Events Pre-1600 383 AD – Roman Emperor Gratian is murdered at a banquet after having surrendered to the forces of rival emperor Magnus Maximus. 450 – Marcian is proclaimed Eastern Roman emperor at Hebdomon and marries empress Pulcheria. 766 – Emperor Constantine V humiliates nineteen high-ranking officials, after discovering a plot against him. He executes the leaders, Constantine Podopagouros and his brother Strategios. 1248 – The Dutch city of Ommen receives city rights and fortification rights from Otto III, the Archbishop of Utrecht. 1258 – Regent George Mouzalon and his brothers are killed during a coup headed by the aristocratic faction under Michael VIII Palaiologos, paving the way for its leader to ultimately usurp the throne of the Empire of Nicaea. 1270 – Philip III, although suffering from dysentery, becomes King of France following the death of his father Louis IX, during the Eighth Crusade. His uncle, Charles I of Naples, is forced to begin peace negotiations with Muhammad I al-Mustansir, Hafsid Sultan of Tunis. 1537 – The Honourable Artillery Company, the oldest surviving regiment in the British Army, and the second most senior, is formed. 1543 – António Mota and a few companions become the first Europeans to visit Japan. 1580 – War of the Portuguese Succession: Spanish victory at the Battle of Alcântara brings about the Iberian Union.
1601–1900 1609 – Galileo Galilei demonstrates his first telescope to Venetian lawmakers. 1630 – Portuguese forces are defeated by the Kingdom of Kandy at the Battle of Randeniwela in Sri Lanka. 1651 – A parliamentarian army defeats a royalist army under James Stanley, 7th Earl of Derby, in the battle of Wigan Lane during the Third English Civial War. 1758 – Seven Years' War: Frederick II of Prussia defeats the Russian army at the Battle of Zorndorf. 1814 – War of 1812: On the second day of the burning of Washington, British troops torch the Library of Congress, United States Treasury, Department of War, and other public buildings. 1823 – American fur trapper Hugh Glass is mauled by a grizzly bear while on an expedition in South Dakota. 1825 – The Thirty-Three Orientals declare the independence of Uruguay from Brazil. 1830 – The Belgian Revolution begins. 1835 – The first Great Moon Hoax article is published in The New York Sun, announcing the discovery of life and civilization on the Moon. 1875 – Captain Matthew Webb becomes the first person to swim across the English Channel, traveling from Dover, England, to Calais, France, in 21 hours and 45 minutes. 1883 – France and Viet Nam sign the Treaty of Huế, recognizing a French protectorate over Annam and Tonkin. 1894 – Kitasato Shibasaburō discovers the infectious agent of the bubonic plague and publishes his findings in The Lancet.
1901–present 1904 – Russo-Japanese War: The Battle of Liaoyang begins. 1912 – The Kuomintang is founded for the first time in Peking. 1914 – World War I: Japan declares war on Austria-Hungary. 1914 – World War I: The library of the Catholic University of Leuven is deliberately destroyed by the German Army. Hundreds of thousands of irreplaceable volumes and Gothic and Renaissance manuscripts are lost. 1916 – The United States National Park Service is created. 1920 – Polish–Soviet War: Battle of Warsaw, which began on August 13, ends with the Red Army's defeat. 1933 – The Diexi earthquake strikes Mao County, Sichuan, China and kills 9,000 people. 1933 – Nazi Germany and the Zionist Federation of Germany signed the Haavara Agreement. The agreement was a major factor in breaking the anti-Nazi boycott of 1933 and facilitated Jewish emigration from Germany and into British Mandate of Palestine. 1939 – As part of its S-Plan, the Irish Republican Army carries out the 1939 Coventry bombing in which five civilians were killed. 1939 – The United Kingdom and Poland form a military alliance in which the UK promises to defend Poland in case of invasion by a foreign power. 1940 – World War II: The first Bombing of Berlin by the British Royal Air Force. 