2015 – Terrorist attack on the offices of satirical newspaper “Charlie Hebdo” in Paris kills 12 (including Jean Cabut and Stéphane Charbonnier), injures 11
1558 – Calais, the last English possession on mainland France, was recaptured by the French.
1598 – Boris Godunov seizes Russian throne on death of Feodor I
1601 – Robert, Earl of Essex, leads revolt in London against Queen Elizabeth
1610 – Galileo Galilei sighted four of Jupiter’s moons. He named them Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto.
1611 – Trial of Hungarian aristocrat Elizabeth Báthory for killing and torturing hundreds of young women, later sentenced to house arrest for the rest of her life
1714 – Typewriter patented by Englishman Henry Mill (built years later)
1782 – The Bank of North America opened in Philadelphia. It was the first commercial bank in the United States.
1790 – French Revolution: A major riot breaks out in Versailles as people demand lower bread prices
1822 – Liberia colonized by the American Colonization Society
1892 – Mine explosion kills 100 in Krebs, Oklahoma; blacks trying to help rescue white survivors, driven away with guns
1896 – The “Fannie Farmer Cookbook” was published.
1904 – The distress signal “CQD” was established. Two years later “SOS” became the radio distress signal because it was quicker to send by wireless radio..
1913 – William M. Burton patents a process to “crack” petroleum
1915 – World War I: Germany’s Kaiser Wilhelm approves strategic bombing of Britain, but forbids bombing London, fearing his relatives in the royal family might be killed
1920 – Five duly elected Socialist assemblymen are denied by the New York State Assembly
1927 – Transatlantic telephone service began between New York and London. 31 calls were made on this first day.
1927 – In Hinckley IL, the Harlem Globetrotters played their first game.
1929 – The debut of “Buck Rogers 2429 A.D.” occurred in newspapers around the U.S. The title of the comic strip was later changed to “Buck Rogers in the 25th Century.”
1930 – Marguerite Perey discovers francium (Fr), the last naturally occurring element to be found
1932 – Chancellor Heinrich Brüning declared that Germany cannot, and will not, resume reparations payments.
1934 – “Flash Gordon” comic strip created and drawn by Alex Raymond debuts
1935 – French Foreign Minister Pierre Laval and Italian Prime Minister Benito Mussolini signed the Italo-French agreements.
1941 – Chinese Kuomintang forces under orders from Chiang Kai-shek open fire on the surrounded Communist New Fourth Army at Maolin, Anhui Province, killing or capturing 7,000 troops
1942 – The World War II siege of Bataan began.
1948 – US President Harry Truman raises taxes for the Marshall Plan to assist in rebuilding Europe after WWII
1949 – The announcement of the first photograph of genes was shown at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.
1953 – U.S. President Harry Truman announced the development of the hydrogen bomb.
1954 – The Duoscopic TV receiver was unveiled this day. The TV set allowed the watching of two different shows at the same time.
1957 – Algerian militant and National Liberation Front member Djamila Bouhired sets off a bomb in an Algiers cafe killing 11 civilians, precipitating the Battle of Algiers
1959 – The United States recognized Fidel Castro’s new government in Cuba.
1959 – American gangster Meyer Lansky flees Cuba for the Bahamas due to the Cuban Revolution and rise of Fidel Castro
1964 – Bahamas becomes self-governing
1965 – France announces it will convert $150 million of its currency to gold
1969 – US Congress doubles presidential salary
1972 – Discovery of the first black hole Cygnus X-1 in the constellation Cygnus reported in a paper in “Nature” by Louise Webster and Paul Murdin
1972 – William Hubbs Rehnquist sworn in as US Supreme Court Justice
1973 – Mark Essex’s mass shooting comes to an end after he is shot by police more than 200 times on the roof of New Orlean’s Holiday Inn hotel. He killed nine people, including five policeman. https://www.military.com/history/marine-corps-officer-engaged-active-shooter-helicopter.html
1975 – OPEC agreed to raise crude oil prices by 10%, which began a time of world economic inflation.
1979 – Vietnamese forces captured the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh, overthrowing the Khmer Rouge government.
1980 – U.S. President Jimmy Carter signed legislation that authorized $1.5 billion in loans for the bail out of Chrysler Corp.
1983 – President Reagan ends US arms embargo against Guatemala
1986 – US President Reagan announces economic sanctions against Libya
1989 – Crown Prince Akihito became the emperor of Japan following the death of his father, Emperor Hirohito.
1990 – The Leaning Tower of Pisa was closed to the public. The accelerated rate of “leaning” raised fears for the safety of its visitors.
1992 – AT&T releases video-telephone ($1,499)
1996 – One of the biggest blizzards in U.S. history hit the eastern states. More than 100 deaths were later blamed on the severe weather.
1998 – Former White House intern Monica Lewinsky signed an affidavit denying that she had an affair with U.S. President Clinton.
1999 – U.S. President Clinton went on trial before the Senate. It was only the second time in U.S. history that an impeached president had gone to trial. Clinton was later acquitted of perjury and obstruction of justice charges.
2009 – Russia shut off all gas supplies to Europe through Ukraine. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin publicly endorsed the move and urged greater international involvement in the energy dispute.
2010 – Muslim gunmen in Egypt kill nine people after opening fire on a crowd of Coptic Christians
2015 – Terrorist attack on the offices of satirical newspaper “Charlie Hebdo” in Paris kills 12 (including Jean Cabut and Stéphane Charbonnier), injures 11 https://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/08/world/europe/charlie-hebdo-paris-shooting.html
2019 – Attempted coup in Gabon fails after rebel soldiers overtake national radio station in Libreville
2021 – Arizona is now the COVID-19 “hotspot of the world” according to local health officials with an average of 118.3 new cases per 100,000 people
2021 – Elon Musk, co-founder of Tesla, becomes the world’s richest man, worth $186 billion, overtaking Amazon founder Jeff Bezos
2021 – Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg blocks President Donald Trump from Facebook and Instagram till January 20, following suspension of his other social media accounts the previous day
2021 – US Congress completes the ceremonial certification of Joe Biden’s presidential victory late in the night after an earlier unprecedented breach of the Capitol by Trump supporters
2022 – First successful transplant of a pig’s heart into a human when genetically modified pig’s heart inserted into a 53 year old man in Baltimore, Maryland
2022 – Three men convicted of murdering black jogger Ahmaud Arbery in Feb 2020, sentenced to life in prison in a Georgia court
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
