TODAY IN HISTORY: JANUARY 3

 

January 3

 

69 – The Roman legions on the Rhine refuse to declare their allegiance to Galba, instead proclaiming their legate, Aulus Vitellius, as emperor.

250 – Emperor Decius orders everyone in the Roman Empire (except Jews) to make sacrifices to the Roman gods.

1521 – Pope Leo X excommunicates Martin Luther in the papal bull Decet Romanum Pontificem.

1653 – By the Coonan Cross Oath, the Eastern Church in India cuts itself off from colonial Portuguese tutelage.

1749 – Benning Wentworth issues the first of the New Hampshire Grants, leading to the establishment of Vermont.

1749 – The first issue of Berlingske, Denmark's oldest continually operating newspaper, is published.

1777 – American General George Washington defeats British General Lord Cornwallis at the Battle of Princeton.

1815 – Austria, the United Kingdom, and France form a secret defensive alliance against Prussia and Russia.

1833 – Captain James Onslow, in the Clio, reasserts British sovereignty over the Falkland Islands.

1848 – Joseph Jenkins Roberts is sworn in as the first president of Liberia.

1861 – American Civil War: Delaware votes not to secede from the United States.

1868 – Meiji Restoration in Japan: The Tokugawa shogunate is abolished; agents of Satsuma and Chōshū seize power.

1870 – Construction work begins on the Brooklyn Bridge in New York, United States.

1871 – In the Battle of Bapaume, an engagement in the Franco-Prussian War, General Louis Faidherbe's forces bring about a Prussian retreat.

1885 – Sino-French War: Beginning of the Battle of Núi Bop.

1911 – A magnitude 7.7 earthquake destroys the city of Almaty in Russian Turkestan.

1911 – A gun battle in the East End of London leaves two dead. It sparked a political row over the involvement of then-Home Secretary Winston Churchill.

1913 – An Atlantic coast storm sets the lowest confirmed barometric pressure reading for a non-tropical system in the continental United States.

1913 – First Balkan War: Greece completes its capture of the eastern Aegean island of Chios, as the last Ottoman forces on the island surrender.

1920 – Over 640 are killed after a magnitude 6.4 earthquake strikes the Mexican states Puebla and Veracruz.

1933 – Minnie D. Craig becomes the first woman elected as Speaker of the North Dakota House of Representatives, the first woman to hold a Speaker position anywhere in the United States.

1944 – World War II: US flying ace Major Greg "Pappy" Boyington is shot down in his Vought F4U Corsair by Captain Masajiro Kawato flying a Mitsubishi A6M Zero.

1946 – Popular Canadian American jockey George Woolf dies in a freak accident during a race; the annual George Woolf Memorial Jockey Award is created to honor him.

1947 – Proceedings of the U.S. Congress are televised for the first time.

1949 – The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, the central bank of the Philippines, is established.

1953 – Frances P. Bolton and her son, Oliver from Ohio, become the first mother and son to serve simultaneously in the U.S. Congress.

1956 – A fire damages the top part of the Eiffel Tower.

1957 – The Hamilton Watch Company introduces the first electric watch.

1958 – The West Indies Federation is formed.

1959 – Alaska is admitted as the 49th U.S. state.

1961 – Cold War: After a series of economic retaliations against one another, the United States severs diplomatic relations with Cuba.

1961 – The SL-1 nuclear reactor, near Idaho Falls, Idaho, is destroyed by a steam explosion in the only reactor incident in the United States to cause immediate fatalities.

1961 – A protest by agricultural workers in Baixa de Cassanje, Portuguese Angola, turns into a revolt, opening the Angolan War of Independence, the first of the Portuguese Colonial Wars.

1961 – Aero Flight 311 crashes into the forest in Kvevlax, Finland, killing 25 people.

1962 – Pope John XXIII excommunicates Fidel Castro.

1976 – The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly, comes into force.

1977 – Apple Computer is incorporated.

1987 – Varig Flight 797 crashes near Akouré in the Ivory Coast, resulting in 50 deaths.

1990 – United States invasion of Panama: Manuel Noriega, former leader of Panama, surrenders to American forces.

1992 – CommutAir Flight 4821 crashes on approach to Adirondack Regional Airport, in Saranac Lake, New York, killing two people.

1993 – In Moscow, Russia, George H. W. Bush and Boris Yeltsin sign the second Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START).

1994 – Baikal Airlines Flight 130 crashes near Mamoney, Irkutsk, Russia, resulting in 125 deaths.

1999 – The Mars Polar Lander is launched by NASA.

2002 – Israeli–Palestinian conflict: Israeli forces seize the Palestinian freighter Karine A in the Red Sea, finding 50 tons of weapons.

2004 – Flash Airlines Flight 604 crashes into the Red Sea, resulting in 148 deaths, making it one of the deadliest aviation accidents in Egyptian history.

2009 – The first block of the blockchain of the decentralized payment system Bitcoin, called the Genesis block, is established by the creator of the system, Satoshi Nakamoto.

2015 – Boko Haram militants destroy the entire town of Baga in north-east Nigeria, starting the Baga massacre and killing as many as 2,000 people.

2016 – In response to the execution of Nimr al-Nimr, Iran ends its diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia.

2018 – For the first time in history, all five major storm surge gates in the Netherlands are closed simultaneously in the wake of a storm.

2019 – Chang'e 4 makes the first soft landing on the far side of the Moon, deploying the Yutu-2 lunar rover.

2020 – Iranian General Qasem Soleimani is killed by an American airstrike near Baghdad International Airport, igniting global concerns of a potential armed conflict.

2023 – Singapore's Jurong Bird Park permanently closes.