1258 – Mongol invasions: Baghdad falls to the Mongols, bringing the Islamic Golden Age to an end.
1306 – In front of the high altar of Greyfriars Church in Dumfries, Robert the Bruce murders John Comyn sparking the revolution in the Wars of Scottish Independence.
1355 – The St Scholastica Day riot breaks out in Oxford, England, leaving 63 scholars and perhaps 30 locals dead in two days.
1502 – Vasco da Gama sets sail from Lisbon, Portugal, on his second voyage to India.
1567 – Lord Darnley, second husband of Mary, Queen of Scots, is found strangled following an explosion at the Kirk o’ Field house in Edinburgh, Scotland, a suspected assassination.
1712 – Huilliches in Chiloé rebel against Spanish encomenderos.
1763 – French and Indian War: The Treaty of Paris ends the war and France cedes Quebec to Great Britain.
1814 – Napoleonic Wars: The Battle of Champaubert ends in French victory over the Russians and the Prussians.
1840 – Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom marries Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.
1846 – First Anglo-Sikh War: Battle of Sobraon: British defeat Sikhs in the final battle of the war.
1861 – Jefferson Davis is notified by telegraph that he has been chosen as provisional President of the Confederate States of America.
1862 – American Civil War: A Union naval flotilla destroys the bulk of the Confederate Mosquito Fleet in the Battle of Elizabeth City on the Pasquotank River in North Carolina.
1906 – HMS Dreadnought, the first of a revolutionary new breed of battleships is christened and launched by King Edward VII.
1920 – Józef Haller de Hallenburg performs symbolic wedding of Poland to the sea, celebrating restitution of Polish access to open sea.
1920 – About 75 % of the population in Zone I votes to join Denmark in the 1920 Schleswig plebiscites.
1923 – Texas Tech University is founded as Texas Technological College in Lubbock, Texas
1930 – The Việt Nam Quốc Dân Đảng launches the failed Yên Bái mutiny in hope to overthrow French protectorate over Vietnam.
1933 – In round 13 of a boxing match at New York City’s Madison Square Garden, Primo Carnera knocks out Ernie Schaaf. Schaaf dies four days later.
1936 – Second Italo-Abyssinian War: Italian troops launched the Battle of Amba Aradam against Ethiopian defenders.
1939 – Spanish Civil War: The Nationalists conclude their conquest of Catalonia and seal the border with France.
1940 – The Soviet Union begins mass deportations of Polish citizens from occupied eastern Poland to Siberia.
1940 – Cartoon characters Tom and Jerry make their debut with Puss Gets the Boot.
1942 – World War II: Imperial Japanese Army capture Banjarmasin, capital of Borneo in Dutch East Indies.
1943 – World War II: Attempting to completely lift the Siege of Leningrad, the Soviet Red Army engages German troops and Spanish volunteers in the Battle of Krasny Bor.
1947 – The Paris Peace Treaties are signed by Italy, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Finland and the Allies of World War II.
1954 – U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower warns against United States intervention in Vietnam.
1962 – Cold War: Captured American U2 spy-plane pilot Gary Powers is exchanged for captured Soviet spy Rudolf Abel.
1962 – Roy Lichtenstein’s first solo exhibition opened, and it included Look Mickey, which featured his first employment of Ben-Day dots, speech balloons and comic imagery sourcing, all of which he is now known for.
1964 – Melbourne–Voyager collision: The aircraft carrier HMAS Melbourne collides with and sinks the destroyer HMAS Voyager off the south coast of New South Wales, Australia, killing 82.
1967 – The 25th Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified.
1972 – Ras Al Khaimah joins the United Arab Emirates, now making up seven emirates.
1984 – Kenyan soldiers kill an estimated 5000 ethnic Somali Kenyans in the Wagalla massacre.
1989 – Ron Brown is elected chairman of the Democratic National Committee becoming the first African American to lead a major American political party.
1996 – IBM supercomputer Deep Blue defeats Garry Kasparov in chess for the first time.
2003 – France and Belgium break the NATO procedure of silent approval concerning the timing of protective measures for Turkey in case of a possible war with Iraq.
2007 – Then Illinois senator Barack Obama announces his candidacy for president in the 2008 elections, which he later goes on to win.
2009 – The communications satellites Iridium 33 and Kosmos 2251 collide in orbit, destroying both.
2013 – Thirty-six people are killed and 39 others are injured in a stampede in Allahabad, India, during the Kumbh Mela festival.
2016 – South Korea decides to stop the operation of the Kaesong joint industrial complex with North Korea in response to the launch of Kwangmyŏngsŏng-4.
2018 – 19 people are killed and 66 injured when a Kowloon Motor Bus double-decker on route 872 in Hong Kong overturns.
Births on February 10
1486 – George of the Palatinate, German bishop (d. 1529)
1499 – Thomas Platter, Swiss author and scholar (d. 1582)
1514 – Domenico Bollani, Bishop of Milan (d. 1579)
1606 – Christine of France, Duchess of Savoy (d. 1663)
1609 – John Suckling, English poet and playwright (d. 1642)
1627 – Cornelis de Bie, Flemish poet and jurist (d. 1715)
1685 – Aaron Hill, English poet and playwright (d. 1750)
1696 – Johann Melchior Molter, German violinist and composer (d. 1765)
1744 – William Cornwallis, English admiral and politician (d. 1819)
1766 – Benjamin Smith Barton, American botanist and physician (d. 1815)
1775 – Charles Lamb, English poet and essayist (d. 1834)
1785 – Claude-Louis Navier, French physicist and engineer (d. 1836)
1795 – Ary Scheffer, Dutch-French painter and academic (d. 1858)
1797 – George Chichester, 3rd Marquess of Donegall (d. 1883)
1821 – Roberto Bompiani, Italian painter and sculptor (d. 1908)
1824 – Samuel Plimsoll, English merchant and politician (d. 1898)
1842 – Agnes Mary Clerke, Irish astronomer and author (d. 1907)
1843 – Adelina Patti, Italian-French opera singer (d. 1919)
1846 – Lord Charles Beresford, Irish admiral and politician (d. 1919)
1846 – Ira Remsen, American chemist and academic (d. 1927)
1847 – Nabinchandra Sen, Bangladeshi poet and author (d. 1909)
1859 – Alexandre Millerand, French lawyer and politician, 12th President of France (d. 1943)
1867 – Robert Garran, Australian lawyer and public servant (d. 1957)
1868 – Prince Waldemar of Prussia (d. 1879)
1868 – William Allen White, American journalist and author (d. 1944)
1869 – Royal Cortissoz, American art critic (d. 1948)
1879 – Ernst Põdder, Estonian general (d. 1932)
1881 – Pauline Brunius, Swedish actress and director (d. 1954)
1883 – Edith Clarke, American electrical engineer (d. 1959)
1883 – H.V. Hordern, Australian cricketer (d. 1938)
1889 – Cevdet Sunay, Turkish general and politician, 5th President of Turkey (d. 1982)
1890 – Fanny Kaplan, Ukrainian-Russian activist (d. 1918)
1890 – Boris Pasternak, Russian poet, novelist, and literary translator Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1960)
1892 – Alan Hale Sr., American actor and director (d. 1950)
1893 – Jimmy Durante, American actor, singer, and pianist (d. 1980)
1893 – Bill Tilden, American tennis player and coach (d. 1953)
1894 – Harold Macmillan, English captain and politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (d. 1986)
1897 – Judith Anderson, Australian actress (d. 1992)
1897 – John Franklin Enders, American virologist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1985)
1898 – Bertolt Brecht, German director, playwright, and poet (d. 1956)
1898 – Joseph Kessel, French journalist and author (d. 1979)
1901 – Stella Adler, American actress and educator (d. 1992)
1902 – Walter Houser Brattain, Chinese-American physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1987)
1903 – Waldemar Hoven, German physician (d. 1948)
1903 – Matthias Sindelar, Austrian footballer and manager (d. 1939)
1904 – John Farrow, Australian-American director, producer, and screenwriter (d. 1963)
1905 – Walter A. Brown, American businessman, founded the Boston Celtics (d. 1964)
1905 – Chick Webb, American drummer and bandleader (d. 1939)
1906 – Lon Chaney Jr., American actor (d. 1973)
1907 – Anthony Cottrell, New Zealand rugby player (d. 1988)
1908 – Jean Coulthard, Canadian composer and educator (d. 2000)
1909 – Min Thu Wun, Burmese poet, scholar, and politician (d. 2004)
1910 – Dominique Pire, Belgian friar, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1969)
1914 – Larry Adler, American harmonica player, composer, and actor (d. 2001)
1915 – Vladimir Zeldin, Russian actor (d. 2016)
1919 – Ioannis Charalambopoulos, Greek colonel and politician, Deputy Prime Minister of Greece (d. 2014)
1920 – Alex Comfort, English physician and author (d. 2000)
1920 – Neva Patterson, American actress (d. 2010)
1920 – José Manuel Castañón, Spanish lawyer and author (d. 2001)
1922 – Árpád Göncz, Hungarian author, playwright, and politician, 1st President of Hungary (d. 2015)
1922 – José Gabriel da Costa later known as Mestre Gabriel, Brazilian spiritual leader, founder of the União do Vegetal (d. 1971)
1923 – Allie Sherman, American football player and coach (d. 2015)
1924 – Max Ferguson, Canadian radio host and actor (d. 2013)
1924 – Bud Poile, Canadian ice hockey player and coach (d. 2005)
1925 – Pierre Mondy, French actor and director (d. 2012)
1926 – Sidney Bryan Berry, American general (d. 2013)
1926 – Danny Blanchflower, Northern Irish soldier, footballer and manager (d. 1993)
1927 – Leontyne Price, American operatic soprano
1929 – Jerry Goldsmith, American composer and conductor (d. 2004)
1929 – Jim Whittaker, American mountaineer
1929 – Lou Whittaker, American mountaineer
1930 – E. L. Konigsburg, American author and illustrator (d. 2013)
1930 – Robert Wagner, American actor and producer
1931 – James Edward Maceo West, American inventor and acoustician
1932 – Barrie Ingham, English-American actor (d. 2015)
1933 – Richard Schickel, American journalist, author, and critic (d. 2017)
1933 – Faramarz Payvar, Iranian santur player and composer (d. 2009)
1935 – Theodore Antoniou, Greek composer and conductor (d. 2018)
1937 – Anne Anderson, Scottish physiologist and academic (d. 1983)
1937 – Roberta Flack, American singer-songwriter and pianist
1939 – Adrienne Clarkson, Hong Kong-Canadian journalist and politician, 26th Governor General of Canada
1939 – Deolinda Rodríguez de Almeida, Angolan nationalist (d. 1967)
1940 – Mary Rand, English sprinter and long jumper
1940 – Kenny Rankin, American singer-songwriter (d. 2009)
1941 – Michael Apted, English director and producer
1944 – Peter Allen, Australian singer-songwriter, pianist, and actor (d. 1992)
1944 – Frank Keating, American lawyer and politician, 25th Governor of Oklahoma
1944 – Frances Moore Lappé, American author and activist
1944 – Rufus Reid, American bassist and composer
1945 – Delma S. Arrigoitia, Puerto Rican historian, author, educator and lawyer
1947 – Louise Arbour, Canadian lawyer and jurist
1947 – Butch Morris, American cornet player, composer, and conductor (d. 2013)
1947 – Nicholas Owen, English journalist
1949 – Nigel Olsson, English rock drummer and singer-songwriter
1950 – Luis Donaldo Colosio, Mexican economist and politician (d. 1994)
1950 – Mark Spitz, American swimmer
1951 – Bob Iger, American media executive
1952 – Lee Hsien Loong, Singaporean general and politician, 3rd Prime Minister of Singapore
1955 – Jim Cramer, American television personality, pundit, and author
1955 – Greg Norman, Australian golfer and sportscaster
1956 – Enele Sopoaga, Tuvaluan politician, 12th Prime Minister of Tuvalu
1957 – Katherine Freese, American astrophysicist and academic
1959 – John Calipari, American basketball player and coach
1960 – Jim Kent, American biologist, computer programmer, academic
1961 – Alexander Payne, American director, producer, and screenwriter
1961 – George Stephanopoulos, American television journalist
1962 – Randy Velischek, Canadian ice hockey player and coach
1962 – Cliff Burton, American heavy metal bassist (d. 1986)
1963 – Lenny Dykstra, American baseball player
1964 – Glenn Beck, American journalist, producer, and author
1966 – Natalie Bennett, Australian-English journalist and politician
1966 – Daryl Johnston, American football player and sportscaster
1967 – Laura Dern, American actress, director, and producer
1967 – Jacky Durand, French cyclist and sportscaster
1967 – Vince Gilligan, American director, producer, and screenwriter
1968 – Peter Popovic, Swedish ice hockey player and coach
1968 – Garrett Reisman, American engineer and astronaut
1969 – Joe Mangrum, American painter and sculptor
1969 – James Small, South African rugby player (d. 2019)
1970 – Melissa Doyle, Australian journalist and author
1970 – Noureddine Naybet, Moroccan international footballer, central defender and manager
1970 – Åsne Seierstad, Norwegian journalist and author
1971 – Lorena Rojas, Mexican actress and singer (d. 2015)
1972 – Michael Kasprowicz, Australian cricketer
1973 – Martha Lane Fox, Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho, English businesswoman and politician
1974 – Elizabeth Banks, American actress
1974 – Ty Law, American football player
1974 – Ivri Lider, Israeli singer
1974 – Henry Paul, New Zealand rugby player and coach
1976 – Lance Berkman, American baseball player and coach
1976 – Keeley Hawes, English actress
1977 – Salif Diao, Senegalese footballer
1979 – Joey Hand, American race car driver
1980 – César Izturis, Venezuelan baseball player
1980 – Enzo Maresca, Italian footballer
1980 – Mike Ribeiro, Canadian ice hockey player
1981 – Uzo Aduba, American actress
1981 – Stephanie Beatriz, American actress
1981 – Andrew Johnson, English international footballer, forward and club ambassador
1981 – Holly Willoughby, English model and television host
1982 – Justin Gatlin, American sprinter
1982 – Tarmo Neemelo, Estonian footballer
1982 – Hamad Al-Tayyar, Kuwaiti footballer
1982 – Iafeta Paleaaesina, New Zealand rugby league player
1983 – Vic Fuentes, American singer-songwriter and guitarist
1984 – Greg Bird, Australian rugby league player
1984 – Alex Gordon, American baseball player
1984 – Kim Hyo-jin, South Korean actress
1985 – Selçuk İnan, Turkish footballer
1985 – Paul Millsap, American basketball player
1986 – Jeff Adrien, American basketball player
1986 – Josh Akognon, American basketball player
1986 – Radamel Falcao, Colombian footballer
1986 – Roberto Jiménez Gago, Spanish footballer
1986 – Viktor Troicki, Serbian tennis player
1987 – Jakub Kindl, Czech ice hockey player
1987 – Facundo Roncaglia, Argentinian footballer
1988 – Francesco Acerbi, Italian footballer
1989 – Liam Hendriks, Australian baseball player
1990 – Barbara Guarischi, Italian cyclist
1990 – Choi Soo-young, South Korean singer-songwriter, actress, and dancer
1991 – Rebecca Dempster, Scottish footballer
1991 – Emma Roberts, American actress
1992 – Haruka Nakagawa, Japanese singer and actress
1992 – Reinhold Yabo, German footballer
1993 – Max Kepler, German baseball player
1993 – Filip Twardzik, Czech footballer
1993 – Luis Madrigal, Mexican footballer
1994 – Kang Seul-gi, South Korean singer and member of Red Velvet
1995 – Carolane Soucisse, Canadian ice dancer
1996 – Emanuel Mammana, Argentinian footballer
1997 – Lilly King, American swimmer
1997 – Chloë Grace Moretz, American actress
1997 – Nadia Podoroska, Argentinian tennis player
2000 – Yara Shahidi, American actress and model
Deaths on February 10
547 – Scholastica, Christian nun
1127 – William IX, Duke of Aquitaine (b. 1071)
1163 – Baldwin III of Jerusalem (b. 1130)
1242 – Emperor Shijō of Japan (b. 1231)
1242 – Saint Verdiana, Italian recluse (b. 1182)
1280 – Margaret II, Countess of Flanders (b. 1202)
1306 – John “the Red” Comyn, Scottish nobleman
1307 – Temür Khan, Emperor Chengzong of Yuan (b. 1265)
1346 – Blessed Clare of Rimini (b. 1282)
1471 – Frederick II, Margrave of Brandenburg (b. 1413)
1524 – Catherine of Saxony, Archduchess of Austria (b. 1468)
1526 – John V, Count of Oldenburg, German noble (b. 1460)
1567 – Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, consort of Mary, Queen of Scots (b. 1545)
1576 – Wilhelm Xylander, German scholar, translator, and academic (b. 1532)
1686 – William Dugdale, English genealogist and historian (b. 1605)
1755 – Montesquieu, French lawyer and philosopher (b. 1689)
1782 – Friedrich Christoph Oetinger, German theologian and author (b. 1702)
1829 – Pope Leo XII (b. 1760)
1837 – Alexander Pushkin, Russian poet and author (b. 1799)
1854 – José Joaquín de Herrera, Mexican politician and general. President three times (1844–1854) (b. 1792)
1857 – David Thompson, English-Canadian surveyor and explorer (b. 1770)
1865 – Heinrich Lenz, Estonian-Italian physicist and academic (b. 1804)
1879 – Honoré Daumier, French illustrator and painter (b. 1808)
1887 – Ellen Wood, English author (b. 1814)
1891 – Sofia Kovalevskaya, Russian-Swedish mathematician and physicist (b. 1850)
1904 – John A. Roche, American lawyer and politician, 30th Mayor of Chicago (b. 1844)
506 – Alaric II, eighth king of the Visigoths promulgates the Breviary of Alaric (Breviarium Alaricianum or Lex Romana Visigothorum), a collection of “Roman law”.
880 – Battle of Lüneburg Heath: King Louis III is defeated by the Norse Great Heathen Army at Lüneburg Heath in Saxony.
962 – Translatio imperii: Pope John XII crowns Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor, the first Holy Roman Emperor in nearly 40 years.
1032 – Conrad II, Holy Roman Emperor becomes king of Burgundy.
1141 – The Battle of Lincoln, at which Stephen, King of England is defeated and captured by the allies of Empress Matilda.
1207 – Terra Mariana, eventually comprising present-day Latvia and Estonia, is established.
1438 – Nine leaders of the Transylvanian peasant revolt are executed at Torda.
1461 – Wars of the Roses: The Battle of Mortimer’s Cross is fought in Herefordshire, England.
1536 – Spaniard Pedro de Mendoza founds Buenos Aires, Argentina.
1645 – Scotland in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms: Battle of Inverlochy.
1653 – New Amsterdam (later renamed The City of New York) is incorporated.
1709 – Alexander Selkirk is rescued after being shipwrecked on a desert island, inspiring Daniel Defoe’s adventure book Robinson Crusoe.
1848 – Mexican–American War: The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo is signed.
1850 – Brigham Young declares war on Timpanogos in the Battle at Fort Utah.
1868 – Pro-Imperial forces captured Osaka Castle from the Tokugawa shogunate and burned it to the ground.
1876 – The National League of Professional Baseball Clubs of Major League Baseball is formed.
1887 – In Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania the first Groundhog Day is observed.
1899 – The Australian Premiers’ Conference held in Melbourne decides to locate Australia’s capital city, Canberra, between Sydney and Melbourne.
1901 – Funeral of Queen Victoria.
1909 – The Paris Film Congress opens. An attempt by European producers to form an equivalent to the MPCC cartel in the United States.
1913 – Grand Central Terminal is opened in New York City.
1920 – The Tartu Peace Treaty is signed between Estonia and Russia.
1922 – Ulysses by James Joyce is published.
1925 – Serum run to Nome: Dog sleds reach Nome, Alaska with diphtheria serum, inspiring the Iditarod race.
1934 – The Export-Import Bank of the United States is incorporated.
1935 – Leonarde Keeler administers polygraph tests to two murder suspects, the first time polygraph evidence was admitted in U.S. courts.
1942 – The Osvald Group is responsible for the first, active event of anti-Nazi resistance in Norway, to protest the inauguration of Vidkun Quisling.
1943 – World War II: The Battle of Stalingrad comes to an end when Soviet troops accept the surrender of the last organized German troops in the city.
1959 – Nine experienced ski hikers in the northern Ural Mountains in the Soviet Union die under mysterious circumstances.
1966 – Pakistan suggests a six-point agenda with Kashmir after the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965.
1971 – Idi Amin replaces President Milton Obote as leader of Uganda.
1971 – The international Ramsar Convention for the conservation and sustainable utilization of wetlands is signed in Ramsar, Mazandaran, Iran.
1980 – Reports surface that the FBI is targeting allegedly corrupt Congressmen in the Abscam operation.
1982 – Hama massacre: The government of Syria attacks the town of Hama.
1987 – After the 1986 People Power Revolution, the Philippines enacts a new constitution.
1989 – Soviet–Afghan War: The last Soviet armoured column leaves Kabul.
1990 – Apartheid: F. W. de Klerk announces the unbanning of the African National Congress and promises to release Nelson Mandela.
2000 – First digital cinema projection in Europe (Paris) realized by Philippe Binant with the DLP CINEMA technology developed by Texas Instruments.
2002 – Wedding of Willem-Alexander, Prince of Orange, and Máxima Zorreguieta Cerruti
2004 – Swiss tennis player Roger Federer becomes the No. 1 ranked men’s singles player, a position he will hold for a record 237 weeks.
2005 – The Government of Canada introduces the Civil Marriage Act. This legislation would become law on July 20, 2005, legalizing same-sex marriage.
2007 – Police officer Filippo Raciti is killed when a clash breaks out in the Sicily derby between Catania and Palermo, in the Serie A, the top flight of Italian football. This event led to major changes in stadium regulations in Italy.
2012 – The ferry MV Rabaul Queen sinks off the coast of Papua New Guinea near the Finschhafen District, with an estimated 146-165 dead.
Births on February 2
1208 – James I of Aragon (d. 1276)
1282 – Maud Chaworth, Countess of Leicester (d. 1322).
