1795 – The United States Naturalization Act of January 29, 1795 repealed and replaced the earlier Act of 1790 changes included increasing the period of required residence from two to five years and The Act specified that naturalized citizenship was reserved only for “free white person[s].”
1834 – US President Andrew Jackson orders first use of federal soldiers to suppress a labor dispute.
1845 – “The Raven” is published in the New York Evening Mirror, the first publication with the name of the author, Edgar Allan Poe
1850 – Henry Clay introduces the Compromise of 1850 to the U.S. Congress.
1856 – Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom issues a Warrant under the Royal sign-manual that establishes the Victoria Cross to recognise acts of valour by British military personnel during the Crimean War.
1861 – Kansas is admitted as the 34th U.S. state.
1863 – Bear River Massacre.
1874 – John D. Rockefeller, Jr., American businessman and philanthropist (d. 1960) was birthed.
1886 – Karl Benz patents the first successful gasoline-driven automobile.
1891 – Liliuokalani is proclaimed the last monarch and only queen regnant of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi.
1900 – The American League is organized in Philadelphia with eight founding teams.
1907 – Charles Curtis of Kansas becomes the first Native American U.S. Senator.
1916 – World War I: Paris is first bombed by German zeppelins.
1936 – James Jamerson, American bass player (The Funk Brothers) (d. 1983) was born.
1943 – The first day of the Battle of Rennell Island, U.S. cruiser Chicago is torpedoed and heavily damaged by Japanese bombers.
1944 – World War II: Approximately 38 people are killed and about a dozen injured when the Polish village of Koniuchy (present-day Kaniūkai, Lithuania) is attacked by Soviet partisan units.
1949 – Tommy Ramone, Hungarian-American drummer and producer (Ramones and Uncle Monk) (d. 2014) was born.
1950 – Max Carl, American singer-songwriter, guitarist and keyboard player (Grand Funk Railroad and 38 Special) was born.
1953 – Peter Baumann, German keyboard player and songwriter (Tangerine Dream) was born.
1954 – Oprah Winfrey, American talk show host, actress, and producer, founded the OWN Network and Harpo Productions was birthed.
1960 – J. G. Thirlwell, Australian-English singer-songwriter and producer (Wiseblood, The Immaculate Consumptive, Coil, and Foetus) was born.
1967 – The “ultimate high” of the hippie era, the Mantra-Rock Dance, takes place in San Francisco and features Janis Joplin, Grateful Dead, and Allen Ginsberg.
1970 – Paul Ryan, American politician was born.
1970 – Mohammed Yusuf, Nigerian militant leader, founded Boko Haram (d. 2009) was birthed.
1981 – Dolly Parton’s “9 to 5″ tops the Charts as many identify with the song and the movie .
1982 – Adam Lambert, American singer-songwriter and actor was born.
1996 – President Jacques Chirac announces a “definitive end” to French nuclear weapons testing.
1998 – In Birmingham, Alabama, a bomb explodes at an abortion clinic, killing one and severely wounding another. Serial bomber Eric Robert Rudolph is suspected as the culprit.
2002 – In his State of the Union address, President George W. Bush describes “regimes that sponsor terror” as an Axis of evil, in which he includes Iraq, Iran and North Korea.
2005 – Eric Griffiths, Welsh-Scottish guitarist (The Quarrymen) (b. 1940) died.
2009 – The Supreme Constitutional Court of Egypt rules that people who do not adhere to one of the three government-recognised religions, while not allowed to list any belief outside of those three, are still eligible to receive government identity documents.
2009 – Governor of Illinois Rod Blagojevich is removed from office following his conviction of several corruption charges, including the alleged solicitation of personal benefit in exchange for an appointment to the United States Senate as a replacement for then-U.S. president-elect Barack Obama.
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