1941 – World War II: Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran: The United Kingdom and the Soviet Union jointly stage an invasion of the Imperial State of Iran. 1942 – World War II: Second day of the Battle of the Eastern Solomons; a Japanese naval transport convoy headed towards Guadalcanal is turned back by an Allied air attack. 1942 – World War II: Battle of Milne Bay: Japanese marines assault Allied airfields at Milne Bay, New Guinea, initiating the Battle of Milne Bay. 1944 – World War II: Paris is liberated by the Allies. 1945 – Ten days after World War II ends with Japan announcing its surrender, armed supporters of the Chinese Communist Party kill U.S. intelligence officer John Birch, regarded by some of the American right as the first victim of the Cold War. 1945 – The August Revolution ends as Emperor Bảo Đại abdicates, ending the Nguyễn dynasty. 1948 – The House Un-American Activities Committee holds first-ever televised congressional hearing: "Confrontation Day" between Whittaker Chambers and Alger Hiss. 1950 – To avert a threatened strike during the Korean War, President Truman orders Secretary of the Army Frank Pace to seize control of the nation's railroads. 1958 – The world's first publicly marketed instant noodles, Chikin Ramen, are introduced by Taiwanese-Japanese businessman Momofuku Ando. 1960 – The Games of the XVII Olympiad commence in Rome, Italy. 1961 – President Jânio Quadros of Brazil resigns after just seven months in power, initiating a political crisis that culminates in a military coup in 1964. 1967 – George Lincoln Rockwell, founder of the American Nazi Party, is assassinated by a former member of his group. 1980 – Zimbabwe joins the United Nations. 1980 – The last performance of the Jahrhundertring at the Bayreuth Festival receives ovations of 45 minutes. 1981 – Voyager 2 spacecraft makes its closest approach to Saturn. 1985 – Bar Harbor Airlines Flight 1808 crashes near Auburn/Lewiston Municipal Airport in Auburn, Maine, killing all eight people on board including peace activist and child actress Samantha Smith. 1989 – Voyager 2 spacecraft makes its closest approach to Neptune, the last planet in the Solar System at the time, due to Pluto being within Neptune's orbit from 1979 to 1999. Is Pluto or Neptune farthest from the Sun? StarChild Question of the Month for January 1999. NASA. 1989 – Pakistan International Airlines Flight 404, carrying 54 people, disappears over the Himalayas after takeoff from Gilgit Airport in Pakistan. The aircraft was never found. 1991 – Belarus gains its independence from the Soviet Union. 1991 – The Battle of Vukovar begins. An 87-day siege of Vukovar by the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA), supported by various Serb paramilitary forces, between August and November 1991 (during the Croatian War of Independence). 1991 – Linus Torvalds announces the first version of what will become Linux. 1997 – Egon Krenz, the former East German leader, is convicted of a shoot-to-kill policy at the Berlin Wall. 2001 – American singer Aaliyah and several members of her entourage are killed as their overloaded aircraft crashes shortly after takeoff from Marsh Harbour Airport, Bahamas. 2003 – NASA successfully launches the Spitzer Space Telescope into space. 2005 – Hurricane Katrina makes landfall in Florida. 2006 – Former Prime Minister of Ukraine Pavlo Lazarenko is sentenced to nine years imprisonment for money laundering, wire fraud, and extortion. 2010 – A Filair Let L-410 Turbolet crashes on approach to Bandundu Airport, killing 20. 2011 – Fifty-two people are killed during an arson attack caused by members of the drug cartel Los Zetas. 2012 – Voyager 1 spacecraft enters interstellar space, becoming the first man-made object to do so. 2017 – Hurricane Harvey makes landfall in Texas as a powerful Category 4 hurricane, the strongest hurricane to make landfall in the United States since 2004. 2017 – Conflict in Rakhine State (2016–present): One hundred seventy people are killed in at least 26 separate attacks carried out by the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army, leading to the governments of Myanmar and Malaysia designating the group as a terrorist organisation.
