibition) of the US Constitution
1920 – The steel strike of 1919 ends in a complete failure for the Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel and Tin Workers labor union.
1926 – Soupy Sales, American comedian and actor (d. 2009) was born.
1931 – Bill Graham, Germany, rock promoter (Fillmore) Born
1935 – Elvis Presley, Tupelo Miss, American singer and King of Rock and Roll – BORN
1935 – Jesse Garon Presley, stillborn twin brother of Elvis
1940 – World War II: Britain introduces food rationing.
1941 – Robert Baden-Powell, 1st Baron Baden-Powell, English general (b. 1857) died.
1942 – Stephen Hawking, English physicist (Black Holes & Baby Universes) Born
1945 – Terry Sylvester, rocker (Hollies) Born
1946 – Robby Krieger, American guitarist and songwriter (The Doors, The Butts Band, and Manzarek–Krieger) was born
1947 – David Bowie, David Robert Jones / English singer-songwriter, producer, and actor (The Riot Squad, Tin Machine, The Hype, and Arnold Corns) was born.
1947 – Terry Sylvester, English singer and guitarist (The Escorts, The Swinging Blue Jeans and The Hollies) was born.
1954 – Elvis Presley pays $4 to a Memphis studio & records his 1st two songs, “Casual Love” & “I’ll Never Stand in Your Way”
1955 – Mike Reno, Canadian singer and drummer (Loverboy and Moxy) was born.
1956 – Operation Auca: Five U.S. missionaries are killed by the Huaorani of Ecuador shortly after making contact with them.
1958 – Cuban revolutionary forces capture Havana
1959 – Charles de Gaulle inaugurated as president of France’s 5th Republic
1959 – Paul Hester, Australian drummer (Crowded House, Split Enz, Deckchairs Overboard, and Tarmac Adam) (d. 2005) was born.
1961 – The French vote for Algerian independence from French rule in the wake of seven years of guerrilla war
1962 – Golfer Jack Nicklaus, 21, 1st pro appearance, he came in 50th
1964 – President Lyndon B. Johnson declares a “War on Poverty” in the United States. (Poor get poorer…)
1966 – Beatles’ “We Can Work It Out” single goes #1 & stays #1 for 3 weeks
1966 – Andrew Wood, Columbus Mississippi, American singer (Mother Love Bone, Malfunkshun) (d. 1990) Born
1967 – R. Kelly, American singer-songwriter, producer, and actor (Public Announcement) was born.
1971 – Jason Giambi, West Covina CA, infielder (Oakland A’s) Born
1973 – Watergate scandal: The trial of seven men accused of illegal entry into Democratic Party headquarters at Watergate begins.
1974 – Loch Ness Monster “photographed”
1975 – Ella T. Grasso becomes Governor of Connecticut, the first woman to serve as a Governor in the United States other than by succeeding her husband.
1975 – Judge Sirica orders release of Watergate’s John W Dean III, Herbert W Kalmbach & Jeb Stuart Magruder from prison
1976 – Zhou Enlai, Premier of the People’s Republic of China (b. 1898)Dies
1977 – Three bombs explode in Moscow, Russia, Soviet Union within 37 minutes, killing seven. The bombings are attributed to an Armenian separatist group.
1981 – A local farmer reports a UFO sighting in Trans-en-Provence, France, claimed to be “perhaps the most completely and carefully documented sighting of all time”.
1982 – The break up of AT&T: AT&T agrees to divest itself of twenty-two subdivisions.
1982 – Justice Dept withdraws antitrust suit against IBM, pending since
1982 – Johnny Cash Parkway opens in Hendersonville Tennessee
1983 – Kim Jong-un, North Korean politician, 3rd Supreme Leader of North Korea was birthed
1984 – NCAA announces that basketball tournament will have 64 teams
1987 – Jack Sikma (Milwaukee) begins NBA free throw streak of 51 games
1989 – Soviet Union promises to eliminate stockpiles of chemical weapons
1991 – Steve Clark, English singer-songwriter and guitarist (Def Leppard) (b. 1960) died.
1992 – George Bush gets ill & vomits on Japanese prime minister’s lap
1992 – Menachim Begin, Israeli PM, dies at 78 of a heart attack
1994 – Russian cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov on Soyuz TM-18 leaves for Mir. He would stay on the space station until March 22, 1995, for a record 437 days in space.
1996 – Francois Mitterrand, Pres of France (1981-95), dies of cancer at 79
1998 – Alleged Unabomber suspect Ted Kaczynski asks to act as his own lawyer
1998 – Alleged World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Ahmed Yousef sentenced to life
2002 – President George W. Bush signs into law the No Child Left Behind Act.
2002 – Dave Thomas, American businessman and philanthropist, founded Wendy’s (b. 1932) died.
2003 – US Airways Express Flight 5481 crashes at Charlotte-Douglas Airport, Charlotte, North Carolina, killing all 21 people on board.
2008 – New Jersey officially apologizes for slavery, becoming the first Northern state to do so.
2011 – The attempted assassination of Arizona Representative Gabrielle Giffords and subsequent shooting in Casas Adobes, Arizona at a Safeway grocery store, for which Jared Lee Loughner is subsequently arrested, kills six people and wounds 13, including Giffords.
Cont…
2011 – John Roll, United States Federal Judge (b.1947)
2012 – “The 3:16 Game”, the Denver Broncos’ Tim Tebow connected with Demaryius Thomas on an 80-yard touchdown pass on the first scrimmage play of overtime, giving the underdog Broncos a 29–23 win over the Pittsburgh Steelers in the AFC Wild Card Playoff Game
2013 – Kenojuak Ashevak, Canadian Inuit artist, dies from lung cancer at 85