January 3 - Events

Events

• 1431 – Joan of Arc is handed over to Bishop Pierre Cauchon.
• 1496 – Leonardo da Vinci unsuccessfully tests a flying machine.
• 1521 – Pope Leo X excommunicates Martin Luther in the papal bull Decet Romanum Pontificem.
• 1653 – At the Coonan Cross Oath, the Eastern Church in India cuts itself off from colonial Portuguese tutelage.
• 1749 – Benning Wentworth issues the first of the New Hampshire Grants, leading to the establishment of Vermont.
• 1749 – The first issue of Berlingske, Denmark's oldest continually operating newspaper, is published.
• 1777 – American general George Washington defeats British general Charles Cornwallis at the Battle of Princeton.
• 1782 – Sylhet District in north-east Bangladesh is established
• 1815 – Austria, the United Kingdom, and France form a secret defensive alliance treaty against Prussia and Russia.
• 1823 – Stephen F. Austin receives a grant of land in Texas from the government of Mexico.
• 1848 – Joseph Jenkins Roberts is sworn in as the first president of the independent African Liberia.
• 1861 – American Civil War: Delaware votes not to secede from the United States.
• 1868 – Meiji Restoration in Japan: The Tokugawa shogunate is abolished; agents of Satsuma and Chōshū seize power.
• 1870 – The construction of the Brooklyn Bridge begins.
• 1888 – The refracting telescope at the Lick Observatory, measuring 91 cm in diameter, is used for the first time. It was the largest telescope in the world at the time.
• 1911 – A magnitude 7.7 earthquake destroys the city of Almaty in Russian Turkestan.
• 1919 – At the Paris Peace Conference, Emir Faisal of Iraq signs an agreement with Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann on the development of a Jewish homeland in Palestine and an Arab nation in a large part of the Middle East.
• 1925 – Benito Mussolini announces he is taking dictatorial powers over Italy.
• 1932 – Martial law is declared in Honduras to stop a revolt by banana workers fired by the United Fruit Company.
• 1933 – Minnie D. Craig becomes the first female elected as Speaker of the North Dakota House of Representatives, the first female to hold a Speaker position anywhere in the United States.
• 1938 – The March of Dimes is established by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
• 1944 – World War II: Top Ace Major Greg "Pappy" Boyington is shot down in his Corsair by Captain Masajiro Kawato flying a Zero.
• 1945 – World War II: Admiral Chester W. Nimitz is placed in command of all U.S. Naval forces in preparation for planned assaults against Iwo Jima and Okinawa in Japan.
• 1946 – Popular Canadian-American jockey George Woolf dies in a freak accident during a race; the annual George Woolf Memorial Jockey Award is created to honor him.
• 1947 – Proceedings of the U.S. Congress are televised for the first time.
• 1949 – The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, the central bank of the Philippines, is established.
• 1953 – Frances P. Bolton and her son, Oliver from Ohio, become the first mother and son to serve simultaneously in the U.S. Congress.
• 1956 – A fire damages the top part of the Eiffel Tower.
• 1957 – The Hamilton Watch Company introduces the first electric watch.
• 1958 – The West Indies Federation is formed.
• 1959 – Alaska is admitted as the 49th U.S. state.
• 1959 – Separatists in the Maldives declare the establishment of the United Suvadive Republic.
• 1961 – The United States severs diplomatic relations with Cuba.
• 1961 – The SL-1, a government-run reactor near Idaho Falls, Idaho, underwent a core explosion and meltdown, killing three workers.
• 1961 – Finland's worst civilian aviation accident takes place when Aero Flight 311 crashes near Kvevlax, resulting in the deaths of all 25 people aboard.
• 1962 – Pope John XXIII excommunicates Fidel Castro.
• 1976 – The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights comes into effect.
• 1977 – Apple Computer is incorporated.
• 1990 – Former leader of Panama Manuel Noriega surrenders to American forces.
• 1993 – In Moscow, Russia, George Bush and Boris Yeltsin sign the second Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START).
• 1994 – More than seven million people from the former Apartheid Homelands, receive South African citizenship.
• 1996 – The Motorola StarTAC, the first flip phone and one of the first mobile phones to gain widespread consumer adoption, goes on sale.
• 1997 – China announces it will spend US$27.7 billion to fight erosion and pollution in the Yangtze and Yellow River valleys.
• 1999 – The Mars Polar Lander is launched.
• 1999 – Israel detains, and later expels, 14 members of Concerned Christians.
• 2004 – Flash Airlines Flight 604 crashes into the Red Sea, resulting in 148 deaths, making it the deadliest aviation accident in Egyptian history.