Events Pre-1600 98 – Trajan succeeds his adoptive father Nerva as Roman emperor. 417 – Pope Innocent I declares Pelagius and his follower Caelestius excommunicated unless they return to orthodoxy. 532 – Nika riots in Constantinople fail. 945 – The co-emperors Stephen and Constantine are overthrown and forced to become monks by Constantine VII, who becomes sole emperor of the Byzantine Empire.Theophanes Continuatus, Book VI; John Skylitzes (s. 237) . 1186 – Henry VI, the son and heir of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I, marries Constance of Sicily. 1302 – Dante Alighieri is condemned in absentia and exiled from Florence. 1343 – Pope Clement VI issues the papal bull Unigenitus, laying out the scriptural justification for indulgences, identifying only the Pope and episcopate as capable of accessing the treasury of merit, and establishing a jubilee year every half century.;
1601–1900 1606 – Gunpowder Plot: The trial of Guy Fawkes and other conspirators begins, ending with their execution on January 31. 1695 – Mustafa II becomes the Ottoman sultan and Caliph of Islam in Istanbul on the death of Ahmed II. Mustafa rules until his abdication in 1703. 1726 – J. S. Bach leads the first performance of Alles nur nach Gottes Willen, BWV 72, concluding his third Christmas season in Leipzig on the Third Sunday after Epiphany. 1759 – Spanish forces clash with indigenous Huilliches of southern Chile in the battle of Río Bueno. 1776 – American Revolutionary War: Henry Knox's "noble train of artillery" arrives in Cambridge, Massachusetts. 1785 – The University of Georgia is founded, the first state-chartered public university in the United States. 1820 – A Russian expedition led by Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen and Mikhail Petrovich Lazarev discovers the Antarctic continent, approaching the Antarctic coast. 1825 – The U.S. Congress approves Indian Territory (in what is present-day Oklahoma), clearing the way for forced relocation of the Eastern Indians on the "Trail of Tears". 1868 – Boshin War: The Battle of Toba–Fushimi begins, between forces of the Tokugawa shogunate and pro-Imperial factions; it will end in defeat for the shogunate, and is a pivotal point in the Meiji Restoration. 1869 – Boshin War: Tokugawa rebels establish the Ezo Republic in Hokkaidō. 1874 – Modest Mussorgsky's opera Boris Godunov premieres in Mariinsky Theatre in St.Petersburg. 1880 – Thomas Edison receives a patent for his incandescent lamp.
1901–present 1916 – World War I: The British government passes the Military Service Act that introduces conscription in the United Kingdom. 1918 – Beginning of the Finnish Civil War. 1924 – Six days after his death, Vladimir Lenin's body is carried into a specially erected mausoleum. 1927 – Ibn Saud takes the title of King of Nejd. 1928 – Bundaberg tragedy: a diphtheria vaccine is contaminated with Staph. aureus bacterium, resulting in the deaths of twelve children in the Australian town of Bundaberg. 1939 – First flight of the Lockheed P-38 Lightning. 1943 – World War II: The Eighth Air Force sorties ninety-one B-17s and B-24s to attack the U-boat construction yards at Wilhelmshaven, Germany. This was the first American bombing attack on Germany. 1944 – World War II: The 872-day Siege of Leningrad is lifted. 1945 – World War II: The Soviet 322nd Rifle Division liberates the remaining inmates of Auschwitz-Birkenau. 1951 – Nuclear testing at the Nevada Test Site begins with Operation Ranger. 1961 – The Soviet submarine S-80 sinks when its snorkel malfunctions, flooding the boat. 1965 – South Vietnamese Prime Minister Trần Văn Hương is removed by the military junta of Nguyễn Khánh. 1967 – Apollo program: Astronauts Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee are killed in a fire during a test of their Apollo 1 spacecraft at the Kennedy Space Center, Florida. 1967 – Cold War: The Soviet Union, the United States, and the United Kingdom sign the Outer Space Treaty in Washington, D.C., banning deployment of nuclear weapons in space, and limiting the usage of the Moon and other celestial bodies to peaceful purposes. 