What happened this coming weekdays (Events): January 8th - 12th

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January 8th

871 - Battle of Ashdown - Ethelred of Wessex defeats a Danish invasion army.
1198 - Innocent III becomes Pope.
1297 - Monaco gains its independence.
1499 - Louis XII of France marries Anne of Brittany.
1734 - Premiere of George Frideric Handel's Ariodante at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.
1746 - Bonnie Prince Charlie occupies Stirling.
1790 - George Washington delivers the first State of the Union Address address in New York City.
1806 - Cape Colony becomes a British colony.
1811 - Unsuccessful slave revolt led by Charles Deslandes in St. Charles and St. James, Louisiana.
1815 - War of 1812: Battle of New Orleans - Andrew Jackson leads American forces in victory over the British.
1838 - Alfred Vail demonstrates a telegraph using dots and dashes (this is the forerunner of Morse code).
1863 - American Civil War: Second Battle of Springfield
1863 - Yorkshire County Cricket Club is founded at the Adelphi Hotel in Sheffield, England.
1867 - African American men granted the right to vote in the District of Columbia.
1877 - Crazy Horse and his warriors fight their last battle with the United States Cavalry (Montana).
1889 - Herman Hollerith receives a patent for his electric tabulating machine.
1900 - United States President William McKinley places Alaska under military rule.
1906 - A landslide in Haverstraw, New York, kills 20 people due to the excavation of clay along the Hudson River.
1908 - A train collision occurs in the Park Avenue Tunnel in New York City killing 17 people, injuring 38 and leading to increased demand for electric trains.
1912 - The African National Congress was founded.
1916 - World War I: Allied forces withdraw from Gallipoli.
1918 - President Woodrow Wilson announces his "Fourteen Points" for the aftermath of World War I.
1920 - The Czechoslovak Hussite Church was founded by Dr. Karel Farský.
1922 - The Social Democratic Youth League of Norway is founded.
1926 - Abdul-Aziz ibn Saud becomes the King of Hejaz and renames it Saudi Arabia.
1935 - Arthur C. Hardy patents the spectrophotometer.
1953 - René Mayer becomes Prime Minister of France.
1956 - Operation Auca: Five U.S. missionaries are killed by the Huaorani of Ecuador shortly after making contact with them.
1958 - Fourteen-year-old Bobby Fischer wins the United States Chess Championship.
1959 - Conquest of Cuba by Fidel Castro is completed with the conquest of Santiago de Cuba.
1959 - Michel Debré becomes Prime Minister of France.
1962 - Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa is exhibited in the United States for the first time (National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.).
1962 - Harmelen train disaster kills 93 people in The Netherlands.
1964 - President Lyndon B. Johnson declares a "War on Poverty" in the United States.
1973 - Watergate scandal: The trial of seven men accused of illegal entry into Democratic Party headquarters at Watergate begins.
1975 - Ella Grasso becomes Governor of Connecticut, becoming the first woman to serve as a Governor in the United States who did not succeed her husband.
1977 - Soviet space mission Luna 21 is launched.
1979 - The tanker Betelgeuse explodes in Bantry Bay, Ireland (The Betelgeuse incident).
1982 - AT&T agrees to divest itself of twenty-two subdivisions.
1987 - The Dow Jones Industrial Average gains 8.30 to close at 2,002.25 -- The Dow's first close above 2,000.
1989 - Kegworth air disaster kills 47 people in Great Britain.
1989 - Beginning of Japanese Heisei era.
1994 - Russian cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov on Soyuz TM-18 leaves for Mir. He will stay on the space station until March 22, 1995, for a record 437 days in space.
1996 - An Antonov 32 cargo turboprop powered plane crashes into the central market in Kinshasa, Zaire killing more than 350 people.
2004 - RMS Queen Mary 2, the largest passenger ship ever built, was christened by her namesake's granddaughter, Queen Elizabeth II.
2006 - A magnitude 6.9 earthquake epicentered just off the Greek island of Kythira hits much of the country and is felt throughout the entire eastern Mediterranean Sea.



