1967 – At Cape Kennedy, FL, astronauts Virgil I. “Gus” Grissom, Edward H. White and Roger B. Chaffee died in a flash fire during a test aboard their Apollo I spacecraft.
0098 – Trajan becomes Roman Emperor after the death of Nerva.
0661 – The 4th Caliph of the Rashidun Caliphate, Ali ibn Abu Talib is struck on the head while praying at the Great Mosque of Kufa, Mesopotamia by a poison-coated sword wielded by Ibn Muljam a Kharijite, dies two days later
1591 – Scottish schoolmaster Dr. John Fian burned for witchcraft at Castle Hill, Edinburgh by order King James VI. Part of the Berwick witch trials.
1593 – Vatican opens 7 year trial against scholar Giordano Bruno
1606 – The trial of Guy Fawkes and his fellow conspirators began. They were executed on January 31.
1671 – Welsh pirate Henry Morgan lands at the gates of Panama City
1710 – Tsar Peter the Great sets first Russian state budget
1880 – Thomas Edison patented the electric incandescent lamp.
1888 – The National Geographic Society was founded in Washington, DC.
1891 – Mine explosion kills 109 at Mount Pleasant Pennsylvania
1900 – In China, foreign diplomats in Peking, fearing a revolt, demanded that the imperial government discipline the Boxer rebels
1908 – Pasiphaë, a satellite of Jupiter, discovered by Melotte
1914 – A petition is written and submitted by the black and coloured women of the Orange Free State, an independent Boer sovereign republic in southern Africa, against the carrying of passes by women
1924 – The Kingdom of Italy and the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes sign the Treaty of Rome, agreeing to the annexation of independent Free State of Fiume by Italy (now Rijeka, Croatia)
1926 – John Baird, a Scottish inventor, demonstrated a pictorial transmission machine called television.
1927 – United Independent Broadcasters Inc. started a radio network with contracts with 16 stations. The company later became Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS).
1943 – During World War II, the first all American air raid against Germany took place when about 50 bombers attacked Wilhlemshaven.
1944 – The Soviet Union announced that the two year German siege of Leningrad had come to an end.
1945 – Soviet troops liberated the Nazi concentration camps Auschwitz and Birkenau in Poland.
1945 – Nazi occupiers forbid food transport to West (The Netherlands)
1948 – Wire Recording Corporation of America announced the first magnetic tape recorder. The ‘Wireway’ machine with a built-in oscillator sold for $149.50.
1951 – In the U.S., atomic testing in the Nevada desert began as an Air Force plane dropped a one-kiloton bomb on Frenchman Flats.
1964 – Margaret Chase Smith (Sen-R-Maine) tries for Republican President bid
1966 – Wisconsin State Circuit Court Judge Elmer W Roller rules either the Braves stay in Milwaukee or NL must promise Wisconsin an expansion team for 1966
1967 – At Cape Kennedy, FL, astronauts Virgil I. “Gus” Grissom, Edward H. White and Roger B. Chaffee died in a flash fire during a test aboard their Apollo I spacecraft. https://www.history.com/news/remembering-the-apollo-1-tragedy
1967 – More than 60 nations signed the Outer Space Treaty which banned the orbiting of nuclear weapons and placing weapons on celestial bodies or space stations.
1969 – 14 spies hanged in Baghdad
1969 – 9 Jews publicly executed in Damascus, Syria
1973 – The Vietnam peace accords were signed in Paris.
1977 – The Vatican reaffirmed the Roman Catholic Church’s ban on female priests.
1981 – U.S. President Reagan greeted the 52 former American hostages released by Iran at the White House.
1983 – The first shaft of the world’s longest tunnel is completed, The Seikan Tunnel, 53.85 km (33.46 mi) in length, connects the Japanese islands of Honshu and Hokkaido.
1992 – Presidential candidate Bill Clinton (D) & Genifer Flowers accuse each other of lying over her assertion they had a 12-year affair
1996 – Mahamane Ousmane, the first democratically elected president of Niger, was overthrown by a military coup. Colonel Ibrahim Bare Mainassara declared himself head of state.
1997 – It was revealed that French national museums were holding nearly 2,000 works of art stolen from Jews by the Nazis during World War II.
1998 – U.S. First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton appeared on NBC’s “Today” show. She charged that the allegations against her husband were the work of a “vast right-wing conspiracy.”
1999 – The U.S. Senate blocked dismissal of the impeachment case against President Clinton and voted for new testimony from Monica Lewinsky and two other witnesses.
2002 – A series of explosions occurred at a military dump in Lagos, Nigeria. More than 1,000 people were killed in the blast and in the attempt to escape.
2013 – 20 police officers have been killed in a series of bomb attacks in Kandahar, Afghanistan
2017 – Donald Trump issues executive order banning travel to the US for 7 mostly Muslim countries and suspending admission for refugees
2018 – Bomb in an ambulance kills over 100 people in Kabul, Taliban claim responsibility
2019 – Two bombs at a Roman Catholic cathedral on Jolo Island, southern, Philippines kills 20, Islamic State claims responsibility
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
