1524 – Beginning of Giovanni da Verrazzano’s voyage to find a passage to China
1773 – Captain Cook’s Resolution became the first ship to cross the Antarctic Circle.
1775 – 9 old women burnt as witches for causing bad harvests in Kalisk, Poland
1821 – Mexico permits Moses Austin and 300 US families to settle in Texas, after his death leaves to son Stephen
1871 – Andrew S. Hallidie received a patent for a cable car system.
1873 – A group of Modoc warriors defeats the United States Army in the First Battle of the Stronghold, a part of the Modoc War
1893 – The Kingdom of Hawaii’s monarchy was overthrown when a group of businessmen and sugar planters forced Queen Liliuokalani to abdicate.
1900 – Yaqui Indians in Texas proclaimed their independence from Mexico.
1900 – Mormon Brigham Roberts was denied a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives for his practicing of polygamy.
1912 – English explorer Robert Falcon Scott reached the South Pole. Norwegian Roald Amundsen had beaten him there by one month. Scott and his party died during the return trip.
1917 – US pays Denmark $25 million for Virgin Islands
1920 – First day of prohibition of alcohol comes into effect in the US as a result of the 18th Amendment to the Constitution
1934 – Ferdinand Porsche submitted a design for a people’s car, a “Volkswagen,” to the new German Reich government.
1945 – Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg disappeared in Hungary while in Soviet custody. Wallenberg was credited with saving tens of thousands of Jews.
1961 – Eisenhower allegedly orders assassination of Congo’s Patrice Lumumba
1961 – President Dwight D. Eisenhower delivers a televised farewell address to the nation three days before leaving office, in which he warns against the accumulation of power by the “military-industrial complex”.
1971 – At a party conference in Dublin, Sinn Féin end their 65 year abstentionist policy and agree that any elected representative could take their seat at the Dáil
1982 – “Cold Sunday” in the United States would see temperatures fall to their lowest levels in over 100 years in numerous cities
1983 – Alabama Governor George Wallace, becomes governor for a record 4th time
1984 – Supreme Court rules (5-4) that private use of home VCRs to tape TV programs for later viewing does not violate federal copyright laws
1989 – Gunman opens fire in California schoolyard; 5 students slain, 30 wounded
1991 – Coalition airstrikes began against Iraq after negotiations failed to get Iraq to retreat from the country of Kuwait.
https://www.history.com/topics/middle-east/persian-gulf-war
1994 – The Northridge earthquake rocked Los Angeles, CA, registering a 6.7 on the Richter Scale. At least 61 people were killed and about $20 billion in damage was caused.
1997 – A court in Ireland granted the first divorce in the Roman Catholic country’s history.
1998 – U.S. President Clinton gave his deposition in the Paula Jones sexual harassment lawsuit against him. He was the first U.S. President to testify as a defendant in a criminal or civil lawsuit.
2001 – The director of Palestinian TV, Hisham Miki, was killed at a restaurant when three masked gunmen walked up to his table and shot him more than 10 times.
2007 – Doomsday Clock set to five minutes to midnight in response to North Korea’s 1st nuclear test
2014 – 21 people are killed in a suicide bombing in a restaurant in Kabul, Afghanistan
2019 – Indian spiritual leader Ram Rahim Singh and two aides sentenced to life in prison for murdering journalist who exposed sexual abuse at the sect
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
