Events Pre-1600 393 – Roman emperor Theodosius I proclaims his eight-year-old son Honorius co-emperor. 971 – Using crossbows, Song dynasty troops soundly defeat a war elephant corps of the Southern Han at Shao. 1229 – The episcopal seat is moved from Nousiainen to Koroinen (located near the current centre of Turku) by the permission of Pope Gregory IX. The date is starting to be considered as the founding of Turku. 1264 – In the conflict between King Henry III of England and his rebellious barons led by Simon de Montfort, King Louis IX of France issues the Mise of Amiens, a one-sided decision in favour of Henry that later leads to the Second Barons' War. 1368 – Zhu Yuanzhang proclaims himself the Hongwu Emperor, beginning the Ming dynasty. 1546 – Having published nothing for eleven years, François Rabelais publishes the Tiers Livre, his sequel to Gargantua and Pantagruel. 1556 – The deadliest earthquake in history, the Shaanxi earthquake, hits Shaanxi province, China. The death toll may have been as high as 830,000. 1565 – The Deccan Sultanates defeat Rama Raya of the Vijayanagara Empire at the Battle of Talikota, resulting in over 100,000 casualties and the destruction of the capital Vijayanagara. 1570 – James Stewart, 1st Earl of Moray, regent for the infant King James VI of Scotland, is assassinated by firearm, the first recorded instance of such. 1571 – The Royal Exchange opens in London. 1579 – The Union of Utrecht forms a Protestant republic in the Netherlands.
1601–1900 1656 – Blaise Pascal publishes the first of his Lettres provinciales. 1719 – The Principality of Liechtenstein is created within the Holy Roman Empire. 1755 – Moscow University is established (12 January 1755 O.S.). 1789 – Georgetown College, the first Catholic university in the United States, is founded in Georgetown, Maryland (now a part of Washington, D.C.) when Bishop John Carroll, Rev. Robert Molyneux, and Rev. John Ashton purchase land for the proposed academy for the education of youth. 1793 – Second Partition of Poland. 1795 – After crossing the frozen Zuiderzee, the French cavalry capture 14 Dutch ships and 850 guns, in a rare occurrence of surrender of naval vessels to land forces. 1846 – Slavery in Tunisia is abolished. Original decree of 23 January 1846 on the enfranchisement of slaves (National archives of Tunisia) 1849 – Elizabeth Blackwell is awarded her M.D. by the Geneva Medical College of Geneva, New York, becoming the United States' first female doctor. 1870 – In Montana, U.S. cavalrymen kill 173 Native Americans, mostly women and children, in what becomes known as the Marias Massacre. 1879 – Anglo-Zulu War: The Battle of Rorke's Drift ends. 1899 – The Malolos Constitution is inaugurated, establishing the First Philippine Republic. Emilio Aguinaldo is sworn in as its first president. 1900 – Second Boer War: The Battle of Spion Kop between the forces of the South African Republic and the Orange Free State and British forces ends in a British defeat.
