- 46 BC – Julius Caesar fights Titus Labienus in the Battle of Ruspina.[1]
- 871 – Battle of Reading: Æthelred of Wessex and his brother Alfred are defeated by a Danish invasion army.[2]
- 1649 – English Civil War: The Rump Parliament votes to put Charles I on trial.[3]
- 1717 – The Netherlands, Great Britain, and France sign the Triple Alliance[4] in an attempt to maintain the Treaty of Utrecht; Britain having signed a preliminary alliance with France on November 28 (November 17, 1716).
- 1762 – Great Britain declares war on Spain, thus entering the Seven Years’ War.[5]
- 1798 – Constantine Hangerli arrives in Bucharest, Wallachia, as its new Prince, invested by the Ottoman Empire.[6]
- 1853 – After having been kidnapped and sold into slavery in the American South, Solomon Northup regains his freedom; his memoir Twelve Years a Slave later becomes a national bestseller.[7]
- 1854 – The McDonald Islands are discovered by Captain William McDonald aboard the Samarang.[8]
- 1863 – The New Apostolic Church, a Christian and chiliastic church, is established in Hamburg, Germany.[9]
- 1878 – Russo-Turkish War (1877–78): Sofia is liberated from Ottoman rule[10] and designated the capital of Liberated Bulgaria.
- 1884 – The Fabian Society is founded in London, United Kingdom.[11]
- 1896 – Utah is admitted as the 45th U.S. state.[12]
- 1903 – Topsy, an elephant, is electrocuted by the owners of Luna Park, Coney Island. The Edison film company records the film Electrocuting an Elephant of