January 3

69 – The Roman legions on the Rhine refuse to declare their allegiance to Galba, instead proclaiming their legate, Aulus Vitellius, as emperor. 250 – Emperor Decius orders everyone in the Roman Empire (except Jews) to make sacrifices to the Roman gods. 1521 – Pope Leo X excommunicates Martin Luther in the papal bull Decet Romanum Pontificem. 1653 – By the Coonan Cross Oath, the Eastern Church in India cuts itself off from colonial Portuguese tutelage. 1749 – Benning Wentworth issues the first of the New Hampshire Grants, leading to the establishment of Vermont. 1749 – The first issue of Berlingske, Denmark's oldest continually operating newspaper, is published. 1777 – American General George Washington defeats British General Lord Cornwallis at the Battle of Princeton. 1815 – Austria, the United Kingdom, and France form a secret defensive alliance against Prussia and Russia. 1833 – Captain James Onslow, in the Clio, reasserts British sovereignty over the Falkland Islands. 1848 – Joseph Jenkins Roberts is sworn in as the first president of Liberia. 1861 – American Civil War: Delaware votes not to secede from the United States. 1868 – Meiji Restoration in Japan: The Tokugawa shogunate is abolished; agents of Satsuma and Chōshū seize power. 1870 – Construction work begins on the Brooklyn Bridge in New York, United States. 1871 – In the Battle of Bapaume, an engagement in the Franco-Prussian War, General Louis Faidherbe's forces bring about a Prussian retreat. 1885 – Sino-French War: Beginning of the Battle of Núi Bop. 1911 – A magnitude 7.7 earthquake destroys the city of Almaty in Russian Turkestan. 1911 – A gun battle in the East End of London leaves two dead. It sparked a political row over the involvement of then-Home Secretary Winston Churchill. 1913 – An Atlantic coast storm sets the lowest confirmed barometric pressure reading for a non-tropical system in the continental United States. 1913 – First Balkan War: Greece completes its capture of the eastern Aegean island of Chios, as the last Ottoman forces on the island surrender.