January 9th


475 - Byzantine Emperor Zeno is forced to flee his capital at Constantinople.
1349 - The Jewish population of Basel, Switzerland, is rounded up and incinerated, believed by the residents to be the cause of the ongoing bubonic plague.
1431 - Judges' investigations for the trial of Joan of Arc begin in Rouen, France, the seat of the English occupation government.
1760 - Afghans defeat Marathas in Battle of Barari Ghat.
1768 - Philip Astley stages the first modern circus (London).
1788 - Connecticut becomes the fifth state to join the United States.
1793 - Jean-Pierre Blanchard becomes the first to fly in a balloon in the United States.
1816 - Sir Humphry Davy tests the Davy lamp for Miners at Hebburn Colliery.
1822 - The Portuguese prince Pedro I of Brazil decides to stay in Brazil against the orders of the Portuguese king João VI, starting the Brazilian independence process.
1839 - The French Academy of Sciences announces the Daguerreotype photography process.
1857 - The Fort Tejon earthquake of California occurs, registering an estimated magnitude of 7.9.
1858 - Anson Jones, the final President of the Republic of Texas, commits suicide.
1861 - American Civil War: The "Star of the West" incident occurs near Charleston, South Carolina. It is considered by some historians to be the "First Shots of the American Civil War.")
1861 - Mississippi becomes the second state to secede from the Union before the outbreak of the American Civil War.
1863 - American Civil War: the Battle of Fort Hindman occurs in Arkansas.
1878 - Umberto I becomes King of Italy.
1880 - The Great Gale of 1880 devastates parts of Oregon and Washington with high wind and heavy snow.
1882 - Oscar Wilde gives his first lecture on "The English Renaissance of Art" in New York.
1894 - New England Telephone and Telegraph installs the first battery-operated telephone switchboard in Lexington, Massachusetts.
1900 - S.S. Lazio is founded in Rome, Italy.
1903 - Hallam Tennyson, 2nd Baron Tennyson, son of the famous poet Alfred Tennyson, becomes the second Governor-General of Australia.
1905 - According to the Julian Calendar which was used at the time, Russian workers stage a march on the Winter Palace that ends in the massacre by Czarist troops known as Bloody Sunday, setting off the Russian Revolution of 1905.
1912 - United States Marines invade Honduras.
1916 - The Ottoman Empire prevails in the Battle of Çanakkale, as the last British troops are evacuated.
1917 - World War I: the Battle of Rafa occurs near the Egyptian border with Palestine.
1923 - Juan de la Cierva makes the first autogyro flight.
1929 - The Seeing Eye is established in Nashville, Tennessee, with the mission to train dogs for assisting the blind.
1945 - The United States invades Luzon in the Philippines.
1951 - United Nations headquarters officially opens in New York City.
1960 - Construction of the Aswan Dam begins in Egypt.
1964 - Several Panamanian youths try to put up the Panamanian flag on the US-controlled Panama Canal Zone, during the fight the Panama flag is torn, setting off four days of fighting between US armed forces and civilian Panamanians around the country. This day is known as Martyrs' Day.
1965 - The Hope Slide in British Columbia kills 4 people near Hope, British Columbia.
1972 - RMS Queen Elizabeth is destroyed by fire in Victoria Harbour, Hong Kong.
1977 - The Oakland Raiders defeat the Minnesota Vikings 32-14 at Super Bowl XI. Wide receiver Fred Biletnikoff is named Most Valuable Player.
1986 - After losing a patent battle with Polaroid, Kodak leaves the instant camera business.
1991 - The Soviets storm Vilnius to stop Lithuanian independence.
1995 - Valeri Poliakov completes 366 days in space while aboard the Mir space station, breaking a duration record.
1997 - A Comair Embraer 120 crashes during approach into Detroit Metro Airport, killing 29 people.
2002 - The United States Department of Justice announces it is going to pursue a criminal investigation of Enron.
2005 - Elections are held to replace Yasser Arafat as head of the Palestine Liberation Organization. He is succeeded by Rawhi Fattouh.
2006 - The Phantom of the Opera surpasses the record set by Cats for the title of longest running show on Broadway.
2006 - The first The Howard Stern Show via Sirius Satellite Radio is broadcast.



