2011 – Arizona Representative Gabrielle Giffords is among 17 shot by a gunman at a meeting outside a grocery store. Six people are fatally wounded, including United States District Court Judge John Roll, and a young girl. Police identify the gunman as Jared Lee Loughner.
1310 – The Great Frost: in London the Thames river froze so thickly bonfires were lit on it
1598 – Jews are expelled from Genoa, Italy
1610 – Simon Marius. a German astronomer, independently discovers the first three moons of Jupiter one day after Galileo
1675 – The first corporation was chartered in the United States. The company was the New York Fishing Company.
1708 – Spanish armada headed by the San Jose and loaded with gold sunk after British squadron attacks off coast of Colombia (rediscovered 2015)
1745 – Britain, Austria, Netherlands & Saxony sign anti-Prussian Quadruple Alliance
1790 – In the United States, George Washington delivered the first State of the Union address.
1798 – 11th Amendment ratified, judicial powers construed
1800 – Wild Boy of Aveyron (approx.12) discovered in southern France after possibly 7 years in the wild, later christened Victor of Aveyron
1815 – The Battle of New Orleans began. The War of 1812 had officially ended on December 24, 1814, with the signing of the Treaty of Ghent. The news of the signing had not reached British troops in time to prevent their attack on New Orleans.
1835 – US national debt is $0 for the first and only time in history
1838 – Alfred Vail demonstrated a telegraph code he had devised using dots and dashes as letters. The code was the predecessor to Samuel Morse’s code.
1853 – A bronze statue of Andrew Jackson on a horse was unveiled in Lafayette Park in Washington, DC. The statue was the work of Clark Mills.
1856 – Borax (hydrated sodium borate) was discovered by Dr. John Veatch.
1867 – African American men granted the right to vote in Washington, D.C. despite President Andrew Johnson’s veto
1877 – Crazy Horse (Tashunca-uitco) and his warriors fought their final battle against the U.S. Cavalry in Montana.
1889 – The tabulating machine was patented by Dr. Herman Hollerith. His firm, Tabulating Machine Company, later became International Business Machines Corporation (IBM).
1900 – U.S. President McKinley placed Alaska under military rule.
1900 – In South Africa, General White turned back the Boers attack of Ladysmith.
1902 – New York state assemblyman Francis G. Landon gets a bill passed to criminalize men turning around on a street and “looking at a woman in that way”
1906 – A landslide in Haverstraw, New York, caused by the excavation of clay along the Hudson River, kills 20 people.
1908 – A catastrophic train collision occurred in the smoke-filled Park Avenue Tunnel in New York City. Seventeen were killed and thirty-eight were injured. The accident caused a public outcry and increased demand for electric trains.
1912 – The African National Congress (ANC) is founded. The ANC, whose most famous member is Nelson Mandela, played an important role in the fight against the South African apartheid regime and it is now the country’s governing political party.
1916 – During World War I, the final withdrawal of Allied troops from Gallipoli took place.
1918 – U.S. President Woodrow Wilson announced his Fourteen Points as the basis for peace upon the end of World War I.
1925 – 1st all-female US state supreme court appointed, Texas
1951 – Thought extinct since 1615, a Cahow (the Bermuda petrel) is rediscovered in Bermuda
1955 – After 130 home basketball wins, Georgia Tech defeated Kentucky 59-58. It was the first Kentucky loss at home since January 2, 1943.
1956 – Operation Auca: Five U.S. missionaries are killed by the Huaorani of Ecuador shortly after making contact with them.
1958 – Bobby Fisher, at the age of 14, won the United States Chess Championship for the first time.
1959 – Charles De Gaulle was inaugurated as president of France’s Fifth Republic.
1964 – U.S. President Lyndon Johnson declared a “War on Poverty.”
1968 – Jacques Cousteau’s 1st undersea special on US network TV
1973 – Secret peace talks between the United States and North Vietnam resumed near Paris, France.
1973 – The trial opened in Washington, of seven men accused of bugging Democratic Party headquarters in the Watergate apartment complex in Washington, DC.
1975 – Ella Grasso became the governor of Connecticut. She was the first woman to become a governor of a state without a husband preceding her in the governor’s chair.
1975 – Judge John Sirica orders release of Watergate’s John W. Dean III, Herbert W. Kalmbach and Jeb Stuart Magruder from prison
1979 – 512 die as oil tanker Bantry Bay blows up
1982 – American Telephone & Telegraph (AT&T) settled the Justice Department’s antitrust lawsuit against it by agreeing to divest itself of the 22 Bell System companies.
1989 – Soviet Union promises to eliminate stockpiles of chemical weapons
1992 – U.S. President George H.W. Bush collapsed during a state dinner in Tokyo. White House officials said Bush was suffering from stomach flu.
1993 – Bosnian President Izetbegovic visited the U.S. to plead his government’s case for Western military aid and intervention to halt Serbian aggression.
1996 – For 1st time in 25 years no one is elected to Baseball Hall of Fame
1998 – Ramzi Yousef was sentenced to life in prison for his role of mastermind behind the World Trade Center bombing in New York.
1998 – Scientists announced that they had discovered that galaxies were accelerating and moving apart and at faster speeds.
1999 – The top two executives of Salt Lake City’s Olympic Organizing Committee resigned amid disclosures that civic boosters had given cash to members of the International Olympic Committee.
2001 – The identities of 2 boys who murdered a toddler in 1993 will be kept secret, the High Court rules
2008 – New Jersey officially apologizes for slavery, becoming the first Northern state to do so.
2009 – In Egypt, archeologists entered a 4,300 year old pyramid and discovered the mummy of Queen Sesheshet.
2011 – Arizona Representative Gabrielle Giffords is among 17 shot by a gunman at a meeting outside a grocery store. Six people are fatally wounded, including United States District Court Judge John Roll, and a young girl. Police identify the gunman as Jared Lee Loughner.
2013 – 2,130 prisoners held by the Syrian government are exchanged for 48 Iranians kidnapped by Syrian rebels
2016 – Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto announces the recapture of drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, six months after he escaped prison
2018 – Self-declared Republic of Somaliland passes its first ever law against rape
2020 – Iran launches missile strike on Irbil and Al Asad bases in Iraqi housing some American troops in retaliation to assassination of General Qasem Soleimani
2021 – Twitter bans US President Donald Trump permanently “due to the risk of further incitement of violence”
2021 – US Speaker Nancy Pelosi demands President Donald Trump’s resignation or he will face a second impeachment, while also calling for Vice President Mike Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove him in the wake of the January 6 attack of the Capitol
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