1425 (or 1426) – Eleanor of Navarre, Queen regnant of Navarre (d. 1479)
1443 – Elisabeth of Bavaria, Electress of Saxony (d. 1486)
1455 – John, King of Denmark (d. 1513)
1457 – Peter Martyr d’Anghiera, Italian-Spanish historian and author (d. 1526)
1467 – Columba of Rieti, Italian Dominican sister (d. 1501)
1494 – Bona Sforza, queen of Sigismund I of Poland (d. 1557)
1502 – Damião de Góis, Portuguese philosopher and historian (d. 1574)
1506 – René de Birague, Italian-French cardinal and politician (d. 1583)
1509 – John of Leiden, Dutch Anabaptist leader (d. 1536)
1522 – Lodovico Ferrari, Italian mathematician and academic (d. 1565)
1536 – Piotr Skarga, Polish writer (d. 1612)
1551 – Nicolaus Reimers, German astronomer (d. 1600)
1576 – Alix Le Clerc, French Canoness Regular and foundress (d. 1622)
1585 – Judith Quiney, William Shakespeare’s youngest daughter (d. 1662)
1585 – Hamnet Shakespeare, William Shakespeare’s only son (baptised; d. 1596)
1588 – Georg II of Fleckenstein-Dagstuhl, German nobleman (d. 1644)
1600 – Gabriel Naudé, French librarian and scholar (d. 1653)
1611 – Ulrik of Denmark, Danish prince-bishop (d. 1633)
1613 – Noël Chabanel, French missionary and saint (d. 1649)
1621 – Johannes Schefferus, Swedish author and hymn-writer (d. 1679)
1650 – Pope Benedict XIII (d. 1730)
1650 – Nell Gwyn, English actress, mistress of King Charles II of England (d. 1687)
1651 – William Phips, Royal governor of the Province of Massachusetts Bay (d. 1695)
1669 – Louis Marchand, French organist and composer (d. 1732)
1677 – Jean-Baptiste Morin, French composer (d. 1745)
1695 – William Borlase, English geologist and archaeologist (d. 1772)
1695 – François de Chevert, French general (d. 1769)
1700 – Johann Christoph Gottsched, German author and critic (d. 1766)
1711 – Wenzel Anton, Prince of Kaunitz-Rietberg (d. 1794)
1714 – Gottfried August Homilius, German organist and composer (d. 1785)
1717 – Ernst Gideon von Laudon, Austrian field marshal (d. 1790)
1754 – Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, French general and politician, Prime Minister of France (d. 1838)
1782 – Henri de Rigny, French admiral and politician, French Minister of War (d. 1835)
1786 – Jacques Philippe Marie Binet, French mathematician, physicist, and astronomer (d. 1856)
1802 – Jean-Baptiste Boussingault, French chemist and academic (d. 1887)
1803 – Albert Sidney Johnston, American general (d. 1862)
1829 – Alfred Brehm, German zoologist and illustrator (d. 1884)
1829 – William Stanley, English engineer and philanthropist (d. 1909)
1841 – François-Alphonse Forel, Swiss limnologist and hydrologist (d. 1912)
1842 – Julian Sochocki, Polish-Russian mathematician and academic (d. 1927)
1849 – Pavol Országh Hviezdoslav, Slovak poet and playwright (d. 1921)
1851 – José Guadalupe Posada, Mexican illustrator and engraver (d. 1913)
1856 – Frederick William Vanderbilt, American railway magnate (d. 1938)
1856 – Makar Yekmalyan, Armenian composer (d. 1905)
1857 – Jan Drozdowski, Polish pianist and music teacher (d. 1918)
1860 – Curtis Guild, Jr., American journalist and politician, 43rd Governor of Massachusetts (d. 1915)
1861 – Solomon R. Guggenheim, American businessman and philanthropist, founded the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (d. 1949)
1862 – Émile Coste, French fencer (d. 1927)
1862 – Cornelius McKane, American physician, educator, and hospital founder (d. 1912)
1866 – Enrique Simonet, Spanish painter and academic (d. 1927)
1873 – Leo Fall, Austrian composer (d. 1925)
1873 – Konstantin von Neurath, German politician and diplomat, 13th German Minister of Foreign Affairs (d. 1956)
1875 – Fritz Kreisler, Austrian-American violinist and composer (d. 1962)
1877 – Frank L. Packard, Canadian author (d. 1942)
1878 – Joe Lydon, American boxer (d. 1937)
1880 – Frederick Lane, Australian swimmer (d. 1969)
1881 – Orval Overall, American baseball player and manager (d. 1947)
1882 – Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark (d. 1944)
1882 – James Joyce, Irish novelist, short story writer, and poet (d. 1941)
1883 – Johnston McCulley, American author and screenwriter, created Zorro (d. 1958)
1883 – Julia Nava de Ruisánchez, Mexican activist and writer (d. 1964)
1886 – William Rose Benét, American poet and author (d. 1950)
1887 – Ernst Hanfstaengl, German businessman (d. 1975)
1889 – Jean de Lattre de Tassigny, French general (d. 1952)
1890 – Charles Correll, American actor and screenwriter (d. 1972)
1892 – Tochigiyama Moriya, Japanese sumo wrestler, the 27th Yokozuna (d. 1959)
1893 – Cornelius Lanczos, Hungarian mathematician and physicist (d. 1974)
1893 – Raoul Riganti, Argentinian race car driver (d. 1970)
1893 – Damdin Sükhbaatar, Mongolian soldier and politician (d. 1924)
1895 – George Halas, American football player and coach (d. 1983)
1895 – Robert Philipp, American painter (d. 1981)
1895 – George Sutcliffe, Australian public servant (d. 1964)
1896 – Kazimierz Kuratowski, Polish mathematician and logician (d. 1980)
1897 – Howard Deering Johnson, American businessman, founded Howard Johnson’s (d. 1972)
1897 – Gertrude Blanch, Russian-American mathematician (d. 1996)
1900 – Anni Frind, German lyric soprano (d. 1987)
1900 – Willie Kamm, American baseball player and manager (d. 1988)
1901 – Jascha Heifetz, Lithuanian-born American violinist and educator (d. 1987)
1902 – Newbold Morris, American lawyer and politician (d. 1966)
1902 – John Tonkin, Australian politician, 20th Premier of Western Australia (d. 1995)
1904 – Bozorg Alavi, Iranian author and activist (d. 1997)
1905 – Ayn Rand, Russian-born American novelist and philosopher (d. 1982)
1908 – Wes Ferrell, American baseball player and manager (d. 1976)
1909 – Frank Albertson, American actor (d. 1964)
1911 – Jack Pizzey, Australian politician, 29th Premier of Queensland (d. 1968)
1912 – Millvina Dean, English civil servant and cartographer (d. 2009)
1912 – Burton Lane, American songwriter and composer (d. 1997)
1913 – Poul Reichhardt, Danish actor and singer (d. 1985)
1914 – Eric Kierans, Canadian economist and politician, 1st Canadian Minister of Communications (d. 2004)
1915 – Abba Eban, South African-Israeli politician and diplomat, 1st Israel Ambassador to the United Nations (d. 2002)
1915 – Stan Leonard, Canadian golfer (d. 2005)
1915 – Khushwant Singh, Indian journalist and author (d. 2014)
1916 – Xuân Diệu, Vietnamese poet and author (d. 1985)
1917 – Mary Ellis, British World War II ferry pilot (d. 2018)
1917 – Đỗ Mười, Vietnamese politician, 5th Prime Minister of Vietnam (d. 2018)
1918 – Hella Haasse, Indonesian-Dutch author (d. 2011)
1919 – Lisa Della Casa, Swiss soprano and actress (d. 2012)
1919 – Georg Gawliczek, German footballer and manager (d. 1999)
1920 – George Hardwick, English footballer and coach (d. 2004)
1920 – John Russell, American Olympic equestrian
1920 – Arthur Willis, English footballer, full-back, player-manager (d. 1987)
1922 – Kunwar Digvijay Singh, Indian field hockey player (d. 1978)
1922 – Robert Chef d’Hôtel, French athlete (d. 2019)
1922 – James L. Usry, American politician, first African-American mayor of Atlantic City, New Jersey (d. 2002)
1922 – Stoyanka Mutafova, Bulgarian actress (d. 2019)
1923 – Jean Babilée, French dancer and choreographer (d. 2014)
1923 – James Dickey, American poet and novelist (d. 1997)
1923 – Svetozar Gligorić, Serbian and Yugoslav chess grandmaster (d.2012)
1923 – Bonita Granville, American actress and producer (d. 1988)
1923 – Red Schoendienst, American baseball player, coach, and manager (d. 2018)
1923 – Liz Smith, American journalist and author (d. 2017)
1923 – Clem Windsor, Australian rugby player and surgeon (d. 2007)
1924 – Elfi von Dassanowsky, Austrian-American singer, pianist, producer (d. 2007)
1924 – Sonny Stitt, American saxophonist and composer (d. 1982)
1925 – Elaine Stritch, American actress and singer (d. 2014)
1926 – Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, French academic and politician, 20th President of France
1927 – Stan Getz, American saxophonist (d. 1991)
1927 – Doris Sams, American baseball player (d. 2012)
1928 – Ciriaco De Mita, 47th Prime minister of Italy
1928 – Jay Handlan, American basketball player and engineer (d. 2013)
1928 – Tommy Harmer, English footballer, inside forward, youth team coach (d. 2007)
1929 – Sheila Matthews Allen, American actress and producer (d. 2013)
1929 – George Band, English engineer and mountaineer (d. 2011)
1929 – Věra Chytilová, Czech actress, director, and screenwriter (d. 2014)
1929 – John Henry Holland, American computer scientist and academic (d. 2015)
1929 – Waldemar Kmentt, Austrian operatic tenor (d. 2015)
1931 – Dries van Agt, Dutch politician, diplomat and jurist, Prime Minister of the Netherlands
1931 – Les Dawson, English comedian and author (d. 1993)
1931 – Glynn Edwards, Malaysian-English actor (d. 2018)
1931 – John Paul Harney, Canadian educator and politician
1931 – Judith Viorst, American journalist and author
1932 – Arthur Lyman, American jazz vibraphone and marimba player (d. 2002)
1932 – Robert Mandan, American actor (d. 2018)
1933 – M’el Dowd, American actress and singer (d. 2012)
1933 – Tony Jay, English-American actor (d. 2006)
1933 – Orlando “Cachaíto” López, Cuban bassist and composer (d. 2009)
1933 – Than Shwe, Burmese general and politician, 8th Prime Minister of Burma
1935 – Pete Brown, American golfer (d. 2015)
1935 – Evgeny Velikhov, Russian physicist and academic
1936 – Duane Jones, American actor (d. 1988)
1936 – Metin Oktay, Turkish footballer and manager (d. 1991)
1937 – Don Buford, American baseball player and coach
1937 – Eric Arturo Delvalle, Panamanian lawyer and politician, President of Panama (d. 2015)
1937 – Anthony Haden-Guest, British journalist, poet, and critic
1937 – Remak Ramsay, American actor
1937 – Tom Smothers, American comedian, actor, and activist
1937 – Alexandra Strelchenko, Russian Singer (d. 2019)
1938 – Norman Fowler, English journalist and politician, Secretary of State for Transport
1938 – Gene MacLellan, Canadian singer-songwriter (d. 1995)
1939 – Jackie Burroughs, English-born Canadian actress (d. 2010)
1939 – Mary-Dell Chilton, American chemist and inventor and one of the founders of modern plant biotechnology
1939 – Dale T. Mortensen, American economist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2014)
1940 – Alan Caddy, English guitarist and producer (d. 2000)
1940 – Thomas M. Disch, American author and poet (d. 2008)
1940 – Wayne Fontes, American football player and coach
1940 – David Jason, English actor, director, and producer
1941 – Terry Biddlecombe, English jockey (d. 2014)
1942 – Bo Hopkins, American actor
1942 – Graham Nash, English-American singer-songwriter and guitarist
1944 – Andrew Davis, English organist and conductor
1944 – Geoffrey Hughes, English actor (d. 2012)
1944 – Ursula Oppens, American pianist and educator
1945 – John Eatwell, Baron Eatwell, English economist and academic
1946 – John Armitt, English engineer and businessman
1946 – Alpha Oumar Konaré, Malian academic and politician, 3rd President of Mali
1946 – Constantine Papadakis, Greek-American businessman and academic (d. 2009)
1947 – Greg Antonacci, American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter (d. 2017)
1947 – Farrah Fawcett, American actress and producer (d. 2009)
1948 – Ina Garten, American chef and author
1948 – Al McKay, American guitarist, songwriter, and producer
1948 – Roger Williamson, English race car driver (d. 1973)
1949 – Duncan Bannatyne, Scottish businessman and philanthropist
1949 – Yasuko Namba, Japanese mountaineer (d. 1996)
1949 – Brent Spiner, American actor and singer
1949 – Ross Valory, American rock bass player and songwriter
1950 – Osamu Kido, Japanese wrestler
1950 – Libby Purves, British journalist and author
1950 – Barbara Sukowa, German actress
1950 – Genichiro Tenryu, Japanese wrestler
1951 – Vangelis Alexandris, Greek basketball player and coach
1951 – Ken Bruce, Scottish radio host
1952 – John Cornyn, American lawyer and politician, 49th Attorney General of Texas
1952 – Rick Dufay, French-American guitarist and songwriter
1952 – Park Geun-hye, South Korean politician, 11th President of South Korea
1952 – Ralph Merkle, American computer scientist and academic
1952 – Carol Ann Susi, American actress (d. 2014)
1953 – Duane Chapman, American bounty hunter
1953 – Jerry Sisk, Jr., American gemologist, co-founded Jewelry Television (d. 2013)
1954 – Christie Brinkley, American actress, model, and businesswoman
1954 – Hansi Hinterseer, Austrian skier and actor
1954 – Nelson Ne’e, Solomon Islander politician (d. 2013)
1954 – John Tudor, American baseball player
1955 – Leszek Engelking, Polish poet and author
1955 – Bob Schreck, American author
1955 – Michael Talbott, American actor
1955 – Kim Zimmer, American actress
1956 – Adnan Oktar, Turkish theorist and author
1957 – Phil Barney, Algerian-French singer-songwriter
1958 – Michel Marc Bouchard, Canadian playwright
1961 – Abraham Iyambo, Namibian politician (d. 2013)
1961 – Lauren Lane, American actress and academic
1962 – Philippe Claudel, French author, director, and screenwriter
1962 – Andy Fordham, English darts player
1962 – Paul Kilgus, American baseball player
1962 – Kate Raison, Australian actress
1962 – Michael T. Weiss, American actor
1963 – Eva Cassidy, American singer and guitarist (d. 1996)
1963 – Kjell Dahlin, Swedish ice hockey player
1963 – Andrej Kiska, Slovak entrepreneur and philanthropist, President of Slovakia
1963 – Philip Laats, Belgian martial artist
1963 – Vigleik Storaas, Norwegian pianist
1965 – Carl Airey, English footballer
1965 – Naoki Sano, Japanese wrestler and mixed martial artist
1966 – Andrei Chesnokov, Russian tennis player and coach
1966 – Robert DeLeo, American bass player, songwriter, and producer
1966 – Adam Ferrara, American actor and comedian
1966 – Michael Misick, Caicos Islander politician, Premier of the Turks and Caicos Islands
1967 – Artūrs Irbe, Latvian ice hockey player and coach
1967 – Laurent Nkunda, Congolese general
1968 – Sean Elliott, American basketball player and sportscaster
1968 – Scott Erickson, American baseball player and coach
1969 – Dana International, Israeli singer-songwriter
1969 – Valeri Karpin, Estonian-Russian footballer and manager
1970 – Roar Strand, Norwegian footballer
1970 – Jennifer Westfeldt, American actress and singer
1971 – Michelle Gayle, English singer-songwriter and actress
1971 – Arly Jover, Spanish actress
1971 – Isaac Kungwane, South African footballer and sportscaster (d. 2014)
1971 – Jason Taylor, Australian rugby league player and coach
1971 – Hwang Seok-jeong, South Korean actress
1972 – Melvin Mora, Venezuelan baseball player
1972 – Aleksey Naumov, Russian footballer
1973 – Andrei Luzgin, Estonian tennis player and coach
1973 – Aleksander Tammert, Estonian discus thrower
1973 – Marissa Jaret Winokur, American actress and singer
1975 – Todd Bertuzzi, Canadian ice hockey player
1975 – Donald Driver, American football player
1975 – Ieroklis Stoltidis, Greek footballer
1976 – Ryan Farquhar, Northern Irish motorcycle racer
1976 – James Hickman, English swimmer
1976 – Ana Roces, Filipino actress
1977 – Shakira, Colombian singer-songwriter, producer, and actress
1977 – Libor Sionko, Czech footballer
1978 – Adam Christopher, New Zealand writer
1978 – Eden Espinosa, American actress and singer
1978 – Annabel Ellwood, Australian tennis player
1978 – Barry Ferguson, Scottish footballer and manager
1978 – Rich Sommer, American actor
1978 – Faye White, English footballer
1979 – Urmo Aava, Estonian race car driver
1979 – Fani Chalkia, Greek hurdler and sprinter
1979 – Christine Lampard, Irish television host
1979 – Klaus Mainzer, German rugby player
1979 – Shamita Shetty, Indian actress
1979 – Irini Terzoglou, Greek shot putter
1980 – Angela Finger-Erben, German journalist
1980 – Teddy Hart, Canadian wrestler
1980 – Oleguer Presas, Spanish footballer
1981 – Emre Aydın, Turkish singer-songwriter
1981 – Michelle Bass, English model and singer
1981 – Salem al-Hazmi, Saudi Arabian terrorist, hijacker of American Airlines Flight 77 (d. 2001)
1982 – Sergio Castaño Ortega, Spanish footballer
1982 – Kelly Mazzante, American basketball player
1982 – Kan Mi-youn, South Korean singer, model, and host
1983 – Ronny Cedeño, Venezuelan baseball player
1983 – Carolina Klüft, Swedish heptathlete and jumper
1983 – Jordin Tootoo, Canadian ice hockey player
1983 – Vladimir Voskoboinikov, Estonian footballer
1983 – Alex Westaway, English singer-songwriter and guitarist
1984 – Brian Cage, American wrestler
1984 – Mao Miyaji, Japanese actress
1984 – Rudi Wulf, New Zealand rugby player
1985 – Masoud Azizi, Afghan sprinter
1985 – Renn Kiriyama, Japanese actor
1985 – Kristo Saage, Estonian basketball player
1985 – Silvestre Varela, Portuguese footballer
1986 – Gemma Arterton, English actress and singer
1986 – Miwa Asao, Japanese volleyball player
1987 – Anthony Fainga’a, Australian rugby player
1987 – Saia Fainga’a, Australian rugby player
1987 – Faydee, Australian singer
1987 – Athena Imperial, Filipino journalist, Miss Earth-Water 2011
1987 – Mimi Page, American singer-songwriter and composer
1987 – Gerard Piqué, Spanish footballer
1987 – Javon Ringer, American football player
1987 – Jill Scott, English footballer
1987 – Victoria Song, Chinese singer and actress
1987 – Martin Spanjers, American actor and producer
1988 – Zosia Mamet, American actress
1989 – Harrison Smith, American football player
1989 – Southside, American record producer
1991 – Nathan Delfouneso, English footballer
1991 – Gregory Mertens, Belgian footballer (d. 2015)
1991 – Shohei Nanba, Japanese actor
1992 – Lammtarra, American race horse (d. 2014)
1992 – Joonas Tamm, Estonian footballer
1993 – Ravel Morrison, English footballer
1993 – Bobby Decordova-Reid, English born Jamaican international footballer, forward
1995 – Paul Digby, English footballer
1995 – Aleksander Jagiełło, Polish footballer
1995 – Arfa Karim, Pakstani student and computer prodigy (d. 2012)
1996 – Harry Winks, English international footballer, midfielder
Deaths on February 2
619 – Laurence of Canterbury, English archbishop and saint
880 – Bruno, duke of Saxony
1124 – Bořivoj II, Duke of Bohemia (b. 1064)
1218 – Konstantin of Rostov (b. 1186)
1237 – Joan, Lady of Wales
1250 – Eric XI of Sweden (b. 1216)
1294 – Louis II, Duke of Bavaria (b. 1229)
1347 – Thomas Bek, Bishop of Lincoln, was the bishop of Lincoln (b. 1282)
1348 – Narymunt, Prince of Pinsk
1435 – Joan II of Naples, Queen of Naples (b. 1371)
1446 – Vittorino da Feltre, Italian humanist (b. 1378)
1448 – Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani, Egyptian jurist and scholar (b. 1372)
1461 – Owen Tudor, Welsh founder of the Tudor dynasty (b. c. 1400)
1512 – Hatuey, Caribbean tribal chief
1529 – Baldassare Castiglione, Italian soldier and diplomat (b. 1478)
1580 – Bessho Nagaharu, Japanese daimyō (b. 1558)
1594 – Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, Italian composer and educator (b. 1525)
1648 – George Abbot, English author and politician (b. 1603)
1660 – Gaston, Duke of Orléans (b. 1608)
1660 – Govert Flinck, Dutch painter (b. 1615)
1661 – Lucas Holstenius, German geographer and historian (b. 1596)
1675 – Ivan Belostenec, Croatian linguist and lexicographer (b. 1594)
1688 – Abraham Duquesne, French admiral (b. 1610)
1704 – Guillaume de l’Hôpital, French mathematician and academic (b. 1661)
1712 – Martin Lister, English physician and geologist (b. 1639)
1714 – John Sharp, English archbishop (b. 1643)
1723 – Antonio Maria Valsalva, Italian anatomist and physician (b. 1666)
1768 – Robert Smith, English mathematician and theorist (b. 1689)
1769 – Pope Clement XIII (b. 1693)
1802 – Welbore Ellis, 1st Baron Mendip, English politician, Secretary of State for the Colonies (b. 1713)
1804 – George Walton, American lawyer and politician, Governor of Georgia (b. 1749)
2014 – Philip Seymour Hoffman, American actor, director, and producer (b. 1967)
2014 – Luis Raúl, Puerto Rican comedian and actor (b. 1962)
2014 – Bunny Rugs, Jamaican singer (b. 1948)
2014 – Nigel Walker, English footballer (b. 1959)
2015 – Joseph Alfidi, American pianist, composer, and conductor (b. 1949)
2015 – Dave Bergman, American baseball player (b. 1953)
2015 – Andriy Kuzmenko, Ukrainian singer-songwriter and actor (b. 1968)
2015 – Molade Okoya-Thomas, Nigerian businessman and philanthropist (b. 1935)
2015 – Stewart Stern, American screenwriter (b. 1922)
2015 – The Jacka, American rapper and producer (b. 1977)
2016 – Bob Elliott, American comedian, actor, and screenwriter (b. 1923)
Holidays and observances on February 2
Anniversary of Treaty of Tartu (Estonia)
Christian Feast Day:
Adalbard
Cornelius the Centurion
Martyrs of Ebsdorf
February 2 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
Constitution Day (Philippines)
Day of Youth (Azerbaijan)
Earliest day on which Shrove Monday can fall, while March 8 is the latest; celebrated on Monday before Ash Wednesday (Christianity), and its related observances:
Bun Day (Iceland)
Fastelavn (Denmark/Norway)
Nickanan Night (Cornwall)
Rosenmontag (Germany)
Feast of the Presentation of Jesus at the Temple or Candlemas (Western Christianity), and its related observances:
A quarter day in the Christian calendar (due to Candlemas). (Scotland)
Celebration of Yemanja or Our Lady of Navigators (Candomblé)
Le Jour des Crêpes (France)
Our Lady of the Candles (Filipino Catholics)
Virgin of Candelaria (Tenerife, Spain)
Groundhog Day (United States and Canada), and its related observances:
314 – Pope Sylvester I is consecrated, as a successor to the late Pope Miltiades.
1208 – The Battle of Lena takes place between King Sverker II of Sweden and his rival, Prince Eric, whose victory puts him on the throne as King Eric X of Sweden.
1504 – The Treaty of Lyon ends the Italian War, confirming French domination of northern Italy, while Spain receives the Kingdom of Naples.
1578 – Eighty Years’ War and Anglo-Spanish War: The Battle of Gembloux is a victory for Spanish forces led by Don John of Austria over a rebel army of Dutch, Flemish, English, Scottish, German, French and Walloons.
1606 – Gunpowder Plot: Four of the conspirators, including Guy Fawkes, are executed for treason by hanging, drawing and quartering, for plotting against Parliament and King James.
1747 – The first venereal diseases clinic opens at London Lock Hospital.
1814 – Gervasio Antonio de Posadas becomes Supreme Director of the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata (present-day Argentina).
1846 – After the Milwaukee Bridge War, the United States towns of Juneautown and Kilbourntown unify to create the City of Milwaukee.
1848 – John C. Frémont is court-martialed for mutiny and disobeying orders.
1862 – Alvan Graham Clark discovers the white dwarf star Sirius B, a companion of Sirius, through an 18.5-inch (47 cm) telescope now located at Northwestern University.
1865 – American Civil War: The United States Congress passes the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, abolishing slavery and submits it to the states for ratification.
1865 – American Civil War: Confederate General Robert E. Lee becomes general-in-chief.
1891 – History of Portugal: The first attempt at a Portuguese republican revolution breaks out in the northern city of Porto.
1897 – Czechoslav Trade Union Association is founded in Prague.
1900 – Datu Muhammad Salleh is killed in Kampung Teboh, Tambunan, ending the Mat Salleh Rebellion.
1915 – World War I: Germany is the first to make large-scale use of poison gas in warfare in the Battle of Bolimów against Russia.
1917 – World War I: Germany announces that its U-boats will resume unrestricted submarine warfare after a two-year hiatus.
1918 – A series of accidental collisions on a misty Scottish night leads to the loss of two Royal Navy submarines with over a hundred lives, and damage to another five British warships.
1919 – The Battle of George Square takes place in Glasgow, Scotland, during a campaign for shorter working hours.
1928 – Leon Trotsky is exiled to Alma-Ata.
1930 – 3M begins marketing Scotch Tape.
1942 – World War II: Allied forces are defeated by the Japanese at the Battle of Malaya and retreat to Singapore.
1943 – World War II: German Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus surrenders to the Soviets at Stalingrad, followed 2 days later by the remainder of his Sixth Army, ending one of the war’s fiercest battles.
1944 – World War II: American forces land on Kwajalein Atoll and other islands in the Japanese-held Marshall Islands.
1944 – World War II: During the Anzio campaign, the 1st Ranger Battalion (Darby’s Rangers) is destroyed behind enemy lines in a heavily outnumbered encounter at Battle of Cisterna, Italy.
1945 – US Army private Eddie Slovik is executed for desertion, the first such execution of an American soldier since the Civil War.
1945 – World War II: About 3,000 inmates from the Stutthof concentration camp are forcibly marched into the Baltic Sea at Palmnicken (now Yantarny, Russia) and executed.
1945 – World War II: The end of fighting in the Battle of Hill 170 during the Burma Campaign, in which the British 3 Commando Brigade repulsed a Japanese counterattack on their positions and precipitated a general retirement from the Arakan Peninsula.
1946 – Cold War: Yugoslavia’s new constitution, modeling that of the Soviet Union, establishes six constituent republics (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Slovenia).
1946 – The Democratic Republic of Vietnam introduces the đồng to replace the French Indochinese piastre at par.
1949 – These Are My Children, the first television daytime soap opera, is broadcast by the NBC station in Chicago.
