2021 – Supporters of US President Donald Trump storm the Capitol in Washington during congressional certification of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’s win, resulting in five deaths and prompting evacuation of lawmakers and Vice President Mike Pence
0871 – England’s King Alfred defeated the Danes at the Battle of Ashdown.
1017 – Cnut the Great crowned King of England in London by Lyfing, Archbishop of Canterbury
1066 – Harold II (Harold Godwinson) crowned King of England after the death of his brother-in-law Edward the Confessor
1205 – Philip of Swabia was crowned as King of the Romans.
1494 – The first Mass in the New World is celebrated at La Isabela, Hispaniola
1497 – Jews are expelled from Graz in Styria, Austria
1501 – Construction begins on Portugal’s Jerónimos Monastery, designed by architect Diogo de Boitaca to commemorate the return of Vasco da Gama from India
1540 – King Henry VIII of England was married to Anne of Cleves, his fourth wife.
1639 – Virginia orders half of its tobacco crop destroyed to support plunging prices and to avoid an economic catastrophe, the 1st colony to order the destruction of crops
1649 – The English Rump Parliament votes to put Charles I on trial for treason and other “high crimes”
1720 – The Committee of Inquiry on the South Sea Bubble published its findings.
1773 – Massachusetts slaves petition legislature for freedom
1832 – New England Anti-Slavery Society organizes (Boston)
1838 – Samuel Morse publicly demonstrated the telegraph for the first time.
1842 – 4,500 British & Indian troops leave Kabul, massacred before reaching India
1853 – Franklin Pierce, the President-elect of the United States at the time, and his family are involved in a train wreck in Massachusetts
1861 – NYC mayor proposes NY become a free city, trading with North and South
1873 – US Congress begins investigating Crédit Mobilier scandal
1893 – The Washington National Cathedral is chartered by Congress. The charter is signed by President Benjamin Harrison.
1900 – In India, it was reported that millions of people were dying from starvation.
1907 – Maria Montessori opens her first school, Montessori’s revolutionary educational approach is practiced at about 30,000 schools today.
1912 – New Mexico became the 47th U.S. state.
1912 – German scientist Alfred Wegener presents his theory of continental drift, His work laid the foundation for the theory of plate tectonics, which explains why continents move.
1913 – Attempting to end hostilities in the Balkans, the London Peace Conference breaks down because Turkey refuses to cede Adrianpole, the Aegean island, and Crete
1929 – Mother Teresa arrives in Calcutta to begin her work amongst India’s poorest
1931 – Thomas Edison executed his last patent application.
1933 – Clyde Barrow kills Tarrant County Deputy Sheriff Malcolm Davis after walking into a trap set for another criminal
1940 – Mass execution of Poles, committed by Germans in the city of Poznań, Warthegau.
1941 – US President Franklin Roosevelt makes his “Four Freedoms” speech (freedom of speech and worship; freedom from want and fear) during his US State of Union address
1942 – The National Collegiate Football Rules Committee abolished the Y formation.
1945 – The Battle of the Bulge ended with 130,000 German and 77,000 Allied casualties.
1950 – Britain recognized the Communist government of China.
1951 – Ganghwa massacre: Hundreds of South Korean communist sympathisers are slaughtered
1952 – “Peanuts” debuted in Sunday papers across the United States.
1963 – “Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom” with Marlin Perkins begins on NBC
1967 – U.S. and South Vietnamese forces launched a major offensive, known as Operation “Deckhouse V”, in the Mekong River delta.
1971 – Berkeley chemists announces 1st synthetic growth hormones
1973 – “Schoolhouse Rock” premieres on ABC-TV with Multiplication Rock
1974 – In response to the 1973 energy crisis, daylight saving time commences nearly four months early in the United States.
1974 – United Kingdom begins three-day work week during energy crisis
1975 – A thousand Led Zeppelin fans, waiting overnight inside the lobby of the Boston Garden for tickets to the group’s February 4th gig to go on sale, cause a riot and an estimated $30,000 damage
1978 – US hand over St Stephan crown to Hungary
1982 – William G. Bonin was convicted in Los Angeles, CA, of being the “freeway killer” who had murdered 14 young men and boys.
1986 – British Defense Secretary Michael Heseltine resigns after the ‘Westland affair’
1986 – Impala Platinum fires 20,000 black mine workers in Johannesburg
1987 – After a 29-year lapse, the Ford Thunderbird was presented with the Motor Trend Car of the Year Award. It was the first occurrence of a repeat winner of the award.
1987 – University of California astronomers first witnessed the birth of a galaxy that contained 1 billion stars.
1992 – Zviad Gamskahurdia, the President of Georgia, flees the country because of the military coup
1993 – 55 Kashmiri civilians are killed in Sopore, Jammu and Kashmir by Indian Border Security Force units
1994 – Figure skater Nancy Kerrigan was clubbed on the right leg by an assailant at Cobo Arena in Detroit, MI. Four men were later sentenced to prison for the attack, including Tonya Harding’s ex-husband.
1998 – The spacecraft Lunar Prospect was launched into orbit around the moon. The craft was crashed into the moon, in an effort to find water under the lunar surface, on July 31, 1999.
1999 – The 106th U.S. Congress opened. The first item on the agenda was the impeachment proceedings of U.S. President Bill Clinton. The trial was set to begin January 7, 1999.
1999 – An agreement is reached by the NBA and the players union to end a 204-day lockout which shortened the season by 50 games
2000 – The last Pyrenean ibex is found dead after being crushed by a tree
2005 – Mississippi Civil Rights Workers Murders: Edgar Ray Killen is arrested as a suspect for the 1964 murders of three Civil Rights workers.
2012 – A suicide bomber blows himself up at a police station in Damascus, Syria, killing 26 people and wounding 63
2013 – 10 people are killed by a US drone attack in South Waziristan, Pakistan
2014 – Truce begins between Free Syrian Army and forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad in northern Damascus
2016 – North Korea states that they have successfully conducted their fourth nuclear test, saying it was a hydrogen bomb in a claim disputed by most international experts
2019 – Malaysian king Sultan Muhammad V abdicates after two years of rule in historic first
2021 – North Korean leader Kim Jong-un says country’s five-year economic plan has failed at opening of a rare meeting of the Workers’ Party
2021 – Supporters of US President Donald Trump storm the Capitol in Washington during congressional certification of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’s win, resulting in five deaths and prompting evacuation of lawmakers and Vice President Mike Pence
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