1973 – The Paris Peace Accords officially ends the Vietnam War. Colonel William Nolde is killed in action becoming the conflict's last recorded American combat casualty. 1980 – Through cooperation between the U.S. and Canadian governments, six American diplomats secretly escape hostilities in Iran in the culmination of the Canadian Caper. 1983 – The pilot shaft of the Seikan Tunnel, the world's longest sub-aqueous tunnel (53.85 km) between the Japanese islands of Honshū and Hokkaidō, breaks through. 1996 – In a military coup, Colonel Ibrahim Baré Maïnassara deposes the first democratically elected president of Niger, Mahamane Ousmane. 1996 – Germany first observes the International Holocaust Remembrance Day. 2002 – An explosion at a military storage facility in Lagos, Nigeria, kills at least 1,100 people and displaces over 20,000 others. 2003 – The first selections for the National Recording Registry are announced by the Library of Congress. 2010 – The 2009 Honduran constitutional crisis ends when Porfirio Lobo Sosa becomes the new President of Honduras. 2010 – Apple announces the iPad. 2011 – Arab Spring: The Yemeni Revolution begins as over 16,000 protestors demonstrate in Sanaa. 2011 – Within Ursa Minor, H1504+65, a white dwarf with the hottest known surface temperature in the universe at 200,000 K, was documented. 2013 – Two hundred and forty-two people die in a nightclub fire in the Brazilian city of Santa Maria, Rio Grande do Sul. 2014 – Rojava conflict: The Kobanî Canton declares its autonomy from the Syrian Arab Republic. 2017 – A naming ceremony for the chemical element tennessine takes place in the United States. 2023 – Protests and public outrage spark across the U.S. after the release of multiple videos by the Memphis Police Department showing officers punching, kicking, and pepper spraying Tyre Nichols as a result of running away from a traffic stop, which resulted him dying in the hospital three days later after the incident. 2023 – A shooting at a synagogue in Neve Yaakov, East Jerusalem, kills seven people and injures three others. 2023 – An attack on the Azerbaijani embassy in Pasdaran, Tehran, kills one person and injures three others.
Births Pre-1600 1365 – Edward of Angoulême, English noble (died 1370) 1443 – Albert III, Duke of Saxony (died 1500) 1546 – Joachim III Frederick, Elector of Brandenburg (died 1608) 1571 – Abbas I of Persia (died 1629) 1585 – Hendrick Avercamp, Dutch painter (died 1634)
1601–1900 1603 – Sir Harbottle Grimston, 2nd Baronet, English lawyer and politician, Speaker of the House of Commons (died 1685) 1603 – Humphrey Mackworth, English politician, lawyer and judge (died 1654) 1621 – Thomas Willis, English physician and anatomist (died 1675) 1662 – Richard Bentley, English scholar and theologian (died 1742) 1663 – George Byng, 1st Viscount Torrington, Royal Navy admiral (died 1733) 1687 – Johann Balthasar Neumann, German engineer and architect, designed Würzburg Residence and Basilica of the Fourteen Holy Helpers (died 1753) 1701 – Johann Nikolaus von Hontheim, German historian and theologian (died 1790) 1708 – Grand Duchess Anna Petrovna of Russia (died 1728) 1741 – Hester Thrale, Welsh author (died 1821) 1756 – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Austrian pianist and composer (died 1791) 1775 – Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling, German-Swiss philosopher and academic (died 1854) 1782 – Titumir, Bengali revolutionary (died 1831) 1790 – Juan Álvarez, Mexican general and president (1855) (died 1867) 1795 – Eli Whitney Blake, American engineer, invented the Mortise lock (died 1886) 1803 – Eunice Hale Waite Cobb, American writer, public speaker, and activist (died 1880) 1805 – Maria Anna of Bavaria (died 1877) 1805 – Samuel Palmer, English painter and etcher (died 1881) 1806 – Juan Crisóstomo Arriaga, Spanish composer and educator (died 1826) 1808 – David Strauss, German theologian and author (died 1874) 1814 – Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, French architect, designed the Lausanne Cathedral (died 1879) 1821 – John Chivington, American colonel and pastor (died 1892) 1823 – Édouard Lalo, French violinist and composer (died 1892) 1824 – Urbain Johnson, Canadian farmer and political figure (died 1917) 1826 – Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin, Russian journalist and author (died 1889) 1826 – Richard Taylor, American general, historian, and politician (died 1879) 1832 – Lewis Carroll, English novelist, poet, and mathematician (died 1898) 1832 – Carl Friedrich Schmidt, Estonian-Russian geologist and botanist (died 1908) 1836 – Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, Austrian journalist and author (died 1895) 1842 – Arkhip Kuindzhi, Ukrainian-Russian painter (died 1910) 1848 – Tōgō Heihachirō, Japanese admiral (died 1934) 1850 – John Collier, English painter and author (died 1934) 1850 – Samuel Gompers, English-American labor leader (died 1924) 1850 – Edward Smith, English captain (died 1912) 1858 – Neel Doff, Dutch-Belgian author (died 1942) 1859 – Wilhelm II, German Emperor during World War I (died 1941) 1869 – Will Marion Cook, American violinist and composer (died 1944) 1878 – Dorothy Scarborough, American author (died 1935) 1885 – Jerome Kern, American composer and songwriter (died 1945) 1885 – Seison Maeda, Japanese painter (died 1977) 1886 – Radhabinod Pal, Indian academic and jurist (died 1967) 1889 – Balthasar van der Pol, Dutch physicist and academic (died 1959) 1893 – Soong Ching-ling, Chinese politician, Honorary President of the People's Republic of China (died 1981) 1895 – Joseph Rosenstock, Polish-American conductor and manager (died 1985) 1895 – Harry Ruby, American composer and screenwriter (died 1974) 1900 – Hyman G. Rickover, American admiral, leader in the development of nuclear propulsion in the US Navy (died 1986)
1901–present 1901 – Willy Fritsch, German actor (died 1973) 1901 – Art Rooney, American football player, coach and owner (died 1988) 1903 – John Eccles, Australian-Swiss neurophysiologist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1997) 1904 – James J. Gibson, American psychologist and academic (died 1979) 1905 – Howard McNear, American actor (died 1969) 1908 – William Randolph Hearst, Jr., American journalist and publisher (died 1993) 1910 – Edvard Kardelj, Slovene general, economist, and politician, 2nd Foreign Minister of Yugoslavia (died 1979) 1912 – Arne Næss, Norwegian philosopher and environmentalist (died 2009) 1912 – Francis Rogallo, American engineer, invented the Rogallo wing (died 2009) 1913 – Michael Ripper, English actor (died 2000) 1915 – Jules Archer, American historian and author (died 2008) 1915 – Jacques Hnizdovsky, Ukrainian-American painter, sculptor, and illustrator (died 1985) 1918 – Skitch Henderson, American pianist, composer, and conductor (died 2005) 1918 – Elmore James, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (died 1963) 1918 – William Seawell, American general (died 2005) 1919 – Ross Bagdasarian, Sr., American singer-songwriter, pianist, producer, and actor, created Alvin and the Chipmunks (died 1972) 1920 – Hiroyoshi Nishizawa, Japanese lieutenant and pilot (died 1944) 1920 – Helmut Zacharias, German violinist and composer (died 2002) 1921 – Donna Reed, American actress (died 1986) 1924 – Rauf Denktaş, Cypriot lawyer and politician, 1st President of Northern Cyprus (died 2012) 1924 – Brian Rix, English actor, producer, and politician (died 2016) 1924 – Harvey Shapiro, American poet (died 2013) 1926 – Fritz Spiegl, Austrian flute player and journalist (died 2003) 1926 – Ingrid Thulin, Swedish actress (died 2004) 1928 – Hans Modrow, Polish-German lawyer and politician, 5th Prime Minister of East Germany (died 2023) 1929 – Mohamed Al-Fayed, Egyptian-Swiss businessman (died 2023) 1929 – Michael Craig, Indian-English actor and screenwriter 1929 – Gastón Suárez, Bolivian author and playwright (died 1984) 1930 – Bobby Bland, American blues singer-songwriter (died 2013)