Births Pre-1600 1467 – Francisco Fernández de la Cueva, 2nd Duke of Alburquerque, Spanish duke (died 1526) 1491 – Innocenzo Cybo, Italian cardinal (died 1550) 1509 – Ippolito II d'Este, Italian cardinal and statesman (died 1572) 1530 – Ivan the Terrible, Russian ruler (died 1584) 1540 – Lady Catherine Grey, English noblewoman (died 1568) 1561 – Philippe van Lansberge, Dutch astronomer and mathematician (died 1632)
1601–1900 1605 – Philipp Moritz, Count of Hanau-Münzenberg, German noble (died 1638) 1624 – François de la Chaise, French priest (died 1709) 1662 – John Leverett the Younger, American lawyer, academic, and politician (died 1724) 1707 – Louis I of Spain (died 1724) 1724 – George Stubbs, English painter and academic (died 1806) 1741 – Karl Friedrich Bahrdt, German theologian and author (died 1792) 1744 – Johann Gottfried Herder, German poet, philosopher, and critic (died 1803) 1758 – Franz Teyber, Austrian organist and composer (died 1810) 1767 – Louis Antoine de Saint-Just, French soldier and politician (died 1794) 1776 – Thomas Bladen Capel, English admiral (died 1853) 1786 – Ludwig I of Bavaria, King of Bavaria (died 1868) 1793 – John Neal, American writer, critic, editor, lecturer, and activist (died 1876) 1796 – James Lick, American carpenter and piano builder (died 1876) 1802 – Nikolaus Lenau, Romanian-Austrian poet and author (died 1850) 1803 – Luís Alves de Lima e Silva, Duke of Caxias (died 1880) 1812 – Nikolay Zinin, Russian organic chemist (died 1880) 1817 – Marie-Eugénie de Jésus, French nun and saint, founded the Religious of the Assumption (died 1898) 1819 – Allan Pinkerton Scottish-American barrel maker, private detective (co-founder of Pinkerton Agency), abolitionist, and spy (died 1884) 1828 – Jane Stanford American philanthropist, co-founder of Stanford University, first lady of California (died 1905) 1829 – Carlo Acton, Italian pianist and composer (died 1909) 1836 – Bret Harte, American short story writer and poet (died 1902) 1840 – George C. Magoun, American businessman (died 1893) 1841 – Emil Theodor Kocher, Swiss physician and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1917) 1845 – Ludwig II of Bavaria, King of Bavaria (died 1886) 1850 – Charles Richet, French physiologist and occultist, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1935) 1867 – James W. Gerard, American lawyer and diplomat, United States Ambassador to Germany (died 1951) 1869 – Tom Kiely, British-Irish decathlete (died 1951) 1875 – Agnes Mowinckel, Norwegian actress (died 1963) 1877 – Joshua Lionel Cowen, American businessman, co-founded the Lionel Corporation (died 1965) 1878 – Ted Birnie, English footballer and manager (died 1935) 1882 – Seán T. O'Kelly, Irish journalist and politician, 2nd President of Ireland (died 1966) 1889 – Alexander Mair, Australian politician, 26th Premier of New South Wales (died 1969) 1891 – David Shimoni, Belarusian-Israeli poet and translator (died 1956) 1893 – Henry Trendley Dean, American dentist (died 1962) 1898 – Helmut Hasse, German mathematician and academic (died 1975) 1898 – Arthur Wood, English cricketer (died 1973) 1899 – Paul Herman Buck, American historian and author (died 1978) 1900 – Isobel Hogg Kerr Beattie, Scottish architect (died 1970) 1900 – Hans Adolf Krebs, German physician and biochemist, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1981)
1901–present 1902 – Stefan Wolpe, German-American composer and educator (died 1972) 1903 – Arpad Elo, Hungarian-American chess player, created the Elo rating system (died 1992) 1905 – Faustina Kowalska, Polish nun and saint (died 1938) 1906 – Jim Smith, English cricketer (died 1979) 1909 – Ruby Keeler, Canadian-American actress, singer, and dancer (died 1993) 1909 – Michael Rennie, English actor and producer (died 1971)