1973January 1973 January 1 – The United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland and Denmark enter the European Economic Community, which later becomes the European Union. January 15 – Vietnam War: Citing progress in peace negotiations, U.S. President Richard Nixon announces the suspension of offensive action in North Vietnam. January 17 – Ferdinand Marcos becomes President for Life of the Philippines. January 20 – Richard Nixon is sworn in for a second term as President of the United States.
1898January 1 – New York City annexes land from surrounding counties, creating the City of Greater New York as the world's second largest. The city is geographically divided into five boroughs: Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, The Bronx and Staten Island. January 13 – Novelist Émile Zola's open letter to the President of the French Republic on the Dreyfus affair, J'Accuse...!, is published on the front page of the Paris daily newspaper L'Aurore, accusing the government of wrongfully imprisoning Alfred Dreyfus and of antisemitism.
1886January 1 – Upper Burma is formally annexed to British Burma, following its conquest in the Third Anglo-Burmese War of November 1885. January 5–9 – Robert Louis Stevenson's novella Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is published in New York and London. January 16 – A resolution is passed in the German Parliament to condemn the Prussian deportations, the politically motivated mass expulsion of ethnic Poles and Jews from Prussia, initiated by Otto von Bismarck.
1899January 1 Spanish rule ends in Cuba, concluding 400 years of the Spanish Empire in the Americas. Queens and Staten Island become administratively part of New York City. January 2 Bolivia sets up a customs office in Puerto Alonso, leading to the Brazilian settlers there to declare the Republic of Acre in a revolt against Bolivian authorities. The first part of the Jakarta Kota–Anyer Kidul railway on the island of Java is opened between Batavia Zuid (Jakarta Kota) and Tangerang.
1895January 5 – Dreyfus affair: French officer Alfred Dreyfus is stripped of his army rank, and sentenced to life imprisonment on Devil's Island. January 12 – The National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty is founded in England by Octavia Hill, Robert Hunter and Canon Hardwicke Rawnsley. January 13 – First Italo-Ethiopian War: Battle of Coatit – Italian forces defeat the Ethiopians. January 17 – Félix Faure is elected President of the French Republic, after the resignation of Jean Casimir-Perier.
1903January 1903 January 1 – Edward VII is proclaimed Emperor of India. January 4 – Topsy, a female Asian circus elephant, is killed by electrocution at Luna Park, Coney Island, New York City. January 19 – The first west–east transatlantic radio broadcast is made from the United States to England (the first east–west broadcast having been made in 1901). January 17 – 13 days after Topsy's death, the Edison Manufacturing Company released the short, black-and-white, silent documentary film Electrocuting an Elephant, showing the footage of Topsy's electrocution.
1972Within the context of Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) it was the longest year ever, as two leap seconds were added during this 366-day year, an event which has not since been repeated. (If its start and end are defined using mean solar time [the legal time scale], its duration was 31622401.141 seconds of Terrestrial Time (or Ephemeris Time), which is slightly shorter than 1908). January 1972 January 1 – Kurt Waldheim becomes Secretary-General of the United Nations.