1950 – Cold War: U.S. President Harry S. Truman announces a program to develop the hydrogen bomb.
1951 – United Nations Security Council Resolution 90 relating to Korean War is adopted.
1953 – A North Sea flood causes over 1,800 deaths in the Netherlands and over 300 in the United Kingdom.
1957 – Eight people (5 total crew from 2 aircraft and 3 on the ground) in Pacoima, California are killed following the mid-air collision between a Douglas DC-7 airliner and a Northrop F-89 Scorpion fighter jet.
1958 – Cold War: Space Race: The first successful American satellite detects the Van Allen radiation belt.
1961 – Project Mercury: Mercury-Redstone 2: Ham the Chimp travels into outer space.
1966 – The Soviet Union launches the unmanned Luna 9 spacecraft as part of the Luna program.
1968 – Vietnam War: Viet Cong guerrillas attack the United States embassy in Saigon, and other attacks, in the early morning hours, later grouped together as the Tet Offensive.
1968 – Nauru gains independence from Australia.
1971 – Apollo program: Apollo 14: Astronauts Alan Shepard, Stuart Roosa, and Edgar Mitchell, aboard a Saturn V, lift off for a mission to the Fra Mauro Highlands on the Moon.
1971 – The Winter Soldier Investigation, organized by the Vietnam Veterans Against the War to publicize war crimes and atrocities by Americans and allies in Vietnam, begins in Detroit.
1978 – The Crown of St. Stephen (also known as the Holy Crown of Hungary) goes on public display after being returned to Hungary from the United States, where it was held after World War II.
1996 – An explosives-filled truck rams into the gates of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka in Colombo, killing at least 86 people and injuring 1,400.
2000 – Alaska Airlines Flight 261 crash: An MD-83, experiencing horizontal stabilizer problems, crashes in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Point Mugu, California, killing all 88 aboard.
2001 – In the Netherlands, a Scottish court convicts Libyan Abdelbaset al-Megrahi and acquits another Libyan citizen for their part in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988.
2009 – In Kenya, at least 113 people are killed and over 200 injured following an oil spillage ignition in Molo, days after a massive fire at a Nakumatt supermarket in Nairobi killed at least 25 people.
2018 – Both a blue moon and a total lunar eclipse occur.
2019 – Abdullah of Pahang is sworn in as the 16th Yang di-Pertuan Agong of Malaysia.
2020 – The United Kingdom’s membership within the European Union ceases in accordance with Article 50, after 47 years of being a member state.
Births on January 31
1512 – Henry, King of Portugal (d. 1580)
1543 – Tokugawa Ieyasu, Japanese shōgun (d. 1616)
1583 – Peter Bulkley, English and later American Puritan (d. 1659)
1597 – John Francis Regis, French priest and saint (d. 1640)
1607 – James Stanley, 7th Earl of Derby (d. 1651)
1624 – Arnold Geulincx, Flemish philosopher and academic (d. 1669)
1673 – Louis de Montfort, French priest and saint (d. 1716)
1686 – Hans Egede, Norwegian missionary and explorer (d. 1758)
1752 – Gouverneur Morris, American lawyer, politician, and diplomat, United States Ambassador to France (d. 1816)
1759 – François Devienne, French flute player and composer (d. 1803)
1769 – André-Jacques Garnerin, French balloonist and the inventor of the frameless parachute (d. 1823)
1785 – Magdalena Dobromila Rettigová, Czech cook book author (d. 1845)
1797 – Franz Schubert, Austrian pianist and composer (d. 1828)
1799 – Rodolphe Töpffer, Swiss teacher, author, painter, cartoonist, and caricaturist (d. 1846)
1820 – William B. Washburn, American politician, 28th Governor of Massachusetts (d. 1887)
1835 – Lunalilo of Hawaii (d. 1874)
1854 – David Emmanuel, Romanian mathematician and academic (d. 1941)
1865 – Henri Desgrange, French cyclist and journalist (d. 1940)
1865 – Shastriji Maharaj, Indian spiritual leader, founded BAPS (d. 1951)
1868 – Theodore William Richards, American chemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1928)
1872 – Zane Grey, American author (d. 1939)
1881 – Irving Langmuir, American chemist and physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1957)
1884 – Theodor Heuss, German journalist and politician, 1st President of the Federal Republic of Germany (d. 1963)
1884 – Mammad Amin Rasulzade, Azerbaijani scholar and politician, 1st President of The Democratic Republic of Azerbaijan (d. 1955)
1889 – Frank Foster, English cricketer (d. 1958)
1892 – Eddie Cantor, American singer-songwriter, actor, and dancer (d. 1964)
1894 – Isham Jones, American saxophonist, composer, and bandleader (d. 1956)
1896 – Sofya Yanovskaya, Russian mathematician and historian (d. 1966)
1900 – Betty Parsons, American artist, art dealer and collector (d. 1982)
1902 – Nat Bailey, Canadian businessman, founded White Spot (d. 1978)
1902 – Tallulah Bankhead, American actress (d. 1968)
1902 – Alva Myrdal, Swedish sociologist and politician, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1986)
1902 – Julian Steward, American anthropologist (d. 1972)
1905 – John O’Hara, American author, playwright, and screenwriter (d. 1970)
1909 – Miron Grindea, Romanian-English journalist (d. 1995)
1913 – Don Hutson, American football player and coach (d. 1997)
1914 – Jersey Joe Walcott, American boxer and police officer (d. 1994)
1915 – Bobby Hackett, American trumpet player and cornet player (d. 1976)
1915 – Alan Lomax, American historian, author, and scholar (d. 2002)
1915 – Thomas Merton, American monk and author (d. 1968)
1915 – Garry Moore, American comedian and game show host (d. 1993)
1916 – Frank Parker, American tennis player (d. 1997)
1917 – Fred Bassetti, American architect and academic, founded Bassetti Architects (d. 2013)
1919 – Jackie Robinson, American baseball player and sportscaster (d. 1972)
1920 – Stewart Udall, American soldier, lawyer, and politician, 37th United States Secretary of the Interior (d. 2010)
1920 – Bert Williams, English footballer (d. 2004)
1921 – John Agar, American actor (d. 2002)
1921 – Carol Channing, American actress, singer, and dancer (d. 2019)
1921 – E. Fay Jones, American architect, designed the Thorncrown Chapel (d. 2004)
1921 – Mario Lanza, American tenor and actor (d. 1959)
1922 – Joanne Dru, American actress (d. 1996)
1923 – Norman Mailer, American journalist and author (d. 2007)
1925 – Benjamin Hooks, American minister, lawyer, and activist (d. 2010)
1926 – Tom Alston, American baseball player (d. 1993)
1926 – Chuck Willis, American singer-songwriter (d. 1958)
1927 – Norm Prescott, American animator, producer, and composer, co-founded Filmation Studios (d. 2005)
1928 – Irma Wyman, American computer scientist and engineer (d. 2015)
1929 – Rudolf Mössbauer, German physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2011)
1929 – Jean Simmons, English-American actress (d. 2010)
1930 – Joakim Bonnier, Swedish race car driver (d. 1972)
1930 – Al De Lory, American composer, conductor, and producer (d. 2012)
1931 – Ernie Banks, American baseball player and coach (d. 2015)
1931 – Christopher Chataway, English runner, journalist, and politician (d. 2014)
1932 – Miron Babiak, Polish sea captain (d. 2013)
1933 – Camille Henry, Canadian ice hockey player and coach (d. 1997)
1933 – Morton Mower, American cardiologist and inventor
1934 – Ernesto Brambilla, Italian motorcycle racer and race car driver
1934 – Gene DeWeese, American author (d. 2012)
1934 – James Franciscus, American actor and producer (d. 1991)
1934 – Bob Turner, Canadian ice hockey player and coach (d. 2005)
1935 – Kenzaburō Ōe, Japanese author and academic, Nobel Prize laureate
1936 – Can Bartu, Turkish former basketball and football player
1937 – Regimantas Adomaitis, Lithuanian actor
1937 – Andrée Boucher, Canadian educator and politician, 39th Mayor of Quebec City (d. 2007)
1937 – Philip Glass, American composer
1937 – Suzanne Pleshette, American actress (d. 2008)
1938 – Beatrix of the Netherlands
1938 – Lynn Carlin, American actress
1938 – James G. Watt, American lawyer and politician, 43rd United States Secretary of the Interior
1940 – Kitch Christie, South African rugby player and coach (d. 1998)
1940 – Stuart Margolin, American actor and director
1941 – Dick Gephardt, American lawyer and politician
1941 – Gerald McDermott, American author and illustrator (d. 2012)
1941 – Jessica Walter, American actress
1942 – Daniela Bianchi, Italian actress
1942 – Derek Jarman, English director, stage designer, and author (d. 1994)
1944 – John Inverarity, Australian cricketer and coach
1945 – Rynn Berry, American historian and author (d. 2014)
1945 – Brenda Hale, Baroness Hale of Richmond, English lawyer, judge, and academic
1945 – Joseph Kosuth, American sculptor and theorist
1946 – Terry Kath, American guitarist and singer-songwriter (Chicago) (d. 1978)
1946 – Medin Zhega, Albanian footballer and manager (d. 2012)
1947 – Nolan Ryan, American baseball player
1947 – Matt Minglewood, Canadian singer-songwriter and guitarist
1947 – Glynn Turman, American actor
1948 – Volkmar Groß, German footballer (d. 2014)
1948 – Muneo Suzuki, Japanese politician
1949 – Johan Derksen, Dutch footballer and journalist
1949 – Norris Church Mailer, American model and educator (d. 2010)
1949 – Ken Wilber, American sociologist, philosopher, and author
1950 – Denise Fleming, American author and illustrator
1950 – Alexander Korzhakov, Russian general and bodyguard
1950 – Janice Rebibo, American-Israeli author and poet (d. 2015)
1951 – Harry Wayne Casey, American singer-songwriter, pianist, and producer
1954 – Faoud Bacchus, Guyanese cricketer
1954 – Adrian Vandenberg, Dutch guitarist and songwriter
1955 – Virginia Ruzici, Romanian tennis player and manager
1956 – Guido van Rossum, Dutch programmer, creator of the Python programming language
1956 – John Lydon, English singer-songwriter
1957 – Shirley Babashoff, American swimmer
1958 – Armin Reichel, German footballer and manager
1959 – Anthony LaPaglia, Australian actor and producer
1959 – Kelly Lynch, American model and actress
1960 – Akbar Ganji, Iranian journalist and author
1960 – Grant Morrison, Scottish author and screenwriter
1960 – Željko Šturanović, Montenegrin politician, 31st Prime Minister of Montenegro (d. 2014)
1961 – Elizabeth Barker, Baroness Barker, English politician
1961 – Fatou Bensouda, Gambian lawyer and judge
1961 – Lloyd Cole, English singer-songwriter and guitarist
1963 – Craig Coleman, Australian rugby league player and coach
1963 – Gwen Graham, American lawyer and politician
1964 – Martha MacCallum, American journalist
1964 – Dawn Prince-Hughes, American scientist
1965 – Giorgos Gasparis, Greek basketball player and coach
1965 – Ofra Harnoy, Israeli-Canadian cellist
1965 – Peter Sagal, American author and radio host
1966 – Umar Alisha, Indian journalist and philanthropist
1966 – Thant Myint-U, Myanmar historian, diplomat, conservationist, and former presidential advisor.
1966 – Dexter Fletcher, English actor and director
1967 – Fat Mike, American singer-songwriter, bass player, and producer
1968 – John Collins, Scottish footballer, midfielder and manager
1968 – Matt King, English actor, producer, and screenwriter
1968 – Ulrica Messing, Swedish politician, 2nd Swedish Minister for Infrastructure
1968 – Patrick Stevens, Belgian sprinter
1969 – Dov Charney, Canadian-American fashion designer and businessman, founded American Apparel
1969 – Daniel Moder, American cinematographer
1970 – Minnie Driver, English singer-songwriter and actress
1970 – Danny Michel, Canadian singer-songwriter and producer
1971 – Patricia Velásquez, Venezuelan model and actress
1973 – Portia de Rossi, Australian-American actress
1974 – Othella Harrington, American basketball player and coach
1974 – Ariel Pestano, Cuban baseball player
1975 – Fred Coleman, American football player and coach
1975 – Preity Zinta, Indian actress, producer, and television host
1976 – Traianos Dellas, Greek footballer and manager
1976 – Buddy Rice, American race car driver
1976 – Paul Scheer, American comedian, actor, producer, and screenwriter
1977 – Suchitra Singh, Indian cricketer
1977 – Kerry Washington, American actress
1978 – Fabián Caballero, Argentinian footballer and manager
1979 – Daniel Tammet, English author and educator
1980 – James Adomian, American comedian, actor, and screenwriter
1980 – Gary Doherty, Irish footballer, centre forward
1980 – Shim Yi-young, South Korean actress
1981 – Julio Arca, Argentinian footballer
1981 – Mark Cameron, Australian cricketer
1981 – Justin Timberlake, American singer-songwriter, dancer, and actor
1982 – Maret Ani, Estonian tennis player
1982 – Yuniesky Betancourt, Cuban baseball player
1982 – Andreas Görlitz, German footballer
1982 – Salvatore Masiello, Italian footballer
1982 – Allan McGregor, Scottish footballer
1982 – Jānis Sprukts, Latvian ice hockey player
1982 – Yukimi Nagano, Swedish singer-songwriter
1982 – Brad Thompson, American baseball player
1983 – James Sutton, English actor
1983 – Fabio Quagliarella, Italian footballer
1984 – Vernon Davis, American football player
1984 – Josh Johnson, Canadian-American baseball player
1984 – Jeremy Wariner, American runner
1984 – Alessandro Zanni, Italian rugby player
1985 – Adam Federici, Australian footballer
1985 – Mario Williams, American football player
1986 – Walter Dix, American sprinter
1986 – Megan Ellison, American film producer, founded Annapurna Pictures
1986 – George Elokobi, Cameroonian footballer
1986 – Yves Ma-Kalambay, Belgian footballer
1986 – Pauline Parmentier, French tennis player
1987 – Marcus Mumford, American-English singer-songwriter
1988 – Brett Pitman, English footballer
1988 – Taijo Teniste, Estonian footballer
1990 – Jacopo Fortunato, Italian footballer
1990 – Jacob Markström, Swedish ice hockey player
1990 – Kota Yabu, Japanese idol, singer-songwriter, model, actor
Deaths on January 31
632 – Máedóc of Ferns, Irish bishop and saint (b. 550)
876 – Hemma of Altdorf, Frankish queen
985 – Ryōgen, Japanese monk and abbot (b. 912)
1030 – William V, duke of Aquitaine (b. 969)
1216 – Theodore II, patriarch of Constantinople
1398 – Sukō, emperor of Japan (b. 1334)
1418 – Mircea I, prince of Wallachia (b. 1355)
1435 – Xuande, emperor of China (b. 1398)
1561 – Bairam Khan, Mughalan general (b. 1501)
1561 – Menno Simons, Dutch minister and theologian (b. 1496)
1580 – Henry, king of Portugal (b. 1512)
1606 – Guy Fawkes, English conspirator, leader of the Gunpowder Plot (b. 1570)
1606 – Ambrose Rookwood, English Gunpowder Plot conspirator (b. 1578)
1606 – Thomas Wintour, English Gunpowder Plot conspirator (b. 1571)
1615 – Claudio Acquaviva, Italian priest, 5th Superior General of the Society of Jesus (b. 1543)
1632 – Jost Bürgi, Swiss clockmaker and mathematician (b. 1552)
1665 – Johannes Clauberg, German philosopher and theologian (b. 1622)
1686 – Jean Mairet, French playwright (b. 1604)
1720 – Thomas Grey, 2nd Earl of Stamford, English politician, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (b. 1654)
1729 – Jacob Roggeveen, Dutch explorer (b. 1659)
1736 – Filippo Juvarra, Italian architect and set designer, designed the Basilica of Superga (b. 1678)
1790 – Thomas Lewis, Irish-born American lawyer and surveyor (b. 1718)
1794 – Mariot Arbuthnot, English admiral and politician, 12th Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia (b. 1711)
1811 – Manuel Alberti, Argentinian priest and journalist (b. 1763)
1815 – José Félix Ribas, Venezuelan soldier (b. 1775)
1828 – Alexander Ypsilantis, Greek general (b. 1792)
1836 – John Cheyne, English physician and author (b. 1777)
1844 – Henri Gatien Bertrand, French general (b. 1773)
1856 – 11th Dalai Lama (b. 1838)
1870 – Cilibi Moise, Moldavian-Romanian journalist and author (b. 1812)
1888 – John Bosco, Italian priest and educator, founded the Salesian Society (b. 1815)
1892 – Charles Spurgeon, English pastor and author (b. 1834)
1900 – John Douglas, 9th Marquess of Queensberry, Scottish nobleman (b. 1844)
1907 – Timothy Eaton, Canadian businessman, founded Eaton’s (b. 1834)
1923 – Eligiusz Niewiadomski, Polish painter and critic (b. 1869)
1933 – John Galsworthy, English novelist and playwright, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1867)
1942 – Henry Larkin, American baseball player and manager (b. 1860)
1944 – Jean Giraudoux, French author and playwright (b. 1882)
1954 – Edwin Howard Armstrong, American engineer, invented FM radio (b. 1890)
1954 – Vivian Woodward, English captain and footballer (b. 1879)
1955 – John Mott, American activist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1865)
1956 – A. A. Milne, English author, poet, and playwright, created Winnie-the-Pooh (b. 1882)
1958 – Karl Selter, Estonian politician, 14th Estonian Minister of Foreign Affairs (b. 1898)
1960 – Auguste Herbin, French painter (b. 1882)
1961 – Krishna Singh, Indian politician, 1st Chief Minister of Bihar (b. 1887)
1966 – Arthur Percival, English general (b. 1887)
1967 – Eddie Tolan, American sprinter and educator (b. 1908)
1969 – Meher Baba, Indian spiritual master (b. 1894)
1971 – Viktor Zhirmunsky, Russian historian and linguist (b. 1891)
1973 – Ragnar Frisch, Norwegian economist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1895)
1974 – Samuel Goldwyn, Polish-American film producer, co-founded Goldwyn Pictures (b. 1882)
1976 – Ernesto Miranda, American criminal (b. 1941)
1976 – Evert Taube, Swedish author and composer (b. 1890)
1985 – Reginald Baker, English-Australian film producer (b. 1896)
1985 – Tatsuzō Ishikawa, Japanese author (b. 1905)
1987 – Yves Allégret, French director and screenwriter (b. 1907)
1989 – William Stephenson, Canadian captain and spy (b. 1896)
1990 – Eveline Du Bois-Reymond Marcus, German zoologist and academic (b. 1901)
1990 – Rashad Khalifa, Egyptian-American biochemist and academic (b. 1935)
1995 – George Abbott, American actor, director, and producer (b. 1887)
1997 – John Joseph Scanlan, Irish-American bishop (b. 1930)
1999 – Giant Baba, Japanese wrestler and trainer, co-founded All Japan Pro Wrestling (b. 1938)
1999 – Norm Zauchin, American baseball player (b. 1929)
2000 – Gil Kane, Latvian-American author and illustrator (b. 1926)
2001 – Gordon R. Dickson, Canadian-American author (b. 1923)
2002 – Gabby Gabreski, American colonel and pilot (b. 1919)
2004 – Eleanor Holm, American swimmer and actress (b. 1913)
2004 – Suraiya, Indian actress and playback singer (b. 1929)
2006 – Moira Shearer, Scottish actress and ballerina (b. 1926)
2007 – Molly Ivins, American journalist and author (b. 1944)
2007 – Adelaide Tambo, South African activist and politician (b. 1929)
2008 – František Čapek, Czechoslovakian canoeist (b. 1914)
2011 – Bartolomeu Anania, Romanian bishop and poet (b. 1921)
2011 – Mark Ryan, English guitarist and playwright (b. 1959)
2012 – Mani Ram Bagri, Indian lawyer and politician (b. 1920)
2012 – Anthony Bevilacqua, American cardinal (b. 1923)
2012 – Tristram Potter Coffin, American author, scholar, and academic (b. 1922)
2012 – Dorothea Tanning, American painter and sculptor (b. 1910)
AD 98 – Trajan succeeds his adoptive father Nerva as Roman emperor; under his rule, the Roman Empire will reach its maximum extent.
1186 – Henry VI, the son and heir of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I, marries Constance of Sicily.
1302 – Dante Alighieri is exiled from Florence.
1343 – Pope Clement VI issues the papal bull Unigenitus to justify the power of the pope and the use of indulgences. Nearly 200 years later, Martin Luther would protest this.
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.
1776 – American Revolutionary War: Henry Knox’s “noble train of artillery” arrives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
1785 – The University of Georgia is founded, the first 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.
1880 – Thomas Edison receives a patent for his incandescent lamp.
1916 – World War I: The British government passed a legislation that introduced conscription in the United Kingdom.
1918 – Beginning of the Finnish Civil War.
1927 – Ibn Saud takes the title of King of Nejd.
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 900-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.
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 use of the Moon and other celestial bodies to peaceful purposes.
1973 – The Paris Peace Accords officially end 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.
2011 – Arab Spring: The Yemeni Revolution begins as over 16,000 protestors demonstrate in Sana’a.
2013 – Two hundred and forty-two people die in a nightclub fire in the Brazilian city of Santa Maria, Rio Grande do Sul.
Births on January 27
1365 – Edward of Angoulême, English noble (d. 1370)
1443 – Albert III, Duke of Saxony (d. 1500)
1546 – Joachim III Frederick, Elector of Brandenburg (d. 1608)
1571 – Abbas I of Persia (d. 1629)
1585 – Hendrick Avercamp, Dutch painter (d. 1634)
1603 – Sir Harbottle Grimston, 2nd Baronet, English lawyer and politician, Speaker of the House of Commons (d. 1685)
1603 – Humphrey Mackworth, English politician, lawyer and judge (d. 1654)
1621 – Thomas Willis, English physician and anatomist (d. 1675)
1662 – Richard Bentley, English scholar and theologian (d. 1742)
1663 – George Byng, 1st Viscount Torrington, Royal Navy admiral (d. 1733)
1687 – Johann Balthasar Neumann, German engineer and architect, designed Würzburg Residence and Basilica of the Fourteen Holy Helpers (d. 1753)
1701 – Johann Nikolaus von Hontheim, German historian and theologian (d. 1790)
1708 – Grand Duchess Anna Petrovna of Russia (d. 1728)
1741 – Hester Thrale, Welsh author (d. 1821)
1756 – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Austrian pianist and composer (d. 1791)
1775 – Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling, German-Swiss philosopher and academic (d. 1854)
1790 – Juan Álvarez, Mexican general and president (1855) (d. 1867)
1795 – Eli Whitney Blake, American engineer, invented the Mortise lock (d. 1886)
1803 – Eunice Hale Waite Cobb, American writer, public speaker, and activist (d. 1880)
1805 – Maria Anna of Bavaria (d. 1877)
1805 – Samuel Palmer, English painter and etcher (d. 1881)
1806 – Juan Crisóstomo Arriaga, Spanish composer and educator (d. 1826)
1808 – David Strauss, German theologian and author (d. 1874)
1814 – Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, French architect, designed the Lausanne Cathedral (d. 1879)
1821 – John Chivington, American colonel and pastor (d. 1892)
1823 – Édouard Lalo, French violinist and composer (d. 1892)
1824 – Urbain Johnson, Canadian farmer and political figure (d. 1917)
1826 – Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin, Russian journalist and author (d. 1889)
1826 – Richard Taylor, American general, historian, and politician (d. 1879)
1832 – Lewis Carroll, English novelist, poet, and mathematician (d. 1898)
1832 – Carl Friedrich Schmidt, Estonian-Russian geologist and botanist (d. 1908)
1836 – Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, Austrian journalist and author (d. 1895)
1842 – Arkhip Kuindzhi, Ukrainian-Russian painter (d. 1910)
1848 – Tōgō Heihachirō, Japanese admiral (d. 1934)
1850 – John Collier, English painter and author (d. 1934)
1850 – Samuel Gompers, English-American labor leader (d. 1924)
1850 – Edward Smith, English captain (d. 1912)
1858 – Neel Doff, Dutch-Belgian author (d. 1942)
1859 – Wilhelm II, German Emperor (d. 1941)
1869 – Will Marion Cook, American violinist and composer (d. 1944)
1878 – Dorothy Scarborough, American author (d. 1935)
1885 – Jerome Kern, American composer and songwriter (d. 1945)
1885 – Seison Maeda, Japanese painter (d. 1977)
1886 – Radhabinod Pal, Indian academic and jurist (d. 1967)
1889 – Balthasar van der Pol, Dutch physicist and academic (d. 1959)
1891 – Ilya Ehrenburg, Russian journalist and author (d. 1967)
1893 – Soong Ching-ling, Chinese politician, Honorary President of the People’s Republic of China (d. 1981)
1895 – Joseph Rosenstock, Polish-American conductor and manager (d. 1985)
1895 – Harry Ruby, American composer and screenwriter (d. 1974)
1900 – Hyman G. Rickover, American admiral (d. 1986)
1901 – Willy Fritsch, German actor (d. 1973)
1901 – Art Rooney, American football player and coach, founded the Pittsburgh Steelers (d. 1988)
1903 – John Eccles, Australian-Swiss neurophysiologist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1997)
1903 – Otto P. Weyland, American general (d. 1979)
1904 – James J. Gibson, American psychologist and academic (d. 1979)
1905 – Howard McNear, American actor (d. 1969)
1908 – William Randolph Hearst, Jr., American journalist and publisher (d. 1993)
1910 – Edvard Kardelj, Slovene general, economist, and politician, 2nd Foreign Minister of Yugoslavia (d. 1979)
1912 – Arne Næss, Norwegian philosopher and environmentalist (d. 2009)
1912 – Francis Rogallo, American engineer, invented the Rogallo wing (d. 2009)
1915 – Jules Archer, American historian and author (d. 2008)
1915 – Jacques Hnizdovsky, Ukrainian-American painter, sculptor, and illustrator (d. 1985)
1918 – Skitch Henderson, American pianist, composer, and conductor (d. 2005)
1918 – Elmore James, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 1963)
1918 – William Seawell, American general (d. 2005)
1919 – Tom Addington, English captain (d. 2011)
1919 – Ross Bagdasarian, Sr., American singer-songwriter, pianist, producer, and actor, created Alvin and the Chipmunks (d. 1972)
1920 – Hiroyoshi Nishizawa, Japanese lieutenant and pilot (d. 1944)
1920 – Helmut Zacharias, German violinist and composer (d. 2002)
1921 – Donna Reed, American actress (d. 1986)
1924 – Rauf Denktaş, Cypriot lawyer and politician, 1st President of Northern Cyprus (d. 2012)
1924 – Brian Rix, English actor, producer, and politician (d. 2016)
1924 – Harvey Shapiro, American poet (d. 2013)
1926 – Fritz Spiegl, Austrian flute player and journalist (d. 2003)
1926 – Ingrid Thulin, Swedish actress (d. 2004)
1928 – Michael Craig, Indian-English actor and screenwriter
1928 – Hans Modrow, Polish-German lawyer and politician, 5th Prime Minister of East Germany
661 – The Rashidun Caliphate is effectively ended with the assassination of Ali, the last caliph.
