1950January 1950 January 1 – The International Police Association (IPA) – the largest police organization in the world – is formed. January 5 – Sverdlovsk plane crash: Aeroflot Lisunov Li-2 crashes in a snowstorm. All 19 aboard are killed, including almost the entire national ice hockey team (VVS Moscow) of the Soviet Air Force – 11 players, as well as a team doctor and a masseur. January 6 – The UK recognizes the People's Republic of China; the Republic of China severs diplomatic relations with Britain in response.
1983The year 1983 saw both the official beginning of the Internet and the first mobile cellular telephone call. January 1 – The migration of the ARPANET to TCP/IP is officially completed (this is considered to be the beginning of the true Internet). January 24 – Twenty-five members of the Red Brigades are sentenced to life imprisonment for the 1978 murder of Italian politician Aldo Moro. January 25 High-ranking Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie is arrested in Bolivia.
19981998 was designated as the International Year of the Ocean. January 6 – The Lunar Prospector spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for frozen water, in soil in permanently shadowed craters near the Moon's poles. January 11 – Over 100 people are killed in the Sidi-Hamed massacre in Algeria. January 12 – Nineteen European nations agree to forbid human cloning. January 17 – The Drudge Report breaks the story about U.S.
1914This year saw the beginning of what became known as World War I, after Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir to the Austrian throne was assassinated by Serbian nationalist Gavrilo Princip. It also saw the first airline to provide scheduled regular commercial passenger services with heavier-than-air aircraft, with the St. Petersburg–Tampa Airboat Line. January 1914 January 1 – The St. Petersburg–Tampa Airboat Line in the United States starts services between St.
20202020 was heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to global social and economic disruption, mass cancellations and postponements of events, worldwide lockdowns and the largest economic recession since the Great Depression in the 1930s. Geospatial World also called 2020 "the worst year in terms of climate change" in part due to major climate disasters worldwide, including major bushfires in Australia and the western United States, as well as extreme tropical cyclone activity affecting large parts of North America.
1935January 1935 January 7 – Italian premier Benito Mussolini and French Foreign Minister Pierre Laval conclude an agreement, in which each power agrees not to oppose the other's colonial claims. January 12 – Amelia Earhart becomes the first person to successfully complete a solo flight from Hawaii to California, a distance of 2,408 miles. January 13 – A plebiscite in the Territory of the Saar Basin shows that 90.3% of those voting wish to join Germany.
1934January 1934 February 1934 January 1 – The International Telecommunication Union, a specialist agency of the League of Nations, is established. January 15 – The 8.0 Nepal–Bihar earthquake strikes Nepal and Bihar with a maximum Mercalli intensity of XI (Extreme), killing an estimated 6,000–10,700 people. January 26 – A 10-year German–Polish declaration of non-aggression is signed by Nazi Germany and the Second Polish Republic.
1927January 1927 January 1 – The British Broadcasting Company becomes the British Broadcasting Corporation, when its Royal Charter of incorporation takes effect. John Reith becomes the first Director-General. January 7 The first transatlantic telephone call is made via radio from New York City, United States, to London, United Kingdom. The Harlem Globetrotters exhibition basketball team play their first ever road game in Hinckley, Illinois. January 9 – The Laurier Palace Theatre fire at a movie theatre in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, kills 78 children.
1954January 1954 January 1 – The Soviet Union ceases to demand war reparations from West Germany. January 3 – The Italian broadcaster RAI officially begins transmitting. January 7 – Georgetown-IBM experiment: The first public demonstration of a machine translation system is held in New York, at the head office of IBM. January 10 – BOAC Flight 781, a de Havilland Comet jet plane, disintegrates in mid-air due to metal fatigue, and crashes in the Mediterranean near Elba; all 35 people on board are killed.
1958January 1958 January 1 – The European Economic Community (EEC) comes into being. January 3 – The West Indies Federation is formed. January 4 Edmund Hillary's Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition completes the third overland journey to the South Pole, the first to use powered vehicles. Sputnik 1 (launched on October 4, 1957) falls to Earth from its orbit, and burns up. January 13 – Battle of Edchera: The Moroccan Army of Liberation ambushes a Spanish patrol.