1901–present 1904 – Ålesund Fire: The Norwegian coastal town Ålesund is devastated by fire, leaving 10,000 people homeless and one person dead. Kaiser Wilhelm II funds the rebuilding of the town in Jugendstil style. 1909 – , a passenger ship of the White Star Line, becomes the first ship to use the CQD distress signal after colliding with another ship, the SS Florida, off the Massachusetts coastline, an event that kills six people. The Republic sinks the next day. 1912 – The First International Opium Convention is signed at The Hague. 1919 – The First Regional Congress of Peasants, Workers and Insurgents is held by the Makhnovshchina at Velykomykhailivka. 1920 – The Netherlands refuses to surrender the exiled Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany to the Allies. 1922 – The first successful treatment with insulin is given to 14-year-old diabetic Leonard Thompson. 1937 – The trial of the anti-Soviet Trotskyist center sees seventeen mid-level Communists accused of sympathizing with Leon Trotsky and plotting to overthrow Joseph Stalin's regime. 1941 – Charles Lindbergh testifies before the U.S. Congress and recommends that the United States negotiate a neutrality pact with Adolf Hitler. 1942 – World War II: The Battle of Rabaul commences Japan's invasion of Australia's Territory of New Guinea. 1943 – World War II: Troops of the British Eighth Army capture Tripoli in Libya from the German–Italian Panzer Army. 1945 – World War II: German admiral Karl Dönitz launches Operation Hannibal, the evacuation of areas along the eastern Baltic coast. 1950 – The Knesset resolves that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. 1957 – American inventor Walter Frederick Morrison sells the rights to his flying disc to the Wham-O toy company, which later renames it the "Frisbee". 1958 – After a general uprising and rioting in the streets, President Marcos Pérez Jiménez leaves Venezuela. 1960 – The bathyscaphe USS Trieste breaks a depth record by descending to in the Pacific Ocean. 1963 – The Guinea-Bissau War of Independence officially begins when PAIGC guerrilla fighters attack the Portuguese Army stationed in Tite. 1964 – The 24th Amendment to the United States Constitution, prohibiting the use of poll taxes in national elections, is ratified. 1967 – Diplomatic relations between the Soviet Union and Ivory Coast are established. 1967 – Milton Keynes (England) is founded as a new town by Order in Council, with a planning brief to become a city of 250,000 people. Its initial designated area enclosed three existing towns and twenty-one villages. The area to be developed was largely farmland, with evidence of continuous settlement dating back to the Bronze Age. 1968 – USS Pueblo (AGER-2) is attacked and seized by the Korean People's Navy. 1982 – World Airways Flight 30 overshoots the runway at Logan International Airport in Boston, Massachusetts, and crashes into Boston Harbor. Two people are missing and presumed dead. 1986 – The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducts its first members: Little Richard, Chuck Berry, James Brown, Ray Charles, Sam Cooke, Fats Domino, The Everly Brothers, Buddy Holly, Jerry Lee Lewis and Elvis Presley. 1987 – Mohammed Said Hersi Morgan sends a "letter of death" to Somali President Siad Barre, proposing the genocide of the Isaaq people. 1997 – Madeleine Albright becomes the first woman to serve as United States Secretary of State. 1998 – Netscape announces Mozilla, with the intention to release Communicator code as open source. 2001 – Five people attempt to set themselves on fire in Beijing's Tiananmen Square, an act that many people later claim is staged by the Chinese Communist Party to frame Falun Gong and thus escalate their persecution. 2002 – U.S. journalist Daniel Pearl is kidnapped in Karachi, Pakistan and subsequently murdered. 2003 – A very weak signal from Pioneer 10 is detected for the last time, but no usable data can be extracted. 2018 – A 7.9 earthquake occurs in the Gulf of Alaska. It is tied as the sixth-largest earthquake ever recorded in the United States, but there are no reports of significant damage or fatalities. 2018 – A double car bombing in Benghazi, Libya, kills at least 33 people and wounds "dozens" of others. The victims include both military personnel and civilians, according to local officials. 2018 – The China–United States trade war begins when President Donald Trump places tariffs on Chinese solar panels and washing machines. 2022 – Mutinying Burkinabè soldiers led by Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba depose and detain President Roch Marc Christian Kaboré amid widespread anti-government protests. 2024 – Northwestern Air Flight 738 crashes after takeoff from Fort Smith Airport, Northwest Territories, Canada, killing six people.