945 – The co-emperors Stephen and Constantine are overthrown and forced to become monks by Constantine VII, who becomes the sole emperor of the Byzantine Empire.
1500 – Vicente Yáñez Pinzón becomes the first European to set foot on Brazil.
1531 – The 6.4–7.1 Mw Lisbon earthquake kills about thirty thousand people.
1564 – The Council of Trent establishes an official distinction between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism.
1564 – The Grand Duchy of Lithuania defeats the Tsardom of Russia in the Battle of Ula during the Livonian War.
1565 – Battle of Talikota, fought between the Vijayanagara Empire and the Deccan sultanates, leads to the subjugation, and eventual destruction of the last Hindu kingdom in India, and the consolidation of Islamic rule over much of the Indian subcontinent.
1699 – For the first time, the Ottoman Empire permanently cedes territory to the Christian powers.
1700 – The 8.7–9.2 Mw Cascadia earthquake takes place off the west coast of North America, as evidenced by Japanese records.
1736 – Stanislaus I of Poland abdicates his throne.
1788 – The British First Fleet, led by Arthur Phillip, sails into Port Jackson (Sydney Harbour) to establish Sydney, the first permanent European settlement on Australia. Commemorated as Australia Day.
1808 – The Rum Rebellion is the only successful (albeit short-lived) armed takeover of the government in New South Wales.
1837 – Michigan is admitted as the 26th U.S. state.
1838 – Tennessee enacts the first prohibition law in the United States.
1841 – James Bremer takes formal possession of Hong Kong Island at what is now Possession Point, establishing British Hong Kong.
1855 – Point No Point Treaty is signed in Washington Territory.
1856 – First Battle of Seattle. Marines from the USS Decatur drive off American Indian attackers after all day battle with settlers.
1861 – American Civil War: The state of Louisiana secedes from the Union.
1863 – American Civil War: General Ambrose Burnside is relieved of command of the Army of the Potomac after the disastrous Fredericksburg campaign. He is replaced by Joseph Hooker.
1863 – American Civil War: Governor of Massachusetts John Albion Andrew receives permission from the Secretary of War to raise a militia organization for men of African descent.
1870 – Reconstruction Era: Virginia rejoins the Union.
1885 – Troops loyal to The Mahdi conquer Khartoum, killing the Governor-General Charles George Gordon.
1905 – The world’s largest diamond ever, the Cullinan weighing 3,106.75 carats (0.621350 kg), is found at the Premier Mine near Pretoria in South Africa.
1911 – Glenn Curtiss flies the first successful American seaplane.
1915 – The Rocky Mountain National Park is established by an act of the U.S. Congress.
1918 – Finnish Civil War: A group of Red Guards hangs a red lantern atop the tower of Helsinki Workers’ Hall to symbolically mark the start of the war.
1920 – Former Ford Motor Company executive Henry Leland launches the Lincoln Motor Company which he later sold to his former employer.
1926 – The first demonstration of the television by John Logie Baird.
1930 – The Indian National Congress declares 26 January as Independence Day or as the day for Poorna Swaraj (“Complete Independence”) which occurred 17 years later.
1934 – The Apollo Theater reopens in Harlem, New York City.
1934 – German-Polish Non-Aggression Pact is signed.
1939 – Spanish Civil War: Catalonia Offensive: Troops loyal to nationalist General Francisco Franco and aided by Italy take Barcelona.
1942 – World War II: The first United States forces arrive in Europe landing in Northern Ireland.
1945 – World War II: The Red Army begins encircling the German Fourth Army near Heiligenbeil in East Prussia, which will end in destruction of the 4th Army two months later.
1945 – World War II: Audie Murphy displays valor and bravery in action for which he will later be awarded the Medal of Honor.
1949 – The Hale telescope at Palomar Observatory sees first light under the direction of Edwin Hubble, becoming the largest aperture optical telescope (until BTA-6 is built in 1976).
1950 – The Constitution of India comes into force, forming a republic. Rajendra Prasad is sworn in as its first President of India. Observed as Republic Day in India.
1952 – Black Saturday in Egypt: rioters burn Cairo’s central business district, targeting British and upper-class Egyptian businesses.
1956 – the Soviet Union cedes Porkkala back to Finland.
1961 – John F. Kennedy appoints Janet G. Travell to be the first woman Physician to the President.
1962 – Ranger 3 is launched to study the Moon. The space probe later misses the moon by 22,000 miles (35,400 km).
1965 – Hindi becomes the official language of India.
1972 – JAT Fight 367 is destroyed by a terrorist bomb, killing 27 of the 28 people on board the DC-9. Flight attendant Vesna Vulović survives with critical injuries.
1980 – Egypt–Israel relations are formally established.
1986 – The Ugandan government of Tito Okello is overthrown by the National Resistance Army, led by Yoweri Museveni.
1991 – Mohamed Siad Barre is removed from power in Somalia, ending centralized government, and is succeeded by Ali Mahdi.
1992 – Boris Yeltsin announces that Russia will stop targeting United States cities with nuclear weapons.
1998 – Lewinsky scandal: On American television, U.S. President Bill Clinton denies having had “sexual relations” with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky.
2001 – The 7.7 Mw Gujarat earthquake shakes Western India with a maximum Mercalli intensity of X (Extreme), leaving 13,805–20,023 dead and about 166,800 injured.
2009 – Rioting breaks out in Antananarivo, Madagascar, sparking a political crisis that will result in the replacement of President Marc Ravalomanana with Andry Rajoelina.
2015 – An aircraft crashes at Los Llanos Air Base in Albacete, Spain, killing 11 people and injuring 21 others.
2020 – A Sikorsky S-76B flying from John Wayne Airport to Camarillo Airport crashes in Calabasas, 30 miles west of Los Angeles, killing all nine people on board including former five time NBA champion Kobe Bryant and his daughter Gianna Bryant.
Births on January 26
183 – Lady Zhen, wife of Cao Pi (d. 221)
1436 – Henry Beaufort, 3rd Duke of Somerset, Lancastrian military commander (d. 1464)
1467 – Guillaume Budé, French scholar (d. 1540)
1495 – Emperor Go-Nara of Japan (d. 1557)
1541 – Florent Chrestien, French poet and translator (d. 1596)
1549 – Jakob Ebert, German theologian (d. 1614)
1582 – Giovanni Lanfranco, Italian painter (d. 1647)
1595 – Antonio Maria Abbatini, Italian composer (d. 1679)
1624 – George William, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg (d. 1705)
1657 – William Wake, Archbishop of Canterbury (d. 1737)
1708 – William Hayes, English organist, composer, and conductor (d. 1777)
1714 – Jean-Baptiste Pigalle, French sculptor and educator (d. 1785)
1715 – Claude Adrien Helvétius, French philosopher (d. 1771)
1716 – George Germain, 1st Viscount Sackville, English general and politician, Secretary of State for the Colonies (d. 1785)
1722 – Alexander Carlyle, Scottish minister and author (d. 1805)
1763 – Charles XIV John of Sweden (d. 1844)
1781 – Ludwig Achim von Arnim, German poet and author (d. 1831)
1813 – Juan Pablo Duarte, Dominican philosopher and poet (d. 1876)
1824 – Emil Czyrniański, Polish chemist (d. 1888)
1832 – George Shiras, Jr., American lawyer and jurist (d. 1924)
1842 – François Coppée, French poet and author (d. 1908)
1852 – Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza, Italian-French explorer (d. 1905)
1857 – 12th Dalai Lama (d. 1875)
1861 – Louis Anquetin, French painter (d. 1932)
1864 – József Pusztai, Slovene-Hungarian poet and journalist (d. 1934)
1866 – John Cady, American golfer (d. 1933)
1877 – Kees van Dongen, Dutch painter (d. 1968)
1878 – Dave Nourse, English-South African cricketer and coach (d. 1948)
1880 – Douglas MacArthur, American general, Medal of Honor recipient (d. 1964)
1885 – Michael Considine, Irish-Australian politician (d. 1959)
1885 – Harry Ricardo, English engineer and academic (d. 1974)
1885 – Per Thorén, Swedish figure skater (d. 1962)
1887 – François Faber, French-Luxembourgian cyclist (d. 1915)
1887 – Marc Mitscher, American admiral and pilot (d. 1947)
1887 – Dimitris Pikionis, Greek architect and academic (d. 1968)
1891 – Frank Costello, Italian-American mob boss (d. 1973)
1891 – August Froehlich, German priest and martyr (d. 1942)
1891 – Wilder Penfield, American-Canadian neurosurgeon and academic (d. 1976)
1892 – Bessie Coleman, American pilot (d. 1926)
1893 – Giuseppe Genco Russo, Italian mob boss (d. 1976)
1899 – Günther Reindorff, Russian-Estonian graphic designer and illustrator (d. 1974)
1900 – Karl Ristenpart, German conductor (d. 1967)
1902 – Menno ter Braak, Dutch author (d. 1940)
1904 – Ancel Keys, American physiologist and nutritionist (d. 2004)
1904 – Seán MacBride, Irish lawyer and politician, Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1988)
1905 – Charles Lane, American actor and singer (d. 2007)
1905 – Maria von Trapp, Austrian-American singer (d. 1987)
1907 – Henry Cotton, English golfer (d. 1987)
1907 – Dimitrios Holevas, Greek priest and philologist (d. 2001)
1908 – Jill Esmond, English actress (d. 1990)
1908 – Rupprecht Geiger, German painter and sculptor (d. 2009)
1908 – Stéphane Grappelli, French violinist (d. 1997)
1910 – Jean Image, Hungarian-French animator, director, and screenwriter (d. 1989)
1911 – Polykarp Kusch, German-American physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1993)
1911 – Norbert Schultze, German composer and conductor (d. 2002)
1913 – Jimmy Van Heusen, American pianist and composer (d. 1990)
1914 – Dürrüşehvar Sultan, Imperial Princess of the Ottoman Empire (d. 2006)
1915 – William Hopper, American actor (d. 1970)
1917 – Louis Zamperini, American runner and captain (d. 2014)
1918 – Nicolae Ceaușescu, Romanian dictator, 1st President of Romania (d. 1989)
1918 – Philip José Farmer, American author (d. 2009)
1919 – Valentino Mazzola, Italian footballer (d. 1949)
1919 – Bill Nicholson, English footballer and manager (d. 2004)
1919 – Hyun Soong-jong, South Korean politician, 24th Prime Minister of South Korea (d. 2020)
1920 – Hans Holzer, Austrian-American paranormal researcher and author (d. 2009)
1921 – Eddie Barclay, French record producer, founded Barclay Records (d. 2005)
1921 – Akio Morita, Japanese businessman, co-founded Sony (d. 1999)
1922 – Michael Bentine, English actor and screenwriter (d. 1996)
1922 – Seán Flanagan, Irish footballer and politician, 7th Irish Minister for Health (d. 1993)
1922 – Gil Merrick, English footballer (d. 2010)
1923 – Patrick J. Hannifin, American admiral (d. 2014)
1923 – Anne Jeffreys, American actress and singer (d. 2017)
1924 – Alice Babs, Swedish singer and actress (b. 1924)
1924 – Annette Strauss, American philanthropist and politician, Mayor of Dallas (d. 1998)
1925 – David Jenkins, English bishop and theologian (d. 2016)
1925 – Joan Leslie, American actress (d. 2015)
1925 – Paul Newman, American actor, activist, director, race car driver, and businessman, co-founded Newman’s Own (d. 2008)
1925 – Ben Pucci, American football player and sportscaster (d. 2013)
1925 – Claude Ryan, Canadian journalist and politician (d. 2004)
1926 – Farman Fatehpuri, Pakistani linguist and scholar (d. 2013)
1926 – Joseph Bacon Fraser, Jr., American architect and businessman, co-founded the Sea Pines Company (d. 2014)
1927 – José Azcona del Hoyo, Honduran businessman and politician, President of Honduras (d. 2005)
1927 – Bob Nieman, American baseball player and scout (d. 1985)
1927 – Hubert Schieth, German footballer and manager (d. 2013)
1928 – Roger Vadim, French actor and director (d. 2000)
1929 – Jules Feiffer, American cartoonist, playwright, screenwriter, and educator
1934 – Roger Landry, Canadian businessman and publisher (d. 2020)
1934 – Charles Marowitz, American director, playwright, and critic (d. 2014)
1934 – Huey “Piano” Smith, American pianist and songwriter
1934 – Bob Uecker, American baseball player, sportscaster and actor
1935 – Corrado Augias, Italian journalist and politician
1935 – Henry Jordan, American football player (d. 1977)
1935 – Paula Rego, Portuguese-born British visual artist
1936 – Sal Buscema, American illustrator
1937 – Joseph Saidu Momoh, Sierra Leonean soldier and politician, 2nd President of Sierra Leone (d. 2003)
1937 – Francisco Gonzales, former 1960 Summer Olympics yachting team member and murderer
1938 – Henry Jaglom, English-American director and screenwriter
1940 – Séamus Hegarty, Irish bishop
1940 – Frank Large, English footballer, centre forward and cricketer (d. 2003)
1943 – César Gutiérrez, Venezuelan baseball player and manager (d. 2005)
1943 – Jack Warner, Trinidadian businessman and politician
1944 – Angela Davis, American activist, academic, and author
1944 – Jerry Sandusky, American football coach and criminal
1945 – Jacqueline du Pré, English cellist (d. 1987)
1945 – David Purley, English race car driver (d. 1985)
1946 – Christopher Hampton, Portuguese-English director, screenwriter, and playwright
1946 – Gene Siskel, American journalist and film critic (d. 1999)
1946 – Susan Friedlander, American mathematician
1947 – Patrick Dewaere, French actor and composer (d. 1982)
1947 – Les Ebdon, English chemist and academic
1947 – Redmond Morris, 4th Baron Killanin, Irish director, producer, and production manager
1947 – Michel Sardou, French singer-songwriter and actor
1948 – Alda Facio, Costa Rican jurist, writer and teacher
1949 – Jonathan Carroll, American author
1949 – David Strathairn, American actor
1950 – Jörg Haider, Austrian lawyer and politician, Governor of Carinthia (d. 2008)
1951 – David Briggs, Australian guitarist, songwriter, and producer
1951 – Andy Hummel, American singer-songwriter and bass player (d. 2010)
1951 – Anne Mills, English economist and academic
1953 – Alik L. Alik, Micronesian politician, 7th Vice President of the Federated States of Micronesia
1953 – Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Danish politician and diplomat, 39th Prime Minister of Denmark
1953 – Lucinda Williams, American singer-songwriter and guitarist
1954 – Kim Hughes, Australian cricketer
1955 – Eddie Van Halen, Dutch-American guitarist, songwriter, and producer
1957 – Road Warrior Hawk, American wrestler (d. 2003)
1958 – Anita Baker, American singer-songwriter
1958 – Ellen DeGeneres, American comedian, actress, and talk show host
1961 – Wayne Gretzky, Canadian ice hockey player and coach
1961 – Tom Keifer, American singer-songwriter and guitarist
1962 – Guo Jian, Chinese-Australian painter, sculptor, and photographer
1962 – Tim May, Australian cricketer
1962 – Oscar Ruggeri, Argentinian footballer and manager
1963 – José Mourinho, Portuguese footballer and manager
1963 – Simon O’Donnell, Australian footballer, cricketer, and sportscaster
1963 – Tony Parks, English footballer and manager
1963 – Andrew Ridgeley, English singer-songwriter and guitarist
1964 – Adam Crozier, Scottish businessman
1965 – Thomas Östros, Swedish businessman and politician
1965 – Natalia Yurchenko, Russian gymnast and coach
1966 – Kazushige Nagashima, Japanese baseball player and sportscaster
1967 – Anatoly Komm, Russian chef and businessman
1967 – Col Needham, English businessman, co-founded Internet Movie Database
1968 – Jupiter Apple, Brazilian singer-songwriter, film director, and actor (d. 2015)
1969 – George Dikeoulakos, Greek-Romanian basketball player and coach
1970 – Kirk Franklin, American singer-songwriter and producer
1973 – Larissa Lowing, Canadian artistic gymnast
1973 – Melvil Poupaud, French actor, director, and screenwriter
1973 – Brendan Rodgers, Northern Irish footballer and manager
1973 – Mayu Shinjo, Japanese author and illustrator
1977 – Vince Carter, American basketball player
1977 – Justin Gimelstob, American tennis player and coach
1978 – Corina Morariu, American tennis player and sportscaster
1981 – José de Jesús Corona, Mexican footballer
1981 – Gustavo Dudamel, Venezuelan violinist, composer, and conductor
1981 – Juan José Haedo, Argentinian cyclist
1981 – Colin O’Donoghue, Irish actor
1982 – Reggie Hodges, American football player
1983 – Petri Oravainen, Finnish footballer
1983 – Eric Werner, American ice hockey player
1984 – Ryan Hoffman, Australian rugby league player
1984 – Iain Turner, Scottish footballer
1984 – Luo Xuejuan, Chinese swimmer
1985 – Heather Stanning, English rower
1986 – Gerald Green, American basketball player
1986 – Kim Jae-joong, South Korean singer, songwriter, actor, director and designer.
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.
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 – In a coronation ceremony, Zhu Yuanzhang ascends the throne of China as the Hongwu Emperor, initiating Ming dynasty rule over China that would last for three centuries.
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.
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.
1656 – Blaise Pascal publishes the first of his Lettres provinciales.
1719 – The Principality of Liechtenstein is created within the Holy Roman Empire.
1789 – Georgetown College, the first Catholic university in the United States, is founded in Georgetown, Maryland (now a part of Washington, D.C.).
1793 – Second Partition of Poland.
1795 – After an extraordinary charge across the frozen Zuiderzee, the French cavalry captured 14 Dutch ships and 850 guns, in a rare occurrence of a battle between ships and cavalry.
1846 – Slavery in Tunisia is abolished.
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.
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 – RMS Republic, 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 International Opium Convention is signed at The Hague.
1920 – The Netherlands refuses to surrender the exiled Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany to the Allies.
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.
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 10,911 metres (35,797 ft) in the Pacific Ocean.
1961 – The Portuguese luxury cruise ship Santa Maria is hijacked by opponents of the Estado Novo regime with the intention of waging war until dictator António de Oliveira Salazar is overthrown.
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 naval forces of North Korea.
1973 – United States President Richard Nixon announces that a peace accord has been reached in Vietnam.
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.
1997 – Madeleine Albright becomes the first woman to serve as United States Secretary of State.
1998 – Netscape announced 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 Communist Party of China 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 Mw 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.
Births on January 23
599 – Tai Zong, emperor of the Tang Dynasty (d. 649)
1350 – Vincent Ferrer, Spanish missionary and saint (d. 1419)
1378 – Louis III, Elector Palatine (d. 1436)
1514 – Hai Rui, Chinese politician (d. 1587)
1585 – Mary Ward, English Catholic Religious Sister (d. 1645)
1622 – Abraham Diepraam, Dutch painter (d. 1670)
1719 – John Landen, English mathematician and theorist (d. 1790)
1737 – John Hancock, American general and politician, 1st Governor of Massachusetts (d. 1793)
1745 – William Jessop, English engineer, built the Cromford Canal (d. 1814)
1752 – Muzio Clementi, Italian pianist, composer, and conductor (d. 1832)
1780 – Georgios Karaiskakis, Greek general (d. 1827)
1783 – Stendhal, French novelist (d. 1842)
1786 – Auguste de Montferrand, French-Russian architect, designed Saint Isaac’s Cathedral and Alexander Column (d. 1858)
1799 – Alois Negrelli, Tyrolean engineer and railroad pioneer active in the Austrian Empire (d. 1858)
1809 – Surendra Sai, Indian activist (d. 1884)
1813 – Camilla Collett, Norwegian novelist and activist (d. 1895)
1828 – Saigō Takamori, Japanese samurai (d. 1877)
1832 – Édouard Manet, French painter (d. 1883)
1833 – Muthu Coomaraswamy, Sri Lankan lawyer and politician (d. 1879)
1838 – Marianne Cope, German-American nun and saint (d. 1918)
1840 – Ernst Abbe, German physicist and engineer (d. 1905)
1846 – Nikolay Umov, Russian physicist and mathematician (d. 1915)
1855 – John Browning, American weapons designer, founded the Browning Arms Company (d. 1926)
1857 – Andrija Mohorovičić, Croatian meteorologist and seismologist (d. 1936)
1862 – David Hilbert, Russian-German mathematician and academic (d. 1943)
1862 – Frank Shuman, American inventor and engineer (d. 1918)
1872 – Paul Langevin, French physicist and academic (d. 1946)
1872 – Jože Plečnik, Slovenian architect, designed Plečnik Parliament (d. 1957)
1876 – Otto Diels, German chemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1954)
1878 – Rutland Boughton, English composer (d. 1960)
1880 – Antonio Díaz Soto y Gama, Mexican politician (d. 1967)
1889 – Claribel Kendall, American mathematician (d.1965)
1894 – Jyotirmoyee Devi, Indian author (d. 1988)
1896 – Alf Blair, Australian rugby league player and coach (d. 1944)
1896 – Alf Hall, English-South African cricketer (d. 1964)
1897 – Subhas Chandra Bose, Indian activist and politician (d. 1945)
1897 – Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky, Austrian architect (d. 2000)
1897 – Ieva Simonaitytė, Lithuanian author (d. 1978)
1897 – William Stephenson, Canadian captain and spy (d. 1989)
1898 – Georg Kulenkampff, German violinist (d. 1948)
1898 – Randolph Scott, American actor (d. 1987)
1898 – Freda Utley, English scholar and author (d. 1978)
1899 – Glen Kidston, English race car driver and pilot (d. 1931)
1900 – William Ifor Jones, Welsh organist and conductor (d. 1988)
1901 – Arthur Wirtz, American businessman (d. 1983)
1903 – Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, Colombian lawyer and politician, 16th Minister of National Education of Colombia (d. 1948)
1905 – Erich Borchmeyer, German sprinter (d. 2000)
1907 – Dan Duryea, American actor and singer (d. 1968)
1907 – Hideki Yukawa, Japanese physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1981)
1910 – Django Reinhardt, Belgian guitarist and composer (d. 1953)
1912 – Boris Pokrovsky, Russian director and manager (d. 2009)
1913 – Jean-Michel Atlan, Algerian-French painter (d. 1960)
1913 – Wally Parks, American businessman, founded the National Hot Rod Association (d. 2007)
1915 – Herma Bauma, Austrian javelin thrower and handball player (d. 2003)
1915 – W. Arthur Lewis, Saint Lucian-Barbadian economist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1991)
1915 – Potter Stewart, American lawyer and judge (d. 1985)
1916 – David Douglas Duncan, American photographer and journalist (d. 2018)
1916 – Airey Neave, English colonel, lawyer, and politician, Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (d. 1979)
1918 – Gertrude B. Elion, American biochemist and pharmacologist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1999)
1918 – Florence Rush, American social worker and theorist (d. 2008)
1919 – Frances Bay, Canadian-American actress (d. 2011)
1919 – Hans Hass, Austrian biologist and diver (d. 2013)
1919 – Ernie Kovacs, American actor and game show host (d. 1962)
1919 – Bob Paisley, English footballer and manager (d. 1996)
1920 – Gottfried Böhm, German architect
1920 – Henry Eriksson, Swedish runner (d. 2000)
1920 – Walter Frederick Morrison, American businessman, invented the Frisbee (d. 2010)
1922 – Leon Golub, American painter and academic (d. 2004)
1922 – Tom Lewis, Australian politician, 33rd Premier of New South Wales (d. 2016)
1923 – Horace Ashenfelter, American runner (d. 2018)
1923 – Cot Deal, American baseball player and coach (d. 2013)
1923 – Walter M. Miller, Jr., American soldier and author (d. 1996)
1924 – Frank Lautenberg, American soldier, businessman, and politician (d. 2013)
1925 – Marty Paich, American pianist, composer, producer, and conductor (d. 1995)
1926 – Bal Thackeray, Indian journalist, cartoonist, and politician (d. 2012)
1927 – Lars-Eric Lindblad, Swedish-American businessman and explorer (d. 1994)
1927 – Fred Williams, Australian painter (d. 1982)
1928 – Chico Carrasquel, Venezuelan baseball player and manager (d. 2005)
1928 – Jeanne Moreau, French actress (d. 2017)
1929 – Myron Cope, American journalist and sportscaster (d. 2008)
1929 – Phillip Knightley, Australian journalist, author, and critic (d. 2016)
1929 – John Polanyi, German-Canadian chemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate
1930 – Filaret, Patriarch of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyivan
1930 – Mervyn Rose, Australian tennis player (d. 2017)
1930 – Derek Walcott, Saint Lucian poet and playwright, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2017)
1932 – George Allen, English footballer (d. 2016)
1932 – Larri Thomas, American actress and dancer (d. 2013)
1933 – Bill Hayden, Australian politician, 21st Governor General of Australia
1933 – Chita Rivera, American actress, singer, and dancer
1934 – Pierre Bourgault, Canadian journalist and politician (d. 2003)
1935 – Mike Agostini, Trinidadian sprinter (d. 2016)
1935 – Tom Reamy, American author (d. 1977)
1935 – Teresa Żylis-Gara, Polish operatic soprano
1936 – Brian Howe, Australian minister and politician, 8th Deputy Prime Minister of Australia
1936 – Jerry Kramer, American football player and sportscaster
1936 – Cécile Ousset, French pianist
1938 – Giant Baba, Japanese wrestler and promoter, founded All Japan Pro Wrestling (d. 1999)
1938 – Georg Baselitz, German painter and sculptor
1939 – Ed Roberts, American disability rights activist (d. 1995)
1940 – Alan Cheuse, American writer and critic (d. 2015)
1940 – Joe Dowell, American pop singer (d. 2016)
1941 – Jock R. Anderson, Australian economist and academic
1941 – João Ubaldo Ribeiro, Brazilian journalist, author, and academic (d. 2014)
1942 – Laurie Mayne, Australian cricketer
1942 – Herman Tjeenk Willink, Dutch judge and politician
1942 – Phil Clarke, New Zealand rugby union player
1943 – Gary Burton, American vibraphone player and composer
1943 – Özhan Canaydın, Turkish basketball player and businessman (d. 2010)
1943 – Gil Gerard, American actor and producer
1944 – Rutger Hauer, Dutch actor, director, and producer (d. 2019)
1945 – Mike Harris, Canadian politician, 22nd Premier of Ontario
1946 – Arnoldo Alemán, Nicaraguan lawyer and politician, President of Nicaragua
1946 – Boris Berezovsky, Russian-English businessman and mathematician (d. 2013)
1946 – Zvonko Bušić, Croatian terrorist, hijacker of TWA Flight 355 (d. 2013)
1946 – Don Whittington, American race car driver
1947 – Tom Carper, American captain and politician, 71st Governor of Delaware
1947 – Megawati Sukarnoputri, Indonesian politician, 5th President of Indonesia
1948 – Anita Pointer, American R&B/soul singer-songwriter
1950 – Richard Dean Anderson, American actor, producer, and composer
1950 – Bill Cunningham, American bass and keyboard player
1950 – Guida Maria, Portuguese actress (d. 2018)
1950 – Suzanne Scotchmer, American economist and academic (d. 2014)
1950 – Luis Alberto Spinetta, Argentinian singer-songwriter, guitarist, and poet (d. 2012)
1951 – Margaret Bailes, American sprinter
1951 – Chesley Sullenberger, American captain and pilot
1952 – Omar Henry, South African cricketer
1953 – John Luther Adams, American composer
1953 – Alister McGrath, Irish priest, historian, and theologian
1953 – Antonio Villaraigosa, American politician, 41st Mayor of Los Angeles
1953 – Robin Zander, American rock singer-songwriter and guitarist
1954 – Trevor Hohns, Australian cricketer
1957 – Caroline, Princess of Hanover
1958 – Sergey Litvinov, Russian hammer thrower (d. 2018)
1959 – Clive Bull, English radio host
1960 – Jean-François Sauvé, Canadian ice hockey player
1960 – Greg Ritchie, Australian cricketer
1961 – Neil Henry, Australian rugby league player and coach
1961 – Yelena Sinchukova, Russian long jumper
1962 – David Arnold, English composer
1962 – Aivar Lillevere, Estonian footballer and coach
1962 – Elvira Lindo, Spanish journalist and author
1964 – Jonatha Brooke, American singer-songwriter and guitarist
1964 – Mariska Hargitay, American actress and producer
1964 – Bharrat Jagdeo, Guyanese economist and politician, 7th President of Guyana
1964 – Mario Roberge, Canadian ice hockey player
1965 – Louie Clemente, American drummer
1966 – Damien Hardman, Australian surfer
1966 – Haywoode Workman, American basketball player and referee
1967 – Owen Cunningham, Australian rugby league player
1968 – Taro Hakase, Japanese violinist and composer
1968 – Petr Korda, Czech-Monacan tennis player
1969 – Andrei Kanchelskis, Ukrainian-Russian footballer and manager
1969 – Brendan Shanahan, Canadian ice hockey player and actor
1969 – Susen Tiedtke, German long jumper
1970 – Spyridon Vasdekis, Greek long jumper
1971 – Scott Gibbs, Welsh-South African rugby player and sportscaster
1971 – Kevin Mawae, American football player and coach
1971 – Marc Nelson, American singer-songwriter
1971 – Adam Parore, New Zealand cricketer and mountaineer
1971 – Claire Rankin, Canadian actress
1971 – Lisa Snowdon, English television and radio presenter and fashion model
1972 – Ewen Bremner, Scottish actor
1973 – Tomas Holmström, Swedish ice hockey player
1974 – Glen Chapple, English cricketer
1974 – Rebekah Elmaloglou, Australian actress
1974 – Yosvani Pérez, Cuban baseball player
1974 – Richard T. Slone, English painter
1974 – Tiffani Thiessen, American actress
1975 – Nick Harmer, German musician
1975 – Phil Dawson, American football player
1976 – Brandon Duckworth, American baseball player and scout
1976 – Anne Margrethe Hausken, Norwegian orienteering competitor
1976 – Alex Shaffer, American skier
1979 – Larry Hughes, American basketball player
1979 – Dawn O’Porter, Scottish-English fashion designer and journalist
1979 – Juan Rincón, Venezuelan baseball player and coach
1981 – Rob Friend, Canadian soccer player
1982 – Wily Mo Peña, Dominican baseball player
1982 – Oceana Mahlmann, German singer and songwriter
1982 – Andrew Rock, American sprinter
1983 – Irving Saladino, Panamanian long jumper
1984 – Robbie Farah, Australian rugby league player
1984 – Arjen Robben, Dutch footballer
1985 – Dong Fangzhuo, Chinese footballer
1985 – Doutzen Kroes, Dutch model and actress
1985 – Yevgeny Lukyanenko, Russian pole vaulter
1985 – Aselefech Mergia, Ethiopian runner
1985 – Jeff Samardzija, American baseball player
1985 – San E, South Korean rapper
1986 – Gelete Burka, Ethiopian runner
1986 – Marc Laird, Scottish footballer
1986 – José Enrique, Spanish footballer
1986 – Michael Stevens, American YouTuber and educator
1986 – Steven Taylor, English footballer
1986 – Sandro Viletta, Swiss skier
1987 – Leo Komarov, Finnish ice hockey player
1988 – Shaun Kenny-Dowall, Australian-New Zealand rugby league player
1990 – Şener Özbayraklı, Turkish footballer
1990 – Alex Silva, Canadian wrestler
1990 – Martyn Waghorn, English footballer
1992 – Reina Triendl, Japanese model and actress
1994 – Addison Russell, American baseball player
1995 – Luke Bateman, Australian rugby league player
1995 – Tuimoala Lolohea, New Zealand rugby league player
1998 – XXXTentacion, American rapper (d. 2018)
Deaths on January 23
667 – Ildefonsus, bishop of Toledo
989 – Adalbero, archbishop of Reims
1002 – Otto III, Holy Roman Emperor (b. 980)
1199 – Abu Yusuf Yaqub al-Mansur, Moroccan caliph (b. 1160)
1252 – Isabella, Queen of Armenia
1297 – Florent of Hainaut, Prince of Achaea (b. c. 1255)
1423 – Margaret of Bavaria, Burgundian regent (b. 1363)
1516 – Ferdinand II of Aragon (b. 1452)
1548 – Bernardo Pisano, Italian priest, scholar, and composer (b. 1490)
1549 – Johannes Honter, Romanian-Hungarian cartographer and theologian (b. 1498)
1567 – Jiajing Emperor of China (b. 1507)
1570 – James Stewart, 1st Earl of Moray, Scottish politician (b. 1531)
1620 – John Croke, English politician and judge (b. 1553)
1622 – William Baffin, English explorer and navigator (b. 1584)
1650 – Philip Herbert, 4th Earl of Pembroke (b. 1584)
1744 – Giambattista Vico, Italian historian and philosopher (b. 1668)
1785 – Matthew Stewart, Scottish mathematician and academic (b. 1717)
1789 – Frances Brooke, English author and playwright (b. 1724)
1789 – John Cleland, English author (b. 1709)
1800 – Edward Rutledge, American captain and politician, 39th Governor of South Carolina (b. 1749)
1803 – Arthur Guinness, Irish brewer, founded Guinness (b. 1725)
1805 – Claude Chappe, French engineer (b. 1763)
1806 – William Pitt the Younger, English politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1759)
1810 – Johann Wilhelm Ritter, German chemist and physicist (b. 1776)
1812 – Robert Craufurd, Scottish general and politician (b. 1764)
1820 – Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn (b. 1767)
1833 – Edward Pellew, 1st Viscount Exmouth, English admiral and politician (b. 1757)
1837 – John Field, Irish pianist and composer (b. 1782)
1866 – Thomas Love Peacock, English author and poet (b. 1785)
1875 – Charles Kingsley English priest and author (b. 1819)
1883 – Gustave Doré, French engraver and illustrator (b. 1832)
1893 – Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar II, American lawyer and politician, 16th United States Secretary of the Interior (b. 1825)
1893 – José Zorrilla, Spanish poet and playwright (b. 1817)
1921 – Mykola Leontovych, Ukrainian composer and conductor (b. 1877)
1922 – René Beeh, Alsatian painter and draughtsman (b. 1886)
1922 – Arthur Nikisch, Hungarian conductor and academic (b. 1855)
1923 – Max Nordau, Austrian physician and author (b. 1849)
1931 – Anna Pavlova, Russian-English ballerina (b. 1881)
1937 – Orso Mario Corbino, Italian physicist and politician (b. 1876)
1939 – Matthias Sindelar, Austrian footballer and manager (b. 1903)
1943 – Alexander Woollcott, American actor, playwright, and critic (b. 1887)
1944 – Edvard Munch, Norwegian painter and illustrator (b. 1863)
1947 – Pierre Bonnard, French painter (b. 1867)
1956 – Alexander Korda, Hungarian-English director and producer (b. 1893)
1963 – Józef Gosławski, Polish sculptor (b. 1908)
1966 – T. M. Sabaratnam, Sri Lankan lawyer and politician (d. 1895)
1971 – Fritz Feigl, Austrian-Brazilian chemist and academic (b. 1871)
1973 – Alexander Onassis, American-Greek businessman (b. 1948)
1973 – Kid Ory, American trombonist, composer, and bandleader (b. 1886)
1976 – Paul Robeson, American actor, singer, and activist (b. 1898)
1977 – Toots Shor, American businessman, founded Toots Shor’s Restaurant (b. 1903)
1978 – Terry Kath, American guitarist and songwriter (b. 1946)
1978 – Jack Oakie, American actor (b. 1903)
1980 – Giovanni Michelotti, Italian engineer (b. 1921)
1981 – Samuel Barber, American pianist and composer (b. 1910)
1983 – Fred Bakewell, English cricketer and coach (b. 1908)
1984 – Muin Bseiso, Palestinian-Egyptian poet and critic (b. 1926)
1985 – James Beard, American chef and cookbook author for whom the James Beard Foundation Awards are named (b.1905)
1986 – Joseph Beuys, German sculptor and painter (b. 1921)
1988 – Charles Glen King, American biochemist and academic (b. 1896)
1989 – Salvador Dalí, Spanish painter and sculptor (b. 1904)
1989 – Lars-Erik Torph, Swedish race car driver (b. 1961)
1990 – Allen Collins, American guitarist and songwriter (b. 1952)
1991 – Northrop Frye, Canadian author and critic (b. 1912)
1992 – Freddie Bartholomew, American actor (b. 1924)
1993 – Keith Laumer, American soldier, author, and diplomat (b. 1925)
1994 – Nikolai Ogarkov, Russian field marshal (b. 1917)
1994 – Brian Redhead, English journalist and author (b. 1929)
1999 – Joe D’Amato, Italian director and cinematographer (b. 1936)
1999 – Jay Pritzker, American businessman, co-founded the Hyatt Corporation (b. 1922)
2002 – Paul Aars, American race car driver (b. 1934)
2002 – Pierre Bourdieu, French sociologist, anthropologist, and philosopher (b. 1930)
2002 – Robert Nozick, American philosopher, author, and academic (b. 1938)
2003 – Nell Carter, American actress and singer (b. 1948)
2004 – Bob Keeshan, American television personality and producer (b. 1927)
2004 – Helmut Newton, German-Australian photographer (b. 1920)
2005 – Morys Bruce, 4th Baron Aberdare, English lieutenant and politician (b. 1921)
2005 – Johnny Carson, American talk show host, television personality, and producer (b. 1925)
250 – Pope Fabian is martyred during the Decian persecution.
649 – King Chindasuinth, at the urging of bishop Braulio of Zaragoza, crowns his son Recceswinth as co-ruler of the Visigothic Kingdom.
1265 – The first English parliament to include not only Lords but also representatives of the major towns holds its first meeting in the Palace of Westminster, now commonly known as the “Houses of Parliament”.
1320 – Duke Wladyslaw Lokietek becomes king of Poland.
1356 – Edward Balliol surrenders his claim to the Scottish throne to Edward III in exchange for an English pension.
1523 – Christian II is forced to abdicate as King of Denmark and Norway.
1567 – Battle of Rio de Janeiro: Portuguese forces under the command of Estácio de Sá definitively drive the French out of Rio de Janeiro.
1576 – The Mexican city of León is founded by order of the viceroy Don Martín Enríquez de Almanza.
1649 – The High Court of Justice for the trial of Charles I begins its proceedings.
1783 – The Kingdom of Great Britain signed preliminary articles of peace with France, setting the stage to the official end of hostilities in the American Revolutionary War later that year.
1785 – Invading Siamese forces attempt to exploit the political chaos in Vietnam, but are ambushed and annihilated at the Mekong river by the Tây Sơn in the Battle of Rạch Gầm-Xoài Mút.
1788 – The third and main part of First Fleet arrives at Botany Bay. Arthur Phillip decides that Port Jackson is a more suitable location for a colony.
1839 – In the Battle of Yungay, Chile defeats an alliance between Peru and Bolivia.
1841 – Hong Kong Island is occupied by the British.
1877 – The last day of the Constantinople Conference results in agreement for political reforms in the Balkans.
1887 – The United States Senate allows the Navy to lease Pearl Harbor as a naval base.
1921 – The British K-class submarine HMS K5 sinks in the English Channel; all 56 on board die.
1921 – The first Constitution of Turkey is adopted, making fundamental changes in the source and exercise of sovereignty by consecrating the principle of national sovereignty.
1929 – The first full-length talking motion picture filmed outdoors, In Old Arizona, is released.
1936 – King George V of the United Kingdom dies. His eldest son succeeds to the throne, becoming Edward VIII. The title Prince of Wales is not used for another 22 years.
1937 – Franklin D. Roosevelt and John Nance Garner are sworn in for their second terms as U.S. President and U.S. Vice President; it is the first time a Presidential Inauguration takes place on January 20 since the 20th Amendment changed the dates of presidential terms.
1941 – A German officer is killed in Bucharest, Romania, sparking a rebellion and pogrom by the Iron Guard, killing 125 Jews and 30 soldiers.
1942 – World War II: At the Wannsee Conference held in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee, senior Nazi German officials discuss the implementation of the “Final Solution to the Jewish question”.
1945 – World War II: The provisional government of Béla Miklós in Hungary agrees to an armistice with the Allies.
1945 – World War II: Germany begins the evacuation of 1.8 million people from East Prussia, a task which will take nearly two months.
1949 – Point Four Program a program for economic aid to poor countries announced by United States President Harry S. Truman in his inaugural address for a full term as President.
1953 – Dwight D. Eisenhower is inaugurated as the 34th President of the United States of America.
1954 – In the United States, the National Negro Network is established with 40 charter member radio stations.
1961 – John F. Kennedy is inaugurated the 35th President of the United States of America, becoming the second youngest man to take the office, and the first Catholic.
1969 – Richard Nixon is inaugurated the 37th President of the United States of America.
1972 – Pakistan launched its nuclear weapons program, a few weeks after its defeat in the Bangladesh Liberation War, as well as the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971.
1977 – Jimmy Carter is inaugurated the 39th President of the United States of America.
1981 – Ronald Reagan is inaugurated the 40th President of the United States of America. Twenty minutes later, Iran releases 52 American hostages.
1986 – In the United States, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day is celebrated as a federal holiday for the first time.
1989 – George H. W. Bush is inaugurated the 41st President of the United States of America.
1990 – Protests in Azerbaijan, part of the Dissolution of the Soviet Union.
1991 – Sudan’s government imposes Islamic law nationwide, worsening the civil war between the country’s Muslim north and Christian south.
1992 – Air Inter Flight 148, an Airbus A320-111, crashes into a mountain near Strasbourg, France killing 87 of the 96 people on board.
1993 – Bill Clinton is inaugurated the 42nd President of the United States of America.
2001 – George W. Bush is inaugurated the 43rd President of the United States of America.
2001 – President of the Philippines Joseph Estrada is ousted in a nonviolent 4-day revolution, and is succeeded by Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.
2009 – Barack Obama is inaugurated as the 44th President of the United States of America, becoming the first African-American President of the United States.
2009 – A protest movement in Iceland culminates as the 2009 Icelandic financial crisis protests start.
2017 – Donald Trump is inaugurated as the 45th President of the United States of America, becoming the oldest person to assume the office.
2018 – A group of four or five gunmen attack The Inter-Continental Hotel in Kabul, Afghanistan, sparking a 12-hour battle. The attack kills 40 people and injures many others.
Births on January 20
225 – Gordian III, Roman emperor (d. 244)
1029 – Alp Arslan, Seljuk sultan (probable; d. 1072)
1292 – Elizabeth of Bohemia, queen consort of Bohemia (d. 1330)
1436 – Ashikaga Yoshimasa, Japanese shōgun (d. 1490)
1488 – John George, Marquess of Montferrat, Italian noble (d. 1533)
1488 – Sebastian Münster, German scholar, cartographer, and cosmographer (d. 1552)
1499 – Sebastian Franck, German humanist (probable; d. 1543)
1502 – Sebastian de Aparicio, Spanish-Mexican rancher and missionary (d. 1600)
1526 – Rafael Bombelli, Italian mathematician (d. 1572)
1554 – Sebastian of Portugal (d. 1578)
1569 – Heribert Rosweyde, Jesuit hagiographer (d. 1629)
1573 – Simon Marius, German astronomer and academic (d. 1624)
1586 – Johann Hermann Schein, German composer (d. 1630)
1664 – Giovanni Vincenzo Gravina, Italian lawyer and jurist (d. 1718)
1703 – Joseph-Hector Fiocco, Flemish violinist and composer (d. 1741)
1716 – Jean-Jacques Barthélemy, French archaeologist and numismatist (d. 1795)
1716 – Charles III of Spain (d. 1788)
1732 – Richard Henry Lee, American lawyer and politician, President of the Continental Congress (d. 1794)
1741 – Carl Linnaeus the Younger, Swedish botanist and author (d. 1783)
1755 – Sir Albemarle Bertie, 1st Baronet, English admiral (d. 1824)
1762 – Jérôme-Joseph de Momigny, Belgian-French composer and theorist (d. 1842)
1775 – André-Marie Ampère, French physicist and mathematician (d. 1836)
1781 – Joseph Hormayr, Baron zu Hortenburg, Austrian-German historian and politician (d. 1848)
1783 – Friedrich Dotzauer, German cellist and composer (d. 1860)
1799 – Anson Jones, American physician and politician, 5th President of the Republic of Texas (d. 1858)
1804 – Eugène Sue, French author and politician (d. 1857)
1812 – Thomas Meik, Scottish engineer (d. 1896)
1814 – David Wilmot, American politician, sponsor of Wilmot Proviso (d. 1868)
1834 – George D. Robinson, American lawyer and politician, 34th Governor of Massachusetts (d. 1896)
1855 – Ernest Chausson, French composer (d. 1899)
1856 – Harriot Stanton Blatch, U.S. suffragist and organizer (d. 1940)
1865 – Yvette Guilbert, French singer and actress (d. 1944)
1870 – Guillaume Lekeu, Belgian pianist and composer (d. 1894)
1873 – Johannes V. Jensen, Danish author, poet, and playwright, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1950)
1874 – Steve Bloomer, English footballer and coach (d. 1938)
1876 – Josef Hofmann, Polish-American pianist and composer (d. 1957)
1878 – Finlay Currie, Scottish-English actor (d. 1968)
1879 – Ruth St. Denis, American dancer and educator (d. 1968)
1880 – Walter W. Bacon, American accountant and politician, 60th Governor of Delaware (d. 1962)
1882 – Johnny Torrio, Italian-American mob boss (d. 1957)
1883 – Enoch L. Johnson, American mob boss (d. 1968)
1883 – Forrest Wilson, American journalist and author (d. 1942)
1888 – Lead Belly, American folk/blues musician and songwriter (d. 1949)
1889 – Allan Haines Loughead, American engineer and businessman, founded the Alco Hydro-Aeroplane Company (d. 1969)
1891 – Mischa Elman, Ukrainian-American violinist (d. 1967)
1893 – Georg Åberg, Swedish triple jumper (d. 1946)
1894 – Harold Gray, American cartoonist, created Little Orphan Annie (d. 1968)
1894 – Walter Piston, American composer, theorist, and academic (d. 1976)
1895 – Gábor Szegő, Hungarian mathematician and academic (d. 1985)
1896 – George Burns, American actor, comedian, and producer (d. 1996)
1898 – U Razak, Burmese educator and politician (d. 1947)
1899 – Clarice Cliff, English potter (d. 1972)
1899 – Kenjiro Takayanagi, Japanese engineer (d. 1990)
1900 – Dorothy Annan, English painter, potter, and muralist (d. 1983)
1900 – Colin Clive, English actor (d. 1937)
1902 – Leon Ames, American actor (d. 1993)
1902 – Kevin Barry, Irish Republican Army volunteer (d. 1920)
1906 – Aristotle Onassis, Greek shipping magnate (d. 1975)
1907 – Paula Wessely, Austrian actress and producer (d. 2000)
1908 – Fleur Cowles, American author and illustrator (d. 2009)
1909 – Gōgen Yamaguchi, Japanese martial artist (d. 1989)
1910 – Joy Adamson, Austria-born Kenyan painter and author (d. 1980)
1913 – W. Cleon Skousen, American author and academic (d. 2006)
1915 – Ghulam Ishaq Khan, Pakistani businessman and politician, 7th President of Pakistan (d. 2006)
1918 – Juan García Esquivel, Mexican pianist, composer, and bandleader (d. 2002)
1918 – Nevin Scrimshaw, American scientist (d. 2013)
1920 – Federico Fellini, Italian director and screenwriter (d. 1993)
1920 – DeForest Kelley, American actor (d. 1999)
1920 – Thorleif Schjelderup, Norwegian ski jumper and author (d. 2006)
1921 – Telmo Zarra, Spanish footballer (d. 2006)
1922 – Ray Anthony, American trumpet player, composer, bandleader, and actor
1922 – Don Mankiewicz, American author and screenwriter (d. 2015)
1923 – Slim Whitman, American country and western singer-songwriter and musician (d. 2013)
1924 – Yvonne Loriod, French pianist and composer (d. 2010)
1925 – Jamiluddin Aali, Pakistani poet, playwright, and critic (d. 2015)
1925 – Ernesto Cardenal, Nicaraguan priest, poet, and politician (d. 2020)
1926 – Patricia Neal, American actress (d. 2010)
1926 – David Tudor, American pianist and composer (d. 1996)
1927 – Qurratulain Hyder, Indian-Pakistani journalist and academic (d. 2007)
1928 – Antonio de Almeida, French conductor and musicologist (d. 1997)
1929 – Arte Johnson, American actor and comedian (d. 2019)
1929 – Masaharu Kawakatsu, Japanese biologist
1929 – Fireball Roberts, American race car driver (d. 1964)
1930 – Buzz Aldrin, American colonel, pilot, and astronaut
1931 – David Lee, American physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate
1931 – Hachidai Nakamura, Japanese pianist and composer (d. 1992)
1932 – Lou Fontinato, Canadian ice hockey player (d. 2016)
1934 – Hennie Aucamp, South African poet, author, and academic (d. 2014)
1934 – Tom Baker, English actor
1935 – Dorothy Provine, American actress, singer, and dancer (d. 2010)
1937 – Bailey Howell, American basketball player
1938 – Derek Dougan, Irish-English footballer and journalist (d. 2007)
1939 – Paul Coverdell, American captain and politician (d. 2000)
1939 – Chandra Wickramasinghe, Sri Lankan-English mathematician, astronomer, and biologist
1940 – Carol Heiss, American figure skater and actress
1940 – Krishnam Raju, Indian actor and politician
1940 – Mandé Sidibé, Malian economist and politician, Prime Minister of Mali (d. 2009)
1942 – Linda Moulton Howe, American journalist and producer
1944 – José Luis Garci, Spanish director and producer
1944 – Farhad Mehrad, Iranian singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 2002)
1944 – Pat Parker, African American poet
1945 – Christopher Martin-Jenkins, English journalist and sportscaster (d. 2013)
1945 – Eric Stewart, English singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer
1946 – David Lynch, American director, producer, and screenwriter
1946 – Vladimír Merta, Czech singer-songwriter, guitarist, and journalist
1947 – Cyrille Guimard, French cyclist and sportscaster
1948 – Nancy Kress, American author and academic
1948 – Natan Sharansky, Ukrainian-Israeli physicist and politician, Deputy Prime Minister of Israel
1949 – Göran Persson, Swedish lawyer and politician, 31st Prime Minister of Sweden
1950 – Daniel Benzali, Brazilian-American actor
1950 – William Mgimwa, Tanzanian banker and politician, 13th Tanzanian Minister of Finance (d. 2014)
1950 – Mahamane Ousmane, Nigerien politician, President of Niger
1951 – Iván Fischer, Hungarian conductor and composer
1952 – Nikos Sideris, Greek psychiatrist and poet
1952 – Paul Stanley, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer
1952 – John Witherow, South African-English journalist and author
1953 – Jeffrey Epstein, American financier and convicted sex offender (d. 2019)
1954 – Alison Seabeck, English lawyer and politician
1955 – McKeeva Bush, Caymanian politician, Premier of the Cayman Islands
1956 – Maria Larsson, Swedish educator and politician, Swedish Minister of Health and Social Affairs
1956 – Bill Maher, American comedian, political commentator, media critic, television host, and producer
1956 – John Naber, American swimmer
1957 – Andy Sheppard, English saxophonist and composer
1958 – Lorenzo Lamas, American actor, director, and producer
1959 – Tami Hoag, American author
1959 – R. A. Salvatore, American author
1960 – Apa Sherpa, Nepalese-American mountaineer
1960 – Scott Thunes, American bass player
1960 – Will Wright, American video game designer, co-founded Maxis
1963 – James Denton, American actor
1963 – Mark Ryden, American painter and illustrator
1964 – Ozzie Guillén, Venezuelan-American baseball player and manager
1964 – Ron Harper, American basketball player and coach
1964 – Jack Lewis, American soldier and author
1964 – Kazushige Nojima, Japanese screenwriter and songwriter
1964 – Aquilino Pimentel III, Filipino lawyer and politician
1964 – Fareed Zakaria, Indian-American journalist and author
1965 – Colin Calderwood, Scottish footballer defender and manager
1965 – Sophie, Countess of Wessex
1965 – Warren Joyce, English footballer and manager
1965 – John Michael Montgomery, American singer-songwriter and guitarist
1965 – Anton Weissenbacher, Romanian footballer
1966 – Rainn Wilson, American actor
1967 – Stacey Dash, American actress and television journalist
1967 – Kellyanne Conway, American political strategist and pundit
1968 – Nick Anderson, American basketball player and sportscaster
1968 – Junior Murray, Grenadian cricketer
1969 – Patrick K. Kroupa, American computer hacker and activist, co-founded MindVox
1969 – Nicky Wire, Welsh singer-songwriter and bass player
1970 – Edwin McCain, American singer-songwriter and guitarist
1970 – Skeet Ulrich, American actor
1971 – Derrick Green, American singer
1971 – Gary Barlow, English singer-songwriter, pianist, and producer
1971 – Ger McDonnell, Irish mountaineer and engineer (d. 2008)
1971 – Jung Woong-in, South Korean actor
1971 – Questlove, American drummer, DJ, and producer
1971 – Wakanohana Masaru, Japanese sumo wrestler, the 66th Yokozuna
1972 – Nikki Haley, American accountant and politician, 116th Governor of South Carolina
1973 – Stephen Crabb, Scottish-Welsh politician, Secretary of State for Wales
1973 – Queen Mathilde of Belgium
1974 – David Dei, Italian footballer and coach
1975 – Norberto Fontana, Argentinian racing driver
1975 – Zac Goldsmith, English journalist and politician
1976 – Kirsty Gallacher, Scottish journalist and sportscaster
1976 – Michael Myers, American football player
1976 – Gretha Smit, Dutch speed skater
1977 – Paul Adams, South African cricketer and coach
1978 – Salvatore Aronica, Italian footballer
1978 – Sonja Kesselschläger, German heptathlete
1978 – Allan Søgaard, Danish footballer
1979 – Choo Ja-hyun, South Korean actress
1979 – Will Young, English singer-songwriter and actor
1980 – Karl Anderson, American wrestler
1980 – Philippe Cousteau, Jr., American-French oceanographer and journalist
1980 – Philippe Gagnon, Canadian swimmer
1980 – Kim Jeong-hoon, South Korean singer and actor
1980 – Petra Rampre, Slovenian tennis player
1980 – Matthew Tuck, Welsh singer-songwriter and guitarist
1981 – Freddy Guzmán, Dominican baseball player
1981 – Owen Hargreaves, English footballer
1981 – Jason Richardson, American basketball player
1982 – Ruchi Sanghvi, Indian computer engineer
1982 – Fredrik Strømstad, Norwegian footballer
1983 – Geovany Soto, Puerto Rican-American baseball player
1983 – Mari Yaguchi, Japanese singer and actress
1984 – Malek Jaziri, Tunisian tennis player
1985 – Marina Inoue, Japanese voice actress and singer
1985 – Tanel Sokk, Estonian basketball player
1987 – Janin Lindenberg, German sprinter
1987 – Marco Simoncelli, Italian motorcycle racer (d. 2011)
1988 – Uwa Elderson Echiéjilé, Nigerian footballer
1988 – Jeffrén Suárez, Spanish footballer
1989 – Nick Foles, American football player
1989 – Washington Santana da Silva, Brazilian footballer
1989 – Jared Waerea-Hargreaves, New Zealand rugby league player
1990 – Ray Thompson, Australian rugby league player
1991 – Ciara Hanna, American actress and model
1991 – Tom Cairney, Scottish footballer, midfielder
1991 – Polona Hercog, Slovenian tennis player
1991 – Jolyon Palmer, English racing driver
1992 – Jorge Zárate, Mexican footballer
1993 – Lorenzo Crisetig, Italian footballer
1994 – Seán Kavanagh, Irish footballer, defender
1994 – Lucas Piazon, Brazilian footballer
1995 – Joey Badass, American rapper and actor
1995 – Calum Chambers, English footballer, defender
Deaths on January 20
820 – Al-Shafi‘i, Arab scholar and jurist (b. 767)
842 – Theophilos, Byzantine emperor (b. 813)
882 – Louis the Younger, king of the East Frankish Kingdom
924 – Li Jitao, Chinese general of Later Tang
928 – Zhao Guangfeng, Chinese official and chancellor
1029 – Heonae, Korean queen and regent (b. 964)
1095 – Wulfstan, bishop of Worcester
1156 – Henry, English bishop and saint
1189 – Shi Zong, Chinese emperor of Jin (b. 1123)
1191 – Frederick VI, duke of Swabia (b. 1167)
1191 – Theobald V, count of Blois (b. 1130)
1265 – John Maunsell, English Lord Chancellor
1336 – John de Bohun, 5th Earl of Hereford (b. 1306)
1343 – Robert, king of Naples (b. 1275)
1479 – John II, king of Sicily (b. 1398)
1568 – Myles Coverdale, English bishop and translator (b. 1488)
1612 – Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor (b. 1552)
1663 – Isaac Ambrose, English minister and author (b. 1604)
1666 – Anne of Austria, Queen and regent of France (b. 1601)
1707 – Humphrey Hody, English scholar and theologian (b. 1659)
1709 – François de la Chaise, French priest (b. 1624)
1751 – John Hervey, 1st Earl of Bristol, English politician (b. 1665)
1770 – Charles Yorke, English lawyer and politician, Lord Chancellor of Great Britain (b. 1722)
1779 – David Garrick, English actor, producer, playwright, and manager (b. 1717)
1810 – Benjamin Chew, American lawyer and judge (b. 1721)
1819 – Charles IV, Spanish king (b. 1748)
1837 – John Soane, English architect, designed the Bank of England (b. 1753)
1841 – Jørgen Jørgensen, Danish explorer (b. 1780)
1841 – Minh Mạng, Vietnamese emperor (b. 1791)
1848 – Christian VIII, Danish king (b. 1786)
1850 – Adam Oehlenschläger, Danish poet and playwright (b. 1779)
1852 – Ōnomatsu Midorinosuke, Japanese sumo wrestler, the 6th Yokozuna (b. 1794)
1873 – Basil Moreau, French priest, founded the Congregation of Holy Cross (b. 1799)
1875 – Jean-François Millet, French painter and educator (b. 1814)
1891 – Kalākaua, king of Hawaii (b. 1836)
1900 – John Ruskin, English painter and critic (b. 1819)
1901 – Zénobe Gramme, Belgian engineer, invented the Gramme machine (b. 1826)
1907 – Agnes Mary Clerke, Irish astronomer and author (b. 1842)
1908 – John Ordronaux, American surgeon and academic (b. 1830)
1913 – José Guadalupe Posada, Mexican engraver and illustrator (b. 1852)
1915 – Arthur Guinness, 1st Baron Ardilaun, Irish businessman, philanthropist, and politician (b. 1840)
1920 – Georg Lurich, Estonian-Russian wrestler and strongman (b. 1876)
1921 – Mary Watson Whitney, American astronomer and academic (b. 1847)
1924 – Henry “Ivo” Crapp, Australian footballer and umpire (b. 1872)
1936 – George V of the United Kingdom (b. 1865)
1940 – Omar Bundy, American general (b. 1861)
1944 – James McKeen Cattell, American psychologist and academic (b. 1860)
1947 – Josh Gibson, American baseball player (b. 1911)
1947 – Andrew Volstead, American member of the United States House of Representatives (b. 1860)
1954 – Warren Bardsley, Australian cricketer (b. 1882)
1954 – Fred Root, English cricketer and umpire (b. 1890)
1955 – Robert P. T. Coffin, American author and poet (b. 1892)
1962 – Robinson Jeffers, American poet and philosopher (b. 1887)
1965 – Alan Freed, American radio host (b. 1922)
1971 – Broncho Billy Anderson, American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter (b. 1880)
1971 – Minanogawa Tōzō, Japanese sumo wrestler, the 34th Yokozuna (b. 1903)
1973 – Lorenz Böhler, Austrian physician and surgeon (b. 1885)
1990 – Barbara Stanwyck, American actress (b. 1907)
1993 – Audrey Hepburn, British actress and humanitarian activist (b. 1929)
1994 – Matt Busby, Scottish footballer and coach (b. 1909)
1994 – Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, first Kenyan Vice-President (b. 1911)
1996 – Gerry Mulligan, American saxophonist and composer (b. 1927)
2002 – Carrie Hamilton, American actress and singer (b. 1963)
2003 – Al Hirschfeld, American painter and illustrator (b. 1903)
2003 – Nedra Volz, American actress (b. 1908)
2004 – Alan Brown, English racing driver (b. 1919)
2004 – T. Nadaraja, Sri Lankan lawyer and academic (b. 1917)
2005 – Per Borten, Norwegian lawyer and politician, 18th Prime Minister of Norway (b. 1913)
2005 – Jan Nowak-Jeziorański, Polish journalist and politician (b. 1913)
2005 – Miriam Rothschild, English zoologist, entomologist, and author (b. 1908)
2009 – Stéphanos II Ghattas, Egyptian patriarch (b. 1920)
2012 – Etta James, American singer-songwriter (b. 1938)
2012 – John Levy, American bassist and manager (b. 1912)
2012 – Ioannis Kefalogiannis, Greek politician, Greek Minister of the Interior (b. 1933)
2012 – Alejandro Rodriguez, Venezuelan-American pediatrician and psychiatrist (b. 1918)
2013 – Pavlos Matesis, Greek author and playwright (b. 1933)
2013 – Toyo Shibata, Japanese poet and author (b. 1911)
2014 – Claudio Abbado, Italian conductor (b. 1933)
2014 – Otis G. Pike, American judge and politician (b. 1921)
2014 – Jonas Trinkūnas, Lithuanian ethnologist and academic (b. 1939)
2015 – Edgar Froese, Russian-German keyboard player and songwriter (b. 1944)
2016 – Mykolas Burokevičius, Lithuanian carpenter and politician (b. 1927)
2016 – Edmonde Charles-Roux, French journalist and author (b. 1920)
2018 – Paul Bocuse, French chef (b. 1926)
2018 – Naomi Parker Fraley, American naval machiner (b. 1921)
2020 – Jaroslav Kubera, Czech politician (b. 1947)
2020 – Tom Fisher Railsback, American politician, member of the Illinois and U.S. House of Representatives
Holidays and observances on January 20
Armed Forces Day (Mali)
Army Day (Laos)
Christian feast day:
Abadios
Blessed Basil Moreau
Eustochia Smeralda Calafato
Euthymius the Great
Fabian
Manchán of Lemanaghan
Maria Cristina of the Immaculate Conception Brando
Richard Rolle (Church of England)
Sebastian
Stephen Min Kuk-ka (one of The Korean Martyrs)
January 20 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
Heroes’ Day (Cape Verde)
Inauguration Day, held every four years in odd-numbered years immediately following years divisible by 4, except for the public ceremony when January 20 falls on Sunday (the public ceremony is held the following day; however, the terms of offices still begin on the 20th) (United States of America, not a federal holiday for all government employees but only for those working in the Capital region)
379 – Emperor Gratian elevates Flavius Theodosius at Sirmium to Augustus, and gives him authority over all the eastern provinces of the Roman Empire.
649 – Conquest of Kucha: The forces of Kucha surrender after a forty-day siege led by Tang dynasty general Ashina She’er, establishing Tang control over the northern Tarim Basin in Xinjiang.
1419 – Hundred Years’ War: Rouen surrenders to Henry V of England, completing his reconquest of Normandy.
1511 – The Italian city-fortress of Mirandola surrenders to the French.
1520 – Sten Sture the Younger, the Regent of Sweden, is mortally wounded at the Battle of Bogesund and dies on February 3.
1607 – San Agustin Church in Manila is officially completed; it is the oldest church still standing in the Philippines.
1764 – John Wilkes is expelled from the British House of Commons for seditious libel.
1764 – Bolle Willum Luxdorph records in his diary that a mail bomb, possibly the world’s first, has severely injured the Danish Colonel Poulsen, residing at Børglum Abbey.
1788 – The second group of ships of the First Fleet arrive at Botany Bay.
1795 – The Batavian Republic is proclaimed in the Netherlands, bringing to an end the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands.
1806 – Britain occupies the Dutch Cape Colony after the Battle of Blaauwberg.
1817 – An army of 5,423 soldiers, led by General José de San Martín, crosses the Andes from Argentina to liberate Chile and then Peru.
1829 – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Faust: The First Part of the Tragedy receives its premiere performance.
1839 – The British East India Company captures Aden.
1853 – Giuseppe Verdi’s opera Il trovatore receives its premiere performance in Rome.
1861 – American Civil War: Georgia joins South Carolina, Florida, Mississippi, and Alabama in declaring secession from the United States.
1862 – American Civil War: Battle of Mill Springs: The Confederacy suffers its first significant defeat in the conflict.
1871 – Franco-Prussian War: In the Siege of Paris, Prussia wins the Battle of St. Quentin. Meanwhile, the French attempt to break the siege in the Battle of Buzenval will end unsuccessfully the following day.
1883 – The first electric lighting system employing overhead wires, built by Thomas Edison, begins service at Roselle, New Jersey.
1899 – Anglo-Egyptian Sudan is formed.
1915 – Georges Claude patents the neon discharge tube for use in advertising.
1915 – German strategic bombing during World War I: German zeppelins bomb the towns of Great Yarmouth and King’s Lynn in the United Kingdom killing at least 20 people, in the first major aerial bombardment of a civilian target.
1917 – Silvertown explosion: A blast at a munitions factory in London kills 73 and injures over 400. The resulting fire causes over £2,000,000 worth of damage.
1920 – The United States Senate votes against joining the League of Nations.
1920 – The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is founded.
1937 – Howard Hughes sets a new air record by flying from Los Angeles to New York City in 7 hours, 28 minutes, 25 seconds.
1940 – You Nazty Spy!, the first Hollywood film of any kind to satirize Adolf Hitler and the Nazis premieres, starring The Three Stooges, with Moe Howard as the character “Moe Hailstone” satirizing Hitler.
1941 – World War II: HMS Greyhound and other escorts of convoy AS-12 sink Italian submarine Neghelli with all hands 40 miles (64 km) northeast of Falkonera.
1942 – World War II: The Japanese conquest of Burma begins.
1945 – World War II: Soviet forces liberate the Łódź Ghetto. Of more than 200,000 inhabitants in 1940, less than 900 had survived the Nazi occupation.
1946 – General Douglas MacArthur establishes the International Military Tribunal for the Far East in Tokyo to try Japanese war criminals.
1953 – Almost 72 percent of all television sets in the United States are tuned into I Love Lucy to watch Lucy give birth.
1960 – Japan and the United States sign the US–Japan Mutual Security Treaty
1969 – Student Jan Palach dies after setting himself on fire three days earlier in Prague’s Wenceslas Square to protest about the invasion of Czechoslovakia by the Soviet Union in 1968. His funeral turns into another major protest.
1974 – China gains control over all the Paracel Islands after a military engagement between the naval forces of China and South Vietnam
1977 – President Gerald Ford pardons Iva Toguri D’Aquino (a.k.a. “Tokyo Rose”).
1978 – The last Volkswagen Beetle made in Germany leaves VW’s plant in Emden. Beetle production in Latin America continues until 2003.
1981 – Iran hostage crisis: United States and Iranian officials sign an agreement to release 52 American hostages after 14 months of captivity.
1983 – Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie is arrested in Bolivia.
1983 – The Apple Lisa, the first commercial personal computer from Apple Inc. to have a graphical user interface and a computer mouse, is announced.
1986 – The first IBM PC computer virus is released into the wild. A boot sector virus dubbed (c)Brain, it was created by the Farooq Alvi Brothers in Lahore, Pakistan, reportedly to deter unauthorized copying of the software they had written.
1991 – Gulf War: Iraq fires a second Scud missile into Israel, causing 15 injuries.
1993 – Czech Republic and Slovakia join the United Nations.
1995 – After being struck by lightning the crew of Bristow Flight 56C are forced to ditch. All 18 aboard are later rescued.
1996 – The barge North Cape oil spill occurs as an engine fire forces the tugboat Scandia ashore on Moonstone Beach in South Kingstown, Rhode Island.
1997 – Yasser Arafat returns to Hebron after more than 30 years and joins celebrations over the handover of the last Israeli-controlled West Bank city.
1999 – British Aerospace agrees to acquire the defence subsidiary of the General Electric Company plc, forming BAE Systems in November 1999.
2007 – Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink is assassinated in front of his newspaper’s Istanbul office by 17-year-old Turkish ultra-nationalist Ogün Samast.
2007 – Four-man Team N2i, using only skis and kites, completes a 1,093-mile (1,759 km) trek to reach the Antarctic pole of inaccessibility for the first time since 1965 and for the first time ever without mechanical assistance.
2012 – The Hong Kong-based file-sharing website Megaupload is shut down by the FBI.
2014 – A bomb attack on an army convoy in the city of Bannu kills at least 26 Pakistani soldiers and injures 38 others.
Births on January 19
399 – Pulcheria, Byzantine empress and saint (d. 453)
1200 – Dōgen Zenji, founder of Sōtō Zen (d. 1253)
1544 – Francis II of France (d. 1560)
1617 – Lucas Faydherbe, Flemish sculptor and architect (d. 1697)
1628 – Charles Stanley, 8th Earl of Derby, English noble (d. 1672)
1676 – John Weldon, English organist and composer (d. 1736)
1721 – Jean-Philippe Baratier, German scholar and author (d. 1740)
1736 – James Watt, Scottish-English chemist and engineer (d. 1819)
1737 – Giuseppe Millico, Italian soprano, composer, and educator (d. 1802)
1739 – Joseph Bonomi the Elder, Italian architect, designed Longford Hall and Barrells Hall (d. 1808)
1752 – James Morris III, American captain (d. 1820)
1757 – Countess Augusta Reuss of Ebersdorf (d. 1831)
1788 – Pavel Kiselyov, Russian general and politician (d. 1874)
1790 – Per Daniel Amadeus Atterbom, Swedish poet and academic (d. 1855)
1798 – Auguste Comte, French economist, sociologist, and philosopher (d. 1857)
1807 – Robert E. Lee, American general and academic (d. 1870)
1808 – Lysander Spooner, American philosopher and author (d. 1887)
1809 – Edgar Allan Poe, American short story writer, poet, and critic (d. 1849)
1810 – Talhaiarn, Welsh poet and architect (d.1869)
1813 – Henry Bessemer, English engineer and businessman (d. 1898)
1832 – Ferdinand Laub, Czech violinist and composer (d. 1875)
1833 – Alfred Clebsch, German mathematician and academic (d. 1872)
1839 – Paul Cézanne, French painter (d. 1906)
1848 – Arturo Graf, Italian poet, of German ancestry (d. 1913).