January 10th


49 BC - Julius Caesar crosses the Rubicon, signaling the start of civil war.
236 - Saint Fabian begins his reign as a Catholic Pope.
1072 - Robert Guiscard conquers Palermo.
1475 - Stephen III of Moldavia defeats the Ottoman Empire at the Battle of Vaslui.
1776 - Thomas Paine publishes Common Sense.
1806 - Dutch settlers in Cape Town surrender to the British.
1810 - Marriage of Napoleon and Josephine is annulled.
1811 - African-American slaves in Louisiana rebel in two parishes.
1861 - American Civil War: Florida secedes from the US.
1863 - The first section of the London Underground Railway opens, between Paddington and Farringdon Street.
1870 - John D. Rockefeller incorporates Standard Oil.
1901 - The first great Texas gusher, oil discovered at Spindletop in Beaumont, Texas.
1920 - League of Nations holds its first meeting and ratifies the Treaty of Versailles ending World War I.
1922 - Arthur Griffith is elected President of the Irish Free State.
1923 - Lithuania seizes and annexes Memel.
1927 - The film Metropolis by Fritz Lang premieres.
1929 - Tintin, a comic book character created by Hergé, makes his debut. He went on to be published in over 200 million comic books in 40 languages.
1941 - Lend-Lease is introduced into the US Congress.
1946 - First General Assembly of the United Nations opens in London. Fifty-one nations are represented.
1957 - Harold Macmillan becomes the prime minister of the United Kingdom.
1962 - Apollo Project: NASA announces plans to build the C-5 rocket booster. It became better known as the Saturn V moon rocket, which launched every Apollo moon mission.
1969 - After 147 years, the last issue of The Saturday Evening Post is published.
1982 - The lowest ever UK temperature of -27.2°C was recorded at Braemar in Aberdeenshire. This equaled the record set in the same place on February 11, 1995. The record would be equalled again at Altnaharra on December 30, 1995
1982 - The Catch - Dwight Clark of the San Francisco 49ers made a leaping catch from Joe Montana with 58 seconds to play to defeat the Dallas Cowboys 28-27 in the NFC Championship Game at Candlestick Park.
1984 - The US and the Vatican establish full diplomatic relations after 117 years.
1989 - Cuban troops begin withdrawing from Angola.
1990 - Time Warner is formed from the merger of Time Inc. and Warner Communications Inc.
1999 - The Sopranos airs its pilot episode on HBO.
1999 - A large piece of the chalk cliff at Beachy Head collapsed into the sea.
2000 - America Online announces an agreement to buy Time Warner for $162 billion, the largest corporate merger in history.
2001 - Wikipedia starts as part of Nupedia. It becomes a separate site five days later.
2005 - A mudslide occurred in La Conchita, CA killing 10 people, injuring many more and closing the Highway 101, the main coastal corridor between San Francisco and Los Angeles, for 10 days.
2007 - Start of the 12th ASEAN Summit and 2nd East Asia Summit in Metro Cebu, Philippines. Meetings involve heads of the 10 member states and 6 dialogue partners with major discussions on relevance, diplomacy, security, economy and free trade and other important global issues.



January 11th


314 - Pope Miltiades ends his reign as the Catholic Pope.
532 - Nika riots in Constantinople.
1158 - Vladislav II becomes King of Bohemia.
1569 - First recorded lottery in England.
1571 - Austrian nobility is granted freedom of religion.
1693 - Mt. Etna erupts in Sicily, Italy.
1759 - In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the first American life insurance company is incorporated.
1779 - Ching-Thang Khomba crowned King of Manipur
1787 - William Herschel discovers Titania and Oberon, two moons of Uranus.
1794 - Robert Forsythe, a US Marshal was killed in Augusta, Georgia when trying to serve court papers, the first US Marshal to die in action.
1805 - Michigan Territory is created.
1861 - Alabama secedes from the United States.
1863 - American Civil War: Battle of Arkansas Post - General John McClernand and Admiral David Dixon Porter capture the Arkansas River for the Union.
1867 - Benito Juárez becomes Mexican president again.
1879 - Anglo-Zulu War begins.
1880 - Total solar eclipse blackens the sky of San Francisco one day after the funeral of Emperor Norton.
1902 - Popular Mechanics magazine was published for the first time.
1908 - Grand Canyon National Monument is created.
1912 - Lawrence textile strike begins in Lawrence, Massachusetts.
1919 - Romania annexes Transylvania.
1922 - First use of insulin to treat diabetes in a human patient.
1923 - Troops from France and Belgium occupy the Ruhr area to force Germany to pay its reparation payments.
1935 - Amelia Earhart is the first woman to fly solo from Hawaii to California.
1938 - Frances Moulton is the first woman to become president of a U.S. national bank.[citation needed]
1942 - Japan declares war on the Netherlands and invades the Netherlands East Indies.
1942 - The Japanese capture Kuala Lumpur.
1943 - The United States and United Kingdom give up territorial rights in China.
1946 - Enver Hoxha declares the People's Republic of Albania with himself as dictator.
1946 - Porfirio Barba-Jacob's ashes go back to Colombia.
1949 - First recorded case of snowfall in Los Angeles, California.
1957 - The African Convention is founded in Dakar.
1960 - Chad declares its independence.
1962 - Eruption of the Huascaran volcano in Peru; 4,000 deaths.
1963 - The Whisky a Go Go night club in Los Angeles, the first disco in the USA, is opened.
1964 - United States Surgeon General Luther Leonidas Terry reports smoking may be hazardous to health. First such statement from U.S. government.
1972 - East Pakistan becomes Bangladesh.
1973 - Beginning of the Watergate burglars trial.
1974 - The world's first surviving set of sextuplets are born to Susan Rosenkowitz in Cape Town, South Africa.
1980 - Nigel Short, 14, is the youngest chess player to be awarded the degree of International Master.
1982 - A cold snap sends temperatures to record lows in dozens of cities throughout the Midwestern United States.
1986 - The Gateway Bridge, Brisbane in Queensland, Australia is officially opened.
1990 - 300,000 march in favor of Lithuanian independence.
1992 - Paul Simon is the first major artist to tour South Africa after the end of the cultural boycott.
1994 - Irish Government announces the end of a 15-year broadcasting ban on the IRA and its political arm Sinn Féin
1995 - The WB Television Network begins operations.
1996 - Haiti becomes a member of the Berne Convention copyright treaty.
1998 - Sidi-Hamed massacre in Algeria; over 100 people killed.
2001 - The Federal Trade Commission approved the merger of AOL and Time Warner to form AOL Time Warner.
2003 - Illinois governor George H. Ryan announces decision to grant clemency to all inmates of death row.
2005 - Black Tuesday bushfires swept across the southern Eyre Peninsula in South Australia.



