1294 – Saint Celestine V resigns the papacy after only five months to return to his previous life as an ascetic hermit.
1545 – The Council of Trent begins as the embodiment of the Counter-Reformation.
1577 – Sir Francis Drake sets sail from Plymouth, England, on his round-the-world voyage.
1623 – The Plymouth Colony establishes the system of trial by 12-men jury in the American colonies.
1636 – The Massachusetts Bay Colony organizes three militia regiments to defend the colony against the Pequot Indians, a date now considered the founding of the National Guard of the United States.
1642 – Abel Tasman is the first recorded European to sight New Zealand.
1643 – English Civil War: The Battle of Alton takes place in Hampshire.
1758 – The English transport ship Duke William sinks in the North Atlantic, killing over 360 people.
1769 – Dartmouth College is founded by the Reverend Eleazar Wheelock, with a royal charter from King George III, on land donated by Royal governor John Wentworth.
1818 – Cyril VI of Constantinople resigns from his position as Ecumenical Patriarch under pressure from the Ottoman Empire.
1862 – American Civil War: At the Battle of Fredericksburg, Confederate General Robert E. Lee defeats Union Major General Ambrose Burnside.
1867 – A Fenian bomb explodes in Clerkenwell, London, killing 12 people and injuring 50.
1937 – Second Sino-Japanese War: Battle of Nanking: The city of Nanjing, defended by the National Revolutionary Army under the command of General Tang Shengzhi, falls to the Japanese. This is followed by the Nanking Massacre, in which Japanese troops rape and slaughter hundreds of thousands of civilians.
1938 – The Holocaust: The Neuengamme concentration camp opens in the Bergedorf district of Hamburg, Germany.
1939 – The Battle of the River Plate is fought off the coast of Uruguay; the first naval battle of World War II. The Kriegsmarine's Deutschland-class cruiser (pocket battleship) Admiral Graf Spee engages with three Royal Navy cruisers: , and .
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.
January 4 – Life magazine is founded in Los Angeles, California, United States. January 10 – A fire at the Newhall Hotel in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States, kills 73 people. January 16 – The Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act, establishing the United States civil service, is passed. January 19 – The first electric lighting system employing overhead wires begins service in Roselle, New Jersey, United States, installed by Thomas Edison. February – The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi is first published complete in book form, in Italy.
497 BC – The first Saturnalia festival was celebrated in ancient Rome. 546 – Siege of Rome: The Ostrogoths under king Totila plunder the city, by bribing the Byzantine garrison. 920 – Romanos I Lekapenos is crowned co-emperor of the underage Constantine VII. 942 – Assassination of William I of Normandy. 1297 – King Kyawswa of Pagan is overthrown by the three Myinsaing brothers, marking the de facto end of the Pagan Kingdom. 1398 – Sultan Nasir-u Din Mehmud's armies in Delhi are defeated by Timur.
January 2 The Standard Oil Trust is secretly created in the United States to control multiple corporations set up by John D. Rockefeller and his associates. Irish-born author Oscar Wilde arrives in the United States for an extended lecture tour; when asked by a customs official if he has anything to declare, he replies "I have nothing to declare but my genius" according to later tradition. January 5 – Charles J. Guiteau is found guilty of the assassination of James A.