1848 – John Fitzwilliam Stairs, Canadian businessman and politician (d. 1904)
1848 – Matthew Webb, English swimmer and diver (d. 1883)
1851 – Jacobus Kapteyn, Dutch astronomer and academic (d. 1922)
1852 – Thomas Price, Welsh-Australian politician, 24th Premier of South Australia (d. 1909)
1863 – Werner Sombart, German economist and sociologist (d. 1941)
1866 – Harry Davenport, American stage and film actor (d. 1949)
1871 – Dame Gruev, Bulgarian educator and activist, co-founded the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (d. 1906)
1874 – Hitachiyama Taniemon, Japanese sumo wrestler, the 19th Yokozuna (d. 1922)
1876 – Wakashima Gonshirō, Japanese sumo wrestler, the 21st Yokozuna (d. 1943)
1876 – Dragotin Kette, Slovenian poet and author (d. 1899)
1878 – Herbert Chapman, English footballer and manager (d. 1934)
1879 – Boris Savinkov, Russian soldier and author (d. 1925)
1882 – John Cain Sr., Australian politician, 34th Premier of Victoria (d. 1957)
1883 – Hermann Abendroth, German conductor (d. 1956)
1887 – Alexander Woollcott, American actor, playwright, and critic (d. 1943)
1889 – Sophie Taeuber-Arp, Swiss painter and sculptor (d. 1943)
1892 – Ólafur Thors, Icelandic lawyer and politician, 8th Prime Minister of Iceland (d. 1964)
1893 – Magda Tagliaferro, Brazilian pianist and educator (d. 1986)
1903 – Boris Blacher, German composer and playwright (d. 1975)
1905 – Stanley Hawes, English-Australian director and producer (d. 1991)
1907 – Briggs Cunningham, American race car driver, sailor, and businessman (d. 2003)
1908 – Ish Kabibble, American comedian and cornet player (d. 1994)
1908 – Aleksandr Gennadievich Kurosh, Russian mathematician and theorist (d. 1971)
1911 – Choor Singh, Indian-Singaporean lawyer and judge (d. 2009)
1912 – Leonid Kantorovich, Russian mathematician and economist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1986)
1913 – Rex Ingamells, Australian author and poet (d. 1955)
1913 – Rudolf Wanderone, American professional pocket billiards player (d. 1996)
1918 – John H. Johnson, American publisher, founded the Johnson Publishing Company (d. 2005)
1920 – Bernard Dunstan, English painter and educator (d. 2017)
1920 – Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, Peruvian politician and diplomat, 135th Prime Minister of Peru (d. 2020)
1921 – Patricia Highsmith, American novelist and short story writer (d. 1995)
1922 – Arthur Morris, Australian cricketer and journalist (d. 2015)
1922 – Miguel Muñoz, Spanish footballer and manager (d. 1990)
1923 – Jean Stapleton, American actress and singer (d. 2013)
1924 – Nicholas Colasanto, American actor and director (d. 1985)
1924 – Jean-François Revel, French philosopher (d. 2006)
1925 – Nina Bawden, English author (d. 2012)
1926 – Hans Massaquoi, German-American journalist and author (d. 2013)
1926 – Fritz Weaver, American actor (d. 2016)
1930 – Tippi Hedren, American model, actress, and animal rights-welfare activist
1930 – John Waite, South African cricketer (d. 2011)
1931 – Robert MacNeil, Canadian-American journalist and author
1932 – Russ Hamilton, English singer-songwriter (d. 2008)
1932 – Richard Lester, American-English director, producer, and screenwriter
1932 – Harry Lonsdale, American chemist, businessman, and politician (d. 2014)
1933 – George Coyne, American priest, astronomer, and theologian
1935 – Johnny O’Keefe, Australian singer-songwriter (d. 1978)
1936 – Ziaur Rahman, Bangladeshi general and politician, 7th President of Bangladesh (d. 1981)
1936 – Willie “Big Eyes” Smith, American singer, harmonica player, and drummer (d. 2011)
1936 – Fred J. Lincoln, American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter (d. 2013)
1937 – John Lions, Australian computer scientist and academic (d. 1998)
1939 – Phil Everly, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 2014)
1940 – Paolo Borsellino, Italian lawyer and judge (d. 1992)
1940 – Mike Reid, English comedian, actor, and author (d. 2007)
1941 – Colin Gunton, English theologian and academic (d. 2003)
1941 – Pat Patterson, Canadian wrestler, trainer, and referee
1942 – Michael Crawford, English actor and singer
1942 – Paul-Eerik Rummo, Estonian poet and politician
1943 – Larry Clark, American director, producer, and screenwriter
1943 – Janis Joplin, American singer-songwriter (d. 1970)
1943 – Princess Margriet of the Netherlands
1944 – Shelley Fabares, American actress and singer
1944 – Thom Mayne, American architect and academic, designed the San Francisco Federal Building and Phare Tower
1944 – Dan Reeves, American football player and coach
1945 – Trevor Williams, English singer-songwriter and bass player
1946 – Julian Barnes, English novelist, short story writer, essayist, and critic
1946 – Dolly Parton, American singer-songwriter and actress
1947 – Frank Aarebrot, Norwegian political scientist and academic (d. 2017)
1947 – Paula Deen, American chef and author
1947 – Rod Evans, English singer-songwriter
1948 – Nancy Lynch, American computer scientist and academic
1948 – Frank McKenna, Canadian politician and diplomat, 27th Premier of New Brunswick
1948 – Mal Reilly, English rugby league player and coach
1949 – Arend Langenberg, Dutch voice actor and radio host (d. 2012)
1949 – Robert Palmer, English singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 2003)
1950 – Sébastien Dhavernas, Canadian actor
1951 – Martha Davis, American singer
1952 – Dewey Bunnell, British-American singer-songwriter and guitarist
1952 – Nadiuska, German television actress
1952 – Bruce Jay Nelson, American computer scientist (d. 1999)
1953 – Desi Arnaz, Jr., American actor and singer
1953 – Richard Legendre, Canadian tennis player and politician
1953 – Wayne Schimmelbusch, Australian footballer and coach
1954 – Katey Sagal, American actress and singer
1954 – Cindy Sherman, American photographer and director
1954 – Esther Shkalim, Israeli poet and Mizrahi feminist
1955 – Paul Rodriguez, Mexican-American comedian and actor
1956 – Carman, American singer-songwriter, actor, and television host
1956 – Susan Solomon, American atmospheric chemist
1957 – Ottis Anderson, American football player and sportscaster
1957 – Roger Ashton-Griffiths, English actor, screenwriter and film director
1957 – Kenneth McClintock, Puerto Rican public servant and politician, 22nd Secretary of State of Puerto Rico
1958 – Thomas Kinkade, American painter (d. 2012)
1959 – Danese Cooper, American computer scientist and programmer
1959 – Jeff Pilson, American bass player, songwriter, and actor
1961 – William Ragsdale, American actor
1961 – Wayne Hemingway, English fashion designer, co-founded Red or Dead
1962 – Hans Daams, Dutch cyclist
1962 – Chris Sabo, American baseball player and coach
1962 – Jeff Van Gundy, American basketball player and coach
1963 – Michael Adams, American basketball player and coach
1963 – Martin Bashir, English journalist
1963 – John Bercow, English politician, Speaker of the House of Commons
1964 – Janine Antoni, Bahamian sculptor and photographer
1964 – Ricardo Arjona, Guatemalan singer-songwriter and basketball player
1966 – Sylvain Côté, Canadian ice hockey player
1966 – Stefan Edberg, Swedish tennis player and coach
1966 – Lena Philipsson, Swedish singer-songwriter
1968 – David Bartlett, Australian politician, 43rd Premier of Tasmania
1968 – Whitfield Crane, American singer-songwriter
1969 – Edwidge Danticat, Haitian-American novelist and short story writer
1969 – Luc Longley, Australian basketball player and coach
1969 – Predrag Mijatović, Montenegrin footballer and manager
1969 – Junior Seau, American football player (d. 2012)
1969 – Steve Staunton, Irish footballer and manager
1970 – Steffen Freund, German footballer defensive midfielder and manager
1970 – Kathleen Smet, Belgian triathlete
1970 – Udo Suzuki, Japanese comedian and singer
1971 – Phil Nevin, American baseball player
1971 – Shawn Wayans, American actor, producer, and screenwriter
1971 – John Wozniak, American singer-songwriter and guitarist
1972 – Ron Killings, American wrestler and rapper
1972 – Troy Wilson, Australian footballer and race car driver
1972 – Sergei Zjukin, Estonian chess player and coach
1972 – Yoon Hae-young, South Korean actress
1973 – Antero Manninen, Finnish cellist
1973 – Yevgeny Sadovyi, Russian swimmer and coach
1974 – Dainius Adomaitis, Lithuanian basketball player and coach
1974 – Frank Caliendo, American comedian, actor, and screenwriter
1974 – Ian Laperrière, Canadian ice hockey player and coach
1974 – Jaime Moreno, Bolivian footballer and manager
1975 – Natalie Cook, Australian volleyball player
1975 – Zdeňka Málková, Czech tennis player
1976 – Natale Gonnella, Italian footballer
1976 – Tarso Marques, Brazilian race car driver
1977 – Benjamin Ayres, Canadian actor, director, and photographer
1979 – Svetlana Khorkina, Russian gymnast and sportscaster
1979 – Josu Sarriegi, Spanish footballer
1979 – Wiley, English rapper and producer
1980 – Jenson Button, English race car driver
1980 – Pasha Kovalev, Russian-American dancer and choreographer
1980 – Luke Macfarlane, Canadian-American actor and singer
1980 – Arvydas Macijauskas, Lithuanian basketball player
1980 – Michael Vandort, Sri Lankan cricketer
1981 – Paolo Bugia, Filipino basketball player
1981 – Asier del Horno, Spanish footballer
1981 – Lucho González, Argentinian footballer
1982 – Pete Buttigieg, American politician
1982 – Mike Komisarek, American ice hockey player
1982 – Jodie Sweetin, American actress and singer
1982 – Shane Tronc, Australian rugby league player
1982 – Kim Yoo-suk, South Korean pole vaulter
1982 – Robin tom Rink, German singer-songwriter
1983 – Hikaru Utada, American-Japanese singer-songwriter and producer
1984 – Fabio Catacchini, Italian footballer
1984 – Karun Chandhok, Indian race car driver
1984 – Jimmy Kébé, Malian footballer
1984 – Thomas Vanek, Austrian ice hockey player
1985 – Jake Allen, American football player
1985 – Pascal Behrenbruch, German decathlete
1985 – Benny Feilhaber, American soccer player
1985 – Esteban Guerrieri, Argentinian race car driver
1985 – Rika Ishikawa, Japanese singer and actress
1985 – Elliott Ward, English footballer
1985 – Aleksandr Yevgenyevich Nikulin, Russian footballer
2006 – Geoff Rabone, New Zealand cricketer and pilot (b. 1921)
2007 – Hrant Dink, Turkish-Armenian journalist and activist (b. 1954)
2007 – Denny Doherty, Canadian singer-songwriter (b. 1940)
2007 – Murat Nasyrov, Russian singer-songwriter (b. 1969)
2008 – Suzanne Pleshette, American actress (b. 1937)
2008 – John Stewart, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (b. 1939)
2008 – Don Wittman, Canadian sportscaster (b. 1936)
2010 – Bill McLaren, Scottish rugby player and sportscaster (b. 1923)
2012 – Peter Åslin, Swedish ice hockey player (b. 1962)
2012 – Sarah Burke, Canadian skier (b. 1982)
2012 – Winston Riley, Jamaican singer-songwriter and producer (b. 1943)
2012 – Rudi van Dantzig, Dutch ballet dancer and choreographer (b. 1933)
2013 – Taihō Kōki, Japanese sumo wrestler, the 48th Yokozuna (b. 1940)
2013 – Stan Musial, American baseball player and manager (b. 1920)
2013 – Frank Pooler, American conductor and composer (b. 1926)
2013 – Earl Weaver, American baseball player and manager (b. 1930)
2013 – Toktamış Ateş, Turkish academician, political commentator, columnist and writer (b. 1944)
2014 – Azaria Alon, Ukrainian-Israeli environmentalist, co-founded the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel (b. 1918)
2014 – Christopher Chataway, English runner, journalist, and politician (b. 1931)
2015 – Justin Capră, Romanian engineer and academic (b. 1933)
2015 – Michel Guimond, Canadian lawyer and politician (b. 1953)
2015 – Ward Swingle, American-French singer-songwriter and conductor (b. 1927)
2016 – Richard Levins, American ecologist and geneticist (b. 1930)
2016 – Ettore Scola, Italian director and screenwriter (b. 1931)
2016 – Sheila Sim, English actress (b. 1922)
2017 – Miguel Ferrer, American actor (b. 1955)
Holidays and observances on January 19
Birthday of Edgar Allan Poe (commemorated by the Poe Toaster at his grave in Baltimore)
Christian feast day:
Bassianus of Lodi
Henry of Uppsala
Marius, Martha, Audifax, and Abachum
Mark of Ephesus (Eastern Orthodox Church)
Pontianus of Spoleto
Wulfstan, Bishop of Worcester
January 19 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
Confederate Heroes Day (Texas), and its related observance:
Robert E. Lee Day (Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia and Mississippi)
Feast of Sultán (Sovereignty), first day of the 17th month of the Bahá’í calendar (Bahá’í Faith) (only if Nowruz falls on March 21, otherwise the dates shifts)
Husband’s Day (Iceland)
Kokborok Day (Tripura, India)
Theophany / Epiphany (Eastern and Oriental Orthodoxy), and its related observances:
Timkat, or 20 during Leap Year (Ethiopian Orthodox)
474 – Seven-year-old Leo II succeeds his maternal grandfather Leo I as Byzantine emperor. He dies ten months later.
532 – Nika riots in Constantinople fail.
1126 – Emperor Huizong abdicates the Chinese throne in favour of his son Emperor Qinzong.
1486 – King Henry VII of England marries Elizabeth of York, daughter of Edward IV uniting the House of Lancaster and the House of York.
1562 – Pope Pius IV reopens the Council of Trent for its third and final session.
1591 – King Naresuan of Siam kills Crown Prince Mingyi Swa of Burma in single combat, for which this date is now observed as Royal Thai Armed Forces day.
1670 – Henry Morgan captures Panama.
1701 – Frederick I crowns himself King of Prussia in Königsberg.
1778 – James Cook is the first known European to discover the Hawaiian Islands, which he names the “Sandwich Islands”.
1788 – The first elements of the First Fleet carrying 736 convicts from Great Britain to Australia arrive at Botany Bay.
1806 – Jan Willem Janssens surrenders the Dutch Cape Colony to the British.
1866 – Wesley College is established in Melbourne, Australia.
1871 – Wilhelm I of Germany is proclaimed Kaiser Wilhelm in the Hall of Mirrors of the Palace of Versailles (France) towards the end of the Franco-Prussian War. Wilhelm already had the title of German Emperor since the constitution of 1 January 1871, but he had hesitated to accept the title.
1886 – Modern field hockey is born with the formation of The Hockey Association in England.
1896 – An X-ray generating machine is exhibited for the first time by H. L. Smith.
1911 – Eugene B. Ely lands on the deck of the USS Pennsylvania anchored in San Francisco Bay, the first time an aircraft landed on a ship.
1913 – First Balkan War: A Greek flotilla defeats the Ottoman Navy in the Naval Battle of Lemnos, securing the islands of the Northern Aegean Sea for Greece.
1915 – Japan issues the “Twenty-One Demands” to the Republic of China in a bid to increase its power in East Asia.
1919 – World War I: The Paris Peace Conference opens in Versailles, France.
1919 – Ignacy Jan Paderewski becomes Prime Minister of the newly independent Poland.
1941 – World War II: British troops launch a general counter-offensive against Italian East Africa.
1943 – Warsaw Ghetto Uprising: The first uprising of Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto.
1945 – World War II: Liberation of Kraków, Poland by the Red Army.
1958 – Willie O’Ree, the first Black Canadian National Hockey League player, makes his NHL debut with the Boston Bruins.
1960 – Capital Airlines Flight 20 crashes into a farm in Charles City County, Virginia, killing all 50 aboard, the third fatal Capital Airlines crash in as many years.
1967 – Albert DeSalvo, the “Boston Strangler”, is convicted of numerous crimes and is sentenced to life imprisonment.
1969 – United Airlines Flight 266 crashes into Santa Monica Bay killing all 32 passengers and six crew members.
1974 – A Disengagement of Forces agreement is signed between the Israeli and Egyptian governments, ending conflict on the Egyptian front of the Yom Kippur War.
1976 – Lebanese Christian militias kill at least 1,000 in Karantina, Beirut.
1977 – Scientists identify a previously unknown bacterium as the cause of the mysterious Legionnaires’ disease.
1977 – Australia’s worst rail disaster occurs at Granville, Sydney killing 83.
1977 – SFR Yugoslavia’s Prime minister, Džemal Bijedić, his wife and six others are killed in a plane crash in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
1978 – The European Court of Human Rights finds the United Kingdom’s government guilty of mistreating prisoners in Northern Ireland, but not guilty of torture.
1981 – Phil Smith and Phil Mayfield parachute off a Houston skyscraper, becoming the first two people to BASE jump from objects in all four categories: buildings, antennae, spans (bridges), and earth (cliffs).
1983 – The International Olympic Committee restores Jim Thorpe’s Olympic medals to his family.
1990 – Washington, D.C. Mayor Marion Barry is arrested for drug possession in an FBI sting.
1993 – Martin Luther King, Jr. Day is officially observed for the first time in all 50 US states.
2002 – The Sierra Leone Civil War is declared over.
2003 – A bushfire kills four people and destroys more than 500 homes in Canberra, Australia.
2005 – The Airbus A380, the world’s largest commercial jet, is unveiled at a ceremony in Toulouse, France
2007 – The strongest storm in the United Kingdom in 17 years kills 14 people and Germany sees the worst storm since 1999 with 13 deaths. Cyclone Kyrill causes at least 44 deaths across 20 countries in Western Europe.
2008 – The Euphronios Krater is unveiled in Rome after being returned to Italy by the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
2018 – A bus catches fire on the Samara–Shymkent road in Yrgyz District, Aktobe, Kazakhstan. The fire kills 52 passengers, with three passengers and two drivers escaping.
Births on January 18
1404 – Sir Philip Courtenay, British noble (d. 1463)
1457 – Antonio Trivulzio, seniore, Roman Catholic cardinal (d. 1508)
1519 – Isabella Jagiellon, Queen of Hungary (d. 1559)
1540 – Catherine, Duchess of Braganza (d. 1614)
1641 – François-Michel le Tellier, Marquis de Louvois, French politician, Secretary of State for War (d. 1691)
1659 – Damaris Cudworth Masham, English philosopher and theologian (d. 1708)
1672 – Antoine Houdar de la Motte, French author (d. 1731)
1688 – Lionel Sackville, 1st Duke of Dorset, English politician, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (d. 1765)
1689 – Montesquieu, French lawyer and philosopher (d. 1755)
1701 – Johann Jakob Moser, German jurist (d. 1785)
1743 – Louis Claude de Saint-Martin, French mystic and philosopher (d. 1803)
1751 – Ferdinand Kauer, Austrian pianist and composer (d. 1831)
1752 – John Nash, English architect (d. 1835)
1764 – Samuel Whitbread, English politician (d. 1815)
1779 – Peter Mark Roget, English physician, lexicographer, and theologian (d. 1869)
1782 – Daniel Webster, American lawyer and politician, 14th United States Secretary of State (d. 1852)
1793 – Pratap Singh Bhosle, Chhatrapati of the Maratha Empire (d. 1847)
1815 – Constantin von Tischendorf, German theologian and scholar (d. 1874)
1835 – César Cui, Russian general, composer, and critic (d. 1918)
1840 – Henry Austin Dobson, English poet and author (d. 1921)
1841 – Emmanuel Chabrier, French pianist and composer (d. 1894)
1842 – A. A. Ames, American physician and politician, Mayor of Minneapolis (d. 1911)
1848 – Ioan Slavici, Romanian journalist and author (d. 1925)
1849 – Edmund Barton, Australian judge and politician, 1st Prime Minister of Australia (d. 1920)
1850 – Seth Low, American academic and politician, 92nd Mayor of New York City (d. 1916)
1853 – Marthinus Nikolaas Ras, South African farmer, soldier, and gun-maker (d. 1900)
1854 – Thomas A. Watson, American assistant to Alexander Graham Bell (d. 1934)
1856 – Daniel Hale Williams, American surgeon and cardiologist (d. 1931)
1867 – Rubén Darío, Nicaraguan poet, journalist, and diplomat (d. 1916)
1868 – Kantarō Suzuki, Japanese admiral and politician, 42nd Prime Minister of Japan (d. 1948)
1877 – Sam Zemurray, Russian-American businessman, founded the Cuyamel Fruit Company (d. 1961)
1879 – Henri Giraud, French general and politician (d. 1949)
1880 – Paul Ehrenfest, Austrian-Dutch physicist and academic (d. 1933)
1880 – Alfredo Ildefonso Schuster, Italian cardinal (d. 1954)
1881 – Gaston Gallimard, French publisher, founded Éditions Gallimard (d. 1975)
1882 – A. A. Milne, English author, poet, and playwright (d. 1956)
1886 – Clara Nordström, Swedish-German author and translator (d. 1962)
1888 – Thomas Sopwith, English ice hockey player, sailor, and pilot (d. 1989)
1892 – Oliver Hardy, American actor and comedian (d. 1957)
1892 – Bill Meanix, American hurdler and coach (d. 1957)
1892 – Paul Rostock, German surgeon and academic (d. 1956)
1893 – Jorge Guillén, Spanish poet, critic, and academic (d. 1984)
1894 – Toots Mondt, American wrestler and promoter (d. 1976)
1896 – C. M. Eddy Jr., American author (d. 1967)
1896 – Ville Ritola, Finnish-American runner (d. 1982)
1898 – Albert Kivikas, Estonian journalist and author (d. 1978)
1901 – Ivan Petrovsky, Russian mathematician and academic (d. 1973)
1903 – Berthold Goldschmidt, German pianist and composer (d. 1996)
1904 – Anthony Galla-Rini, American accordion player and composer (d. 2006)
1904 – Cary Grant, English-American actor (d. 1986)
1905 – Joseph Bonanno, Italian-American mob boss (d. 2002)
1907 – János Ferencsik, Hungarian conductor (d. 1984)
1908 – Jacob Bronowski, Polish-English mathematician, historian, and television host (d. 1974)
1910 – Kenneth E. Boulding, English economist and academic (d. 1993)
1911 – José María Arguedas, Peruvian anthropologist, author, and poet (d. 1969)
1911 – Danny Kaye, American actor, singer, and dancer (d. 1987)
1913 – Carroll Cloar, American artist (d. 1993)
1913 – Giannis Papaioannou, Greek composer (d. 1972)
1914 – Arno Schmidt, German author and translator (d. 1979)
1914 – Vitomil Zupan, Slovene author, poet, and playwright (d. 1987)
1915 – Syl Apps, Canadian pole vaulter, ice hockey player, and politician (d. 1998)
1915 – Santiago Carrillo, Spanish soldier and politician (d. 2012)
1915 – Vassilis Tsitsanis, Greek singer-songwriter and bouzouki player (d. 1984)
1917 – Nicholas Oresko, American sergeant, Medal of Honor recipient (d. 2013)
1917 – Wang Yung-ching, Taiwanese-American businessman (d. 2008)
1918 – Gustave Gingras, Canadian-English physician and educator (d. 1996)
1919 – Toni Turek, German footballer (d. 1984)
1921 – Yoichiro Nambu, Japanese-American physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2015)
1923 – John Graham, General Officer Commanding (GOC) Wales (d. 2012)
1923 – Gerrit Voorting, Dutch cyclist (d. 2015)
1925 – Gilles Deleuze, French metaphysician and philosopher (d. 1995)
1925 – John V. Evans, American soldier and politician, 27th Governor of Idaho (d. 2014)
1925 – Sol Yurick, American soldier and author (d. 2013)
1926 – Randolph Bromery, American geologist and academic (d. 2013)
1927 – Sundaram Balachander, Indian actor, singer, and veena player (d. 1990)
1928 – Alexander Gomelsky, Soviet and Russian professional basketball coach (d. 2005)
1931 – Chun Doo-hwan, South Korean general and politician, 5th President of South Korea
1932 – Robert Anton Wilson, American psychologist, author, poet, and playwright (d. 2007)
1933 – Emeka Anyaoku, Nigerian politician, 8th Nigerian Minister of Foreign Affairs
1933 – David Bellamy, English botanist, author and academic (d. 2019)
1933 – John Boorman, English director, producer, and screenwriter
1933 – Ray Dolby, American engineer and businessman, founded Dolby Laboratories (d. 2013)
1933 – William Goodhart, Baron Goodhart, English lawyer and politician (d. 2017)
1933 – Frank McMullen, New Zealand rugby player (d. 2004)
1933 – Jean Vuarnet, French ski racer (d. 2017)
1934 – Raymond Briggs, English author and illustrator
1935 – Albert Millaire, Canadian actor and director (d. 2018)
1935 – Jon Stallworthy, English poet, critic, and academic (d. 2014)
1935 – Gad Yaacobi, Israeli academic and diplomat, 10th Israel Ambassador to the United Nations (d. 2007)
1936 – David Howell, Baron Howell of Guildford, English journalist and politician, Secretary of State for Transport
1937 – John Hume, Northern Irish educator and politician, Nobel Prize laureate
1938 – Curt Flood, American baseball player and sportscaster (d. 1997)
1938 – Anthony Giddens, English sociologist and academic
1938 – Werner Olk, German footballer and manager
1938 – Hargus “Pig” Robbins, American Country Music Hall of Fame session keyboard and piano player
1940 – Pedro Rodriguez, Mexican race car driver (d. 1971)
1941 – Denise Bombardier, Canadian journalist and author
1941 – Bobby Goldsboro, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer
1941 – David Ruffin, American singer (The Temptations) (d. 1991)
1943 – Paul Freeman, English actor
1943 – Kay Granger, American educator and politician
1943 – Dave Greenslade, English keyboard player and composer
1943 – Charlie Wilson, American businessman and politician (d. 2013)
1944 – Paul Keating, Australian economist and politician, 24th Prime Minister of Australia
1944 – Carl Morton, American baseball player (d. 1983)
1944 – Kei Ogura, Japanese singer-songwriter and composer
1944 – Alexander Van der Bellen, President of Austria
1945 – Rocco Forte, English businessman and philanthropist
1946 – Perro Aguayo, Mexican wrestler (d. 2019)
1946 – Joseph Deiss, Swiss economist and politician, 156th President of the Swiss Confederation
1946 – Henrique Rosa, Bissau-Guinean politician, President of Guinea-Bissau (d. 2013)
1947 – Sachio Kinugasa, Japanese baseball player and journalist (d. 2018)
1947 – Takeshi Kitano, Japanese actor and director
1949 – Bill Keller, American journalist
1949 – Philippe Starck, French interior designer
1950 – Gianfranco Brancatelli, Italian race car driver
1950 – Gilles Villeneuve, Canadian race car driver (d. 1982)
1951 – Bram Behr, Surinamese journalist and activist (d. 1982)
1951 – Bob Latchford, English footballer
1952 – Michael Behe, American biochemist, author, and academic
1952 – R. Stevie Moore, American singer-songwriter and guitarist
1953 – Brett Hudson, American singer-songwriter and producer
1953 – Peter Moon, Australian comedian and actor
1955 – Kevin Costner, American actor, director, and producer
1956 – Paul Deighton, Baron Deighton, English banker and politician
1960 – Mark Rylance, English actor, director, and playwright
1961 – Peter Beardsley, English footballer and manager
1961 – Bob Hansen, American basketball player and sportscaster
1961 – Mark Messier, Canadian ice hockey player, coach, and sportscaster
1961 – Jeff Yagher, American actor and sculptor
1962 – Alison Arngrim, Canadian-American actress
1963 – Maxime Bernier, Canadian lawyer and politician, 7th Minister of Foreign Affairs for Canada
1963 – Ian Crook, English footballer, central midfielder and manager
1963 – Carl McCoy, English singer-songwriter
1963 – Martin O’Malley, American soldier, lawyer, and politician, 61st Governor of Maryland
1964 – Brady Anderson, American baseball player
1964 – Richard Dunwoody, Northern Irish jockey and sportscaster
1964 – Virgil Hill, American boxer
1964 – Jane Horrocks, English actress and singer
1966 – Alexander Khalifman, Russian chess player and author
1966 – Kazufumi Miyazawa, Japanese singer
1966 – André Ribeiro, Brazilian race car driver
1967 – Dean Bailey, Australian footballer and coach (d. 2014)
1967 – Iván Zamorano, Chilean footballer
1969 – Dave Bautista, American wrestler, mixed martial artist, and actor
1969 – Jesse L. Martin, American actor and singer
1969 – Jim O’Rourke, American guitarist and producer
1970 – Peter Van Petegem, Belgian cyclist
1971 – Amy Barger, American astronomer
1971 – Jonathan Davis, American singer-songwriter
1971 – Christian Fittipaldi, Brazilian race car driver
1971 – Pep Guardiola, Spanish footballer and manager
1971 – Binyavanga Wainaina, Kenyan writer (d. 2019)
1972 – Vinod Kambli, Indian cricketer, sportscaster, and actor
1972 – Mike Lieberthal, American baseball player
1972 – Kjersti Plätzer, Norwegian race walker
1973 – Burnie Burns, American actor, director, and producer, co-founded Rooster Teeth Productions
1973 – Luke Goodwin, Australian rugby league player and coach
1973 – Benjamin Jealous, American civic leader and activist
1973 – Anthony Koutoufides, Australian footballer
1973 – Crispian Mills, English singer-songwriter, guitarist, and director
1973 – Rolando Schiavi, Argentinian footballer and coach
1974 – Christian Burns, English singer-songwriter
1975 – Leslie Knope, Protagonist of Parks and Recreation (fictional)
1976 – Laurence Courtois, Belgian tennis player
1976 – Marcelo Gallardo, Argentinian footballer and coach
1976 – Damien Leith, Irish-Australian singer-songwriter and guitarist
1977 – Richard Archer, English singer-songwriter and guitarist
1978 – Brian Falkenborg, American baseball player
1978 – Thor Hushovd, Norwegian cyclist
1978 – Bogdan Lobonț, Romanian footballer
1979 – Ruslan Fedotenko, Ukrainian ice hockey player
1979 – Paulo Ferreira, Portuguese footballer
1979 – Brian Gionta, American ice hockey player
1979 – Kenyatta Jones, American football player (d. 2018)
1980 – Estelle, English singer-songwriter and producer
1980 – Robert Green, English footballer
1980 – Kert Haavistu, Estonian footballer and manager
1980 – Julius Peppers, American football player
1980 – Jason Segel, American actor and screenwriter
1981 – Otgonbayar Ershuu, Mongolian painter and illustrator
1981 – Olivier Rochus, Belgian tennis player
1981 – Khari Stephenson, Jamaican footballer
1981 – Kang Dong-won, South Korean actor
1982 – Quinn Allman, American guitarist and producer
1982 – Mary Jepkosgei Keitany, Kenyan runner
1983 – Amir Blumenfeld, Israeli-American comedian, actor, director, and screenwriter
1983 – Samantha Mumba, Irish singer-songwriter and actress
1984 – Kristy Lee Cook, American singer-songwriter
1984 – Ioannis Drymonakos, Greek swimmer
1984 – Makoto Hasebe, Japanese footballer
1984 – Michael Kearney, American biochemist and academic
1984 – Seung-Hui Cho, South Korean student who perpetrated the 2007 mass shooting at Virginia Tech (d. 2007)
1984 – Benji Schwimmer, American dancer and choreographer
1558 – French troops, led by Francis, Duke of Guise, take Calais, the last continental possession of England.