January 12th



475 - Basiliscus becomes Byzantine Emperor, with a coronation ceremony in the Hebdomon palace in Constantinople.
1528 - Gustav I of Sweden crowned king of Sweden.
1592 - Titus Andronicus first staged at the Rose Theatre.
1773 - The first public Colonial American museum opens in Charleston, South Carolina.
1777 - Mission Santa Clara de Asís is founded in what is now Santa Clara, California.
1838 - In order to avoid prosecution under laws banning polygamy, Joseph Smith, Jr. and his followers leave Ohio for Missouri.
1848 - The Palermo rising in Sicily rises against the Bourbon kingdom of the Two Sicilies
1866 - Royal Aeronautical Society is formed in London.
1872 - Yohannes IV is crowned Emperor of Ethiopia in Axum, the first imperial coronation in that city in over 200 years.
1875 - Kwang-su becomes emperor of China.
1898 - Ito Hirobumi begins his third term as Prime Minister of Japan.
1908 - A long-distance radio message is sent from the Eiffel Tower for the first time.
1915 - The Rocky Mountain National Park is formed by an act of U.S. Congress.
1915 - United States House of Representatives rejects proposal to give women the right to vote.
1926 - Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll premiere their radio program Sam 'n' Henry, a precursor to Amos 'n' Andy; possibly the first situation comedy.
1932 - Hattie W. Caraway becomes the first woman elected to the United States Senate.
1940 - World War II: Russia bombs cities in Finland.
1942 - President Franklin Roosevelt creates the National War Labor Board.
1945 - World War II: The Soviets begin a large offensive in Eastern Europe against the Nazis.
1964 - Rebels in Zanzibar begin a revolt known as the Zanzibar Revolution and proclaimed a republic.
1966 - Lyndon B. Johnson states that the United States should stay in South Vietnam until Communist aggression there is ended.
1966 - Batman the TV series debuts on ABC.
1967 - Dr. James Bedford becomes the first person to be cryonically preserved with intent of future resuscitation.
1969 - Led Zeppelin's debut album released.
1970 - Biafra capitulates, ending the Nigerian civil war.
1971 - All in the Family debuts on CBS.
1971 - Harrisburg Six: The Reverend Philip Berrigan and five others are indicted on charges of conspiring to kidnap Henry Kissinger and of plotting to blow up the heating tunnels of federal buildings in Washington, DC.
1976 - UN Security Council votes 11-1 to allow the Palestinian Liberation Organization to participate in a Security Council debate (without voting rights).
1986 - Space Shuttle program: STS-61-C mission - Space Shuttle Columbia takes-off with the first Hispanic-American astronaut, Dr. Franklin R. Chang-Diaz. It was the last successful mission before STS-51-L.
1991 - Persian Gulf War: An act of the U.S. Congress authorizes the use of military force to drive Iraq out of Kuwait.
1992 - A new constitution, providing for freedom to form political parties, is approved by referendum in Mali.
1995 - Malcolm X's daughter, Qubilah Shabazz, is arrested for conspiring to kill Louis Farrakhan.
1998 - Nineteen European nations agree to forbid human cloning.
2005 - Deep Impact (space mission) launches from Cape Canaveral by a Delta 2 rocket.
2006 - The foreign ministers of the United Kingdom, France, and Germany declare that negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program have reached a dead end and recommend that Iran be referred to the United Nations Security Council. (ABC)
2006 - A stampede during the Stoning the Devil ritual on the last day at the Hajj in Mina, Saudi Arabia, kills at least 362 Muslim pilgrims. (BBC)
2006 - Turkey releases Mehmet Ali Ağca from jail after serving 25 years for shooting Pope John Paul II. (BBC)
2006 - The French warship Clemenceau reaches Egypt and is barred access to the Suez Canal. Greenpeace activists board the ship. (BBC)