Events

• 45 BC – The Julian calendar takes effect as the civil calendar of the Roman Empire, establishing January 1 as the new date of the new year.
• 42 BC – The Roman Senate posthumously deifies Julius Caesar.
• 417 – Emperor Honorius forces Galla Placidia into marriage to Constantius, his famous general (magister militum) (probable).
• 1500 – Portuguese explorer Pedro Álvares Cabral discovers the coast of Brazil.
• 1502 – The present-day location of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, is first explored by the Portuguese.
• 1600 – Scotland recognises 01 January as the start of the year, instead of 25 March.
• 1700 – Russia begins using the Anno Domini era instead of the Anno Mundi era of the Byzantine Empire.
• 1739 – Bouvet Island, the world’s remotest island, is discovered by French explorer Jean-Baptiste Charles Bouvet de Lozier.
• 1776 – American Revolutionary War: Norfolk, Virginia is burned by combined Royal Navy and Continental Army action.
• 1776 – General George Washington hoists the first United States flag, the Grand Union Flag, at Prospect Hill.
• 1781 – American Revolutionary War: One thousand five hundred soldiers of the 6th Pennsylvania Regiment under General Anthony Wayne’s command rebel against the Continental Army’s winter camp in Morristown, New Jersey in the Pennsylvania Line Mutiny of 1781.
• 1801 – The legislative union of Kingdom of Great Britain and Kingdom of Ireland is completed, and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland is proclaimed
• 1804 – French rule ends in Haiti. Haiti becomes the first black-majority republic and second independent country in North America after the United States.
• 1810 – Major General Lachlan Macquarie officially becomes Governor of New South Wales.
• 1834 – Most of Germany forms the Zollverein customs union, the first such union between sovereign states.
• 1861 – Liberal forces supporting Benito Juárez enter Mexico City.
• 1863 – American Civil War: The Emancipation Proclamation takes effect in Confederate territory.
• 1877 – Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom is proclaimed Empress of India.
• 1885 – Twenty-five nations adopt Sandford Fleming’s proposal for standard time (and also, time zones).
• 1890 – Eritrea is consolidated into a colony by the Italian government.
• 1899 – Spanish rule ends in Cuba.
• 1900 – Nigeria becomes a British protectorate with Frederick Lugard as high commissioner.
• 1901 – The Southern Nigeria Protectorate is established within the British Empire.
• 1901 – The British colonies of New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania, and Western Australia federate as the Commonwealth of Australia; Edmund Barton is appointed the first Prime Minister.
• 1910 – Captain David Beatty is promoted to Rear admiral, and becomes the youngest admiral in the Royal Navy (except for Royal family members) since Horatio Nelson.
• 1912 – The Republic of China is established.
• 1927 – New Mexican oil legislation goes into effect, leading to the formal outbreak of the Cristero War.
• 1942 – The Declaration by United Nations is signed by twenty-six nations.
• 1945 – World War II: The German Luftwaffe launches Operation Bodenplatte, a massive, but failed, attempt to knock out Allied air power in northern Europe in a single blow.
• 1947 – Cold War: The American and British occupation zones in Allied-occupied Germany, after World War II, merge to form the Bizone, which later (with the French zone) became part of West Germany.
• 1947 – The Canadian Citizenship Act 1946 comes into effect, converting British subjects into Canadian citizens.
  • Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King becomes the first Canadian citizen.
• 1949 – United Nations cease-fire takes effect in Kashmir from one minute before midnight.
  • War between India and Pakistan stops accordingly.
• 1956 – Sudan achieves independence from Egypt and the United Kingdom.
• 1958 – The European Economic Community is established.
• 1959 – Cuban Revolution: Fulgencio Batista, dictator of Cuba, is overthrown by Fidel Castro’s forces.
• 1960 – Cameroon achieves independence from France and the United Kingdom.
• 1962 – Western Samoa achieves independence from New Zealand; its name is changed to the Independent State of Western Samoa.
• 1964 – The Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland is divided into the independent republics of Zambia and Malawi, and the British-controlled Rhodesia.
• 1970 – The defined beginning of Unix time, at 00:00:00.
• 1983 – The ARPANET officially changes to using TCP/IP, the Internet Protocol, effectively creating the Internet.
• 1984 – Brunei becomes independent of the United Kingdom.
• 1993 – Dissolution of Czechoslovakia: Czechoslovakia is divided into the Czech Republic and Slovak Republic.
• 1994 – The Zapatista Army of National Liberation initiates twelve days of armed conflict in the Mexican state of Chiapas.
• 2004 – In a vote of confidence, General Pervez Musharraf wins 658 out of 1,170 votes in the Electoral College of Pakistan, and according to Article 41(8) of the Constitution of Pakistan, is “deemed to be elected” to the office of President until October 2007.

People (Births)

• 1711 – Baron Franz von der Trenck, Austrian soldier (d. 1749).
• 1745 – Anthony Wayne, American general and politician (d. 1796).
• 1752 – Betsy Ross, American seamstress, sewed flags for the Pennsylvania Navy during the Revolutionary War (d. 1836).
• 1814 – Hong Xiuquan, Chinese rebellion leader and king (d. 1864).
• 1818 – William Gamble, Irish-born American general (d. 1866).
• 1819 – George Foster Shepley, American general (d. 1878).
• 1883 – William J. Donovan, American general, lawyer, and politician (d. 1959).
• 1884 – Chikuhei Nakajima, Japanese lieutenant, engineer, and politician, founded Nakajima Aircraft Company (d. 1949).
• 1887 – Wilhelm Canaris, German admiral (d. 1945).
• 1888 – Georgios Stanotas, Greek general (d. 1965).
• 1888 – John Garand, Canadian-American engineer, designed the M1 Garand rifle (d. 1974).
• 1893 – Mordechai Frizis, Greek colonel (d. 1940).
• 1900 – Chiune Sugihara, Japanese soldier and diplomat (d. 1986).
• 1907 – Kinue Hitomi, Japanese sprinter and long jumper (d. 1931).
• 1909 – Stepan Bandera, Ukrainian soldier and politician (d. 1959).
• 1914 – Noor Inayat Khan, British SOE agent (d. 1944).
• 1918 – Patrick Anthony Porteous, Scottish colonel, Victoria Cross recipient (d. 2000).
• 1918 – Willy den Ouden, Dutch swimmer (d. 1997).
• 1919 – J. D. Salinger, American soldier and author (d. 2010).
• 1922 – Ernest Hollings, American soldier and politician, 106th Governor of South Carolina (d. 2019).
• 1943 – Tony Knowles, American soldier and politician, 7th Governor of Alaska.
• 1944 – Omar al-Bashir, Sudanese field marshal and politician, 7th President of Sudan.
• 1948 – Dick Quax, New Zealand runner and politician (d. 2018).
• 1948 – Pavel Grachev, Russian general and politician, 1st Russian Minister of Defence (d. 2012).
• 1959 – Abdul Ahad Mohmand, Afghan colonel, pilot, and astronaut.
• 1959 – Azali Assoumani, Comorian colonel and politician, President of the Comoros.
• 1983 – Melaine Walker, Jamaican hurdler.

People (Deaths)

• 1846 – John Torrington, English sailor and explorer (b. 1825).
• 1992 – Grace Hopper, American computer scientist and admiral, co-developed COBOL (b. 1906).
• 1996 – Arleigh Burke, American admiral (b. 1901).
• 2003 – Joe Foss, American soldier, pilot, and politician, 20th Governor of South Dakota (b. 1915).
• 2016 – Dale Bumpers, American soldier, lawyer, and politician, 38th Governor of Arkansas (b. 1925).