1608 – Fire destroys Jamestown, Virginia.
1610 – Galileo Galilei makes his first observation of the four Galilean moons: Ganymede, Callisto, Io and Europa, although he is not able to distinguish the last two until the following day.
1738 – A peace treaty is signed between Peshwa Bajirao and Jai Singh II following Maratha victory in the Battle of Bhopal.
1782 – The first American commercial bank, the Bank of North America, opens.
1785 – Frenchman Jean-Pierre Blanchard and American John Jeffries travel from Dover, England, to Calais, France, in a gas balloon.
1835 – HMS Beagle, with Charles Darwin on board, drops anchor off the Chonos Archipelago.
1894 – Thomas Edison makes a kinetoscopic film of someone sneezing. On the same day, his employee, William Kennedy Dickson, receives a patent for motion picture film.
1904 – The distress signal “CQD” is established only to be replaced two years later by “SOS”.
1919 – Montenegrin guerrilla fighters rebel against the planned annexation of Montenegro by Serbia, but fail.
1920 – The New York State Assembly refuses to seat five duly elected Socialist assemblymen.
1922 – Dáil Éireann ratifies the Anglo-Irish Treaty by a 64–57 vote.
1927 – The first transatlantic telephone service is established from New York City to London.
1928 – A disastrous flood of the River Thames kills 14 people and causes extensive damage to much of riverside London.
1931 – Guy Menzies flies the first solo non-stop trans-Tasman flight (from Australia to New Zealand) in 11 hours and 45 minutes, crash-landing on New Zealand’s west coast.
1935 – Benito Mussolini and French Foreign minister Pierre Laval sign the Franco-Italian Agreement.
1940 – Winter War: Battle of Raate Road – The Finnish 9th Division finally defeat the numerically superior Soviet forces on the Raate-Suomussalmi road.
1948 – Kentucky Air National Guard pilot Thomas Mantell crashes while in pursuit of a supposed UFO.
1954 – Georgetown-IBM experiment: The first public demonstration of a machine translation system is held in New York at the head office of IBM.
1955 – Contralto Marian Anderson becomes the first person of color to perform at the Metropolitan Opera in Giuseppe Verdi’s Un ballo in maschera.
1959 – The United States recognizes the new Cuban government of Fidel Castro.
1968 – Surveyor Program: Surveyor 7, the last spacecraft in the Surveyor series, lifts off from launch complex 36A, Cape Canaveral.
1973 – In his second shooting spree of the week, Mark Essex fatally shoots seven people and wounds five others at Howard Johnson’s Hotel in New Orleans, Louisiana, before being shot to death by police officers.
1979 – Third Indochina War: Cambodian–Vietnamese War: Phnom Penh falls to the advancing Vietnamese troops, driving out Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge.
1980 – U.S. President Jimmy Carter authorizes legislation giving $1.5 billion in loans to bail out the Chrysler Corporation.
1984 – Brunei becomes the sixth member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
1985 – Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency launches Sakigake, Japan’s first interplanetary spacecraft and the first deep space probe to be launched by any country other than the United States or the Soviet Union.
1991 – Roger Lafontant, former leader of the Tonton Macoute in Haiti under François Duvalier, attempts a coup d’état, which ends in his arrest.
1993 – The Fourth Republic of Ghana is inaugurated with Jerry Rawlings as President.
1993 – Bosnian War: The Bosnian Army executes a surprise attack at the village of Kravica in Srebrenica.
1999 – The Senate trial in the impeachment of U.S. President Bill Clinton begins.
2012 – A hot air balloon crashes near Carterton, New Zealand, killing all 11 people on board.
2015 – Two gunmen commit mass murder at the offices of Charlie Hebdo in Paris, shooting twelve people execution style, and wounding eleven others.
2015 – A car bomb explodes outside a police college in the Yemeni capital Sana’a with at least 38 people reported dead and more than 63 injured.
2020 – The 6.4Mw 2019–20 Puerto Rico earthquakes kill four and injure nine in southern Puerto Rico.
Births on January 7
889 – Li Bian, emperor of Southern Tang (d. 943)
1355 – Thomas of Woodstock, 1st Duke of Gloucester, English politician, Lord High Constable of England (d. 1397)
1502 – Pope Gregory XIII (d. 1585)
1634 – Adam Krieger, German organist and composer (d. 1666)
1647 – William Louis, Duke of Württemberg (d. 1677)
1685 – Jonas Alströmer, Swedish agronomist and businessman (d. 1761)
1706 – Johann Heinrich Zedler, German publisher (d. 1751)
1713 – Giovanni Battista Locatelli, Italian director and manager (d. 1785)
1718 – Israel Putnam, American general (d. 1790)
1746 – George Elphinstone, 1st Viscount Keith, Scottish admiral and politician (d. 1823)
1768 – Joseph Bonaparte, Italian king (d. 1844)
1797 – Mariano Paredes, Mexican general and 16th president (1845-1846) (d. 1849)
1800 – Millard Fillmore, American politician, 13th President of the United States (d. 1874)
1814 – Robert Nicoll, Scottish poet (d.1837)
1815 – Elizabeth Louisa Foster Mather, American writer (d.1882)
1827 – Sandford Fleming, Scottish-Canadian engineer, created Universal Standard Time (d. 1915)
1830 – Albert Bierstadt, American painter (d. 1902)
1831 – Heinrich von Stephan, German postman, founded the Universal Postal Union (d. 1897)
1832 – James Munro, Scottish-Australian publisher and politician, 15th Premier of Victoria (d. 1908)
1834 – Johann Philipp Reis, German physicist and academic, invented the Reis telephone (d. 1874)
1837 – Thomas Henry Ismay, English businessman, founded the White Star Line Shipping Company (d. 1899)
1844 – Bernadette Soubirous, French nun and saint (d. 1879)
1858 – Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, Belarusian lexicographer and journalist (d. 1922)
1863 – Anna Murray Vail, American botanist and first librarian of the New York Botanical Garden (d. 1955)
1871 – Émile Borel, French mathematician and politician (d. 1956)
1873 – Charles Péguy, French poet and journalist (d. 1914)
1873 – Adolph Zukor, Hungarian-American film producer, co-founded Paramount Pictures (d. 1976)
1875 – Gustav Flatow, German gymnast (d. 1945)
1876 – William Hurlstone, English pianist and composer (d. 1906)
1877 – William Clarence Matthews, American baseball player, coach, and lawyer (d. 1928)
1889 – Vera de Bosset, Russian-American ballerina (d. 1982)
1891 – Zora Neale Hurston, American novelist, short story writer, and folklorist (d. 1960)
1895 – Hudson Fysh, Australian pilot and businessman, co-founded Qantas Airways Limited (d. 1974)
1899 – Al Bowlly, Mozambican-English singer-songwriter (disputed; d. 1941)
1899 – Francis Poulenc, French pianist and composer (d. 1963)
1900 – John Brownlee, Australian actor and singer (d. 1969)
1906 – Red Allen, American trumpet player (d. 1967)
1910 – Orval Faubus, American soldier and politician, 36th Governor of Arkansas (d. 1994)
1912 – Charles Addams, American cartoonist, created The Addams Family (d. 1988)
1913 – Johnny Mize, American baseball player, coach, and sportscaster (d. 1993)
1916 – W. L. Jeyasingham, Sri Lankan geographer and academic (d. 1989)
1916 – Babe Pratt, Canadian ice hockey player (d. 1988)
1920 – Vincent Gardenia, Italian-American actor (d. 1992)
1921 – Esmeralda Arboleda Cadavid, Colombian politician (d. 1997)
1921 – Chester Kallman, American poet and translator (d. 1975)
1922 – Alvin Dark, American baseball player and manager (d. 2014)
1922 – Jean-Pierre Rampal, French flute player (d. 2000)
1923 – Hugh Kenner, Canadian scholar and critic (d. 2003)
1925 – Gerald Durrell, Indian-English zookeeper, conservationist and author, founded Durrell Wildlife Park (d. 1995)
1926 – Kim Jong-pil, South Korean lieutenant and politician, 11th Prime Minister of South Korea (d. 2018)
1928 – William Peter Blatty, American author and screenwriter (d. 2017)
1929 – Robert Juniper, Australian painter and sculptor (d. 2012)
1929 – Terry Moore, American actress
1931 – Mirja Hietamies, Finnish skier (d. 2013)
1933 – Elliott Kastner, American-English film producer (d. 2010)
1934 – Jean Corbeil, Canadian lawyer and politician, 29th Canadian Minister of Labour (d. 2002)
1934 – Tassos Papadopoulos, Cypriot lawyer and politician, 5th President of Cyprus (d. 2008)
1935 – Li Shengjiao, Chinese diplomat and international jurist (d. 2017)
1935 – Kenny Davern, American clarinet player and saxophonist (d. 2006)
1935 – Valeri Kubasov, Russian engineer and astronaut (d. 2014)
1941 – Iona Brown, English violinist and conductor (d. 2004)
1941 – John E. Walker, English chemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate
1942 – Vasily Alekseyev, Russian-German weightlifter and coach (d. 2011)
1943 – Sadako Sasaki, Japanese survivor of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, known for one thousand origami cranes (d. 1955)
1944 – Mike McGear, British performing artist and rock photographer
1944 – Kotaro Suzumura, Japanese economist and academic (d. 2020)
1945 – Raila Odinga, Kenyan engineer and politician, 2nd Prime Minister of Kenya
1946 – Jann Wenner, American publisher, co-founded Rolling Stone
1947 – Tony Elliott, English publisher, founded Time Out
1948 – Kenny Loggins, American singer-songwriter
1948 – Ichirou Mizuki, Japanese singer-songwriter
1950 – Juan Gabriel, Mexican singer-songwriter (d. 2016)
1952 – Sammo Hung, Hong Kong actor, director, producer, and martial artist
1953 – Robert Longo, American painter and sculptor
1954 – Alan Butcher, English cricketer and coach
1955 – Mamata Shankar, Indian-Bengali actress
1956 – David Caruso, American actor
1957 – Katie Couric, American television journalist, anchor, and author
1959 – Angela Smith, Baroness Smith of Basildon, English accountant and politician
1959 – Kathy Valentine, American bass player and songwriter
1960 – Loretta Sanchez, American politician
1961 – John Thune, American lawyer and politician
1962 – Aleksandr Dugin, Russian political analyst and strategist known for his fascist views
1962 – Ron Rivera, American football player and coach
1964 – Nicolas Cage, American actor
1965 – Alessandro Lambruschini, Italian runner
1967 – Nick Clegg, English academic and politician, Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
1969 – Marco Simone, Italian footballer and manager
1970 – Andy Burnham, English politician
1971 – Jeremy Renner, American actor
1972 – Donald Brashear, American-Canadian ice hockey player and mixed martial artist
1974 – Alenka Bikar, Slovenian sprinter and politician
1976 – Vic Darchinyan, Armenian-Australian boxer
1976 – Alfonso Soriano, Dominican baseball player
1977 – Sofi Oksanen, Finnish author and playwright
1979 – Aloe Blacc, American musician, singer, songwriter, record producer, actor, businessman and philanthropist.
1982 – Francisco Rodríguez, Venezuelan baseball player
1982 – Hannah Stockbauer, German swimmer
1983 – Edwin Encarnación, Dominican baseball player
1985 – Lewis Hamilton, English racing driver
1986 – Wayne Routledge, English footballer winger
1987 – Stefan Babović, Serbian footballer
1987 – Lyndsy Fonseca, American actress
1987 – Davide Astori, Italian footballer (d. 2018)
1990 – Gregor Schlierenzauer, Austrian ski jumper
1991 – Eden Hazard, Belgian footballer
1991 – Caster Semenya, South African sprinter
Deaths on January 7
312 – Lucian of Antioch, Christian martyr, saint, and theologian (b. 240)
838 – Babak Khorramdin, Iranian leader of the Khurramite uprising against the Abbasid Caliphate
856 – Aldric, bishop of Le Mans
1131 – Canute Lavard, Danish prince and saint (b. 1096)
1285 – Charles I of Naples (b. 1226)
1325 – Denis of Portugal (b. 1261)
1355 – Inês de Castro, Castilian noblewoman (b. 1325)
1400 – John Montagu, 3rd Earl of Salisbury, English Earl (b. 1350)
1451 – Amadeus VIII of Savoy a.k.a. Antipope Felix V (b. 1383)
1529 – Peter Vischer the Elder, German sculptor (b. 1455)
1536 – Catherine of Aragon (b. 1485)
1566 – Louis de Blois, Flemish monk and author (b. 1506)
1619 – Nicholas Hilliard, English painter and goldsmith (b. 1547)
1625 – Ruggiero Giovannelli, Italian composer and author (b. 1560)
1655 – Pope Innocent X (b. 1574)
1658 – Theophilus Eaton, American farmer and politician, 1st Governor of the New Haven Colony (b. 1590)
1694 – Charles Gerard, 1st Earl of Macclesfield, English general and politician, Lord Lieutenant of Gloucestershire (b. 1618)
1700 – Raffaello Fabretti, Italian scholar and author (b. 1618)
1715 – François Fénelon, French archbishop, theologian, and poet (b. 1651)
1758 – Allan Ramsay, Scottish poet and playwright (b. 1686)
1767 – Thomas Clap, American minister and academic (b. 1703)
1770 – Carl Gustaf Tessin, Swedish politician and diplomat (b. 1695)
1812 – Joseph Dennie, American journalist and author (b. 1768)
1830 – John Thomas Campbell, Irish-Australian public servant and politician (b. 1770)
1830 – Thomas Lawrence, English painter and educator (b. 1769)
1858 – Mustafa Reşid Pasha, Ottoman politician, Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire (b. 1800)
1864 – Caleb Blood Smith, American journalist and politician, 6th U.S. Secretary of the Interior (b. 1808)
1892 – Tewfik Pasha, Egyptian ruler (b. 1852)
1893 – Josef Stefan, Slovenian physicist and mathematician (b. 1835)
1919 – Henry Ware Eliot, American businessman and philanthropist, co-founded Washington University in St. Louis (b. 1843)
1920 – Edmund Barton, Australian judge and politician, 1st Prime Minister of Australia (b. 1849)
1927 – Nikolaos Kalogeropoulos, Greek politician, 99th Prime Minister of Greece (b. 1851)
1931 – Edward Channing, American historian and author (b. 1856)
1932 – André Maginot, French sergeant and politician (b. 1877)
1936 – Guy d’Hardelot, French pianist and composer (b. 1858)
1941 – Charles Finger, English journalist and author (b. 1869)
1943 – Nikola Tesla, Serbian-American physicist and engineer (b. 1856)
1951 – René Guénon, French-Egyptian philosopher and author (b. 1886)
1960 – Dorothea Douglass Lambert Chambers, English tennis player and coach (b. 1878)
1963 – Arthur Edward Moore, New Zealand-Australian farmer and politician, 23rd Premier of Queensland (b. 1876)
1964 – Reg Parnell, English racing driver and manager (b. 1911)
1967 – David Goodis, American author and screenwriter (b. 1917)
1967 – Carl Schuricht, German-Swiss conductor (b. 1880)
1968 – J. L. B. Smith, South African chemist and academic (b. 1897)
1972 – John Berryman, American poet and scholar (b. 1914)
1981 – Alvar Lidell, English journalist and radio announcer(b. 1908)
1981 – Eric Robinson, Australian businessman and politician, 2nd Australian Minister for Finance (b. 1926)
1984 – Alfred Kastler, German-French physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1902)
1986 – Juan Rulfo, Mexican author, screenwriter, and photographer (b. 1917)
1988 – Zara Cisco Brough, American Nipmuc Indian chief and fashion designer (b.1919)
1988 – Trevor Howard, English actor (b. 1913)
1989 – Hirohito, Japanese emperor (b. 1901)
1990 – Bronko Nagurski, Canadian-American football player and wrestler (b. 1908)
1992 – Richard Hunt, American puppeteer and voice actor (b. 1951)
1995 – Murray Rothbard, American economist, historian, and theorist (b. 1926)
1996 – Károly Grósz, Hungarian politician, 51st Prime Minister of Hungary (b. 1930)
1998 – Owen Bradley, American record producer (b. 1915)
1998 – Vladimir Prelog, Croatian-Swiss chemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1906)
2000 – Gary Albright, American wrestler (b. 1963)
2001 – James Carr, American singer (b. 1942)
2002 – Avery Schreiber, American comedian and actor (b. 1935)
2004 – Ingrid Thulin, Swedish actress (b. 1926)
2005 – Pierre Daninos, French author (b. 1913)
2006 – Heinrich Harrer, Austrian mountaineer, geographer, and author (b. 1912)
2007 – Bobby Hamilton, American race car driver and businessman (b. 1957)
2007 – Magnus Magnusson, Icelandic journalist, author, and academic (b. 1929)
2008 – Alwyn Schlebusch, South African academic and politician, Vice State President of South Africa (b. 1917)
2012 – Tony Blankley, British-born American child actor, journalist and pundit (b. 1948)
2014 – Run Run Shaw, Chinese-Hong Kong businessman and philanthropist, founded Shaw Brothers Studio and TVB (b. 1907)
2015 – Mompati Merafhe, Botswana general and politician, Vice-President of Botswana (b. 1936)
2015 – Rod Taylor, Australian-American actor and screenwriter (b. 1930)
2015 – Georges Wolinski, Tunisian-French cartoonist (b. 1934)
2016 – Bill Foster, American basketball player and coach (b. 1929)
2016 – John Johnson, American basketball player (b. 1947)
2016 – Kitty Kallen, American singer (b. 1921)
2016 – Judith Kaye, American lawyer and jurist (b. 1938)
2016 – Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, Indian lawyer and politician, Indian Minister of Home Affairs (b. 1936)
2017 – Mário Soares, Portuguese politician; 16th President of Portugal (b. 1924)
2018 – Jim Anderton, Former New Zealand Deputy Prime Minister (b. 1938)
2018 – France Gall, French singer (b. 1947)
Holidays and observances on January 7
Christian Feast Day:
André Bessette (Canada)
Canute Lavard
Charles of Sezze
Felix and Januarius
Lucian of Antioch
Raymond of Penyafort
Synaxis of John the Forerunner & Baptist (Julian Calendar)
January 7 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
Christmas (Eastern Orthodox Churches and Oriental Orthodox Churches using the Julian Calendar, Rastafari)
Christmas in Russia
Christmas in Ukraine
Remembrance Day of the Dead (Armenia)
Distaff Day (medieval Europe)
Earliest day on which Plough Monday can fall, while January 13 is the latest; celebrated on Monday after Epiphany (Europe).