Births
Pre-1600 1350 – Vincent Ferrer, Spanish missionary and saint (died 1419) 1378 – Louis III, Elector Palatine (died 1436) 1514 – Hai Rui, Chinese politician (died 1587) 1585 – Mary Ward, English Catholic Religious Sister (died 1645)
1601–1900 1622 – Abraham Diepraam, Dutch painter (died 1670) 1719 – John Landen, English mathematician and theorist (died 1790) 1737 – John Hancock, American general and politician, first Governor of Massachusetts (died 1793) 1745 – William Jessop, English engineer, built the Cromford Canal (died 1814) 1752 – Muzio Clementi, Italian pianist, composer, and conductor (died 1832) 1780 – Georgios Karaiskakis, Greek general (died 1827) 1783 – Stendhal, French novelist (died 1842) 1786 – Auguste de Montferrand, French-Russian architect, designed Saint Isaac's Cathedral and Alexander Column (died 1858) 1799 – Alois Negrelli, Tyrolean engineer and railroad pioneer active in the Austrian Empire (died 1858) 1809 – Surendra Sai, Indian activist (died 1884) 1813 – Camilla Collett, Norwegian novelist and activist (died 1895) 1828 – Saigō Takamori, Japanese samurai (died 1877) 1832 – Édouard Manet, French painter (died 1883) 1833 – Muthu Coomaraswamy, Sri Lankan lawyer and politician (died 1879) 1838 – Marianne Cope, German-American nun and saint (died 1918) 1840 – Ernst Abbe, German physicist and engineer (died 1905) 1846 – Nikolay Umov, Russian physicist and mathematician (died 1915) 1853 – John Marks Moore, American politician (died 1902) 1855 – John Browning, American weapons designer, founded the Browning Arms Company (died 1926) 1857 – Andrija Mohorovičić, Croatian meteorologist and seismologist (died 1936) 1862 – David Hilbert, German mathematician and academic (died 1943) 1862 – Frank Shuman, American inventor and engineer (died 1918) 1872 – Paul Langevin, French physicist and academic (died 1946) 1872 – Jože Plečnik, Slovenian architect, designed Plečnik Parliament (died 1957) 1876 – Otto Diels, German chemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1954) 1878 – Rutland Boughton, English composer (died 1960) 1880 – Antonio Díaz Soto y Gama, Mexican politician (died 1967) 1889 – Claribel Kendall, American mathematician (died 1965) 1894 – Jyotirmoyee Devi, Indian author (died 1988) 1896 – Alf Blair, Australian rugby league player and coach (died 1944) 1896 – Alf Hall, English-South African cricketer (died 1964) 1897 – Subhas Chandra Bose, Indian freedom fighter and politician (died 1945) 1897 – Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky, Austrian architect (died 2000) 1897 – Ieva Simonaitytė, Lithuanian author (died 1978) 1897 – William Stephenson, Canadian captain and spy (died 1989) 1898 – Georg Kulenkampff, German violinist (died 1948) 1898 – Randolph Scott, American actor (died 1987) 1898 – Freda Utley, English scholar and author (died 1978) 1899 – Glen Kidston, English racing driver and pilot (died 1931) 1900 – William Ifor Jones, Welsh organist and conductor (died 1988)
1901–present 1901 – Arthur Wirtz, American businessman (died 1983) 1903 – Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, Colombian lawyer and politician, 16th Minister of National Education of Colombia (died 1948) 1905 – Erich Borchmeyer, German sprinter (died 2000) 1907 – Dan Duryea, American actor and singer (died 1968) 1907 – Hideki Yukawa, Japanese physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1981) 1910 – Django Reinhardt, Belgian guitarist and composer (died 1953) 1912 – Boris Pokrovsky, Russian director and manager (died 2009) 1913 – Jean-Michel Atlan, Algerian-French painter (died 1960) 1913 – Wally Parks, American businessman, founded the National Hot Rod Association (died 2007) 1915 – Herma Bauma, Austrian javelin thrower and handball player (died 2003) 1915 – W. Arthur Lewis, Saint Lucian-Barbadian economist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1991) 1915 – Potter Stewart, American lawyer and judge (died 1985) 1916 – David Douglas Duncan, American photographer and journalist (died 2018) 1916 – Airey Neave, English colonel, lawyer, and politician, Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (died 1979) 1918 – Gertrude B. Elion, American biochemist and pharmacologist, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1999) 1918 – Charlie Kerins, Executed Irish Republican (died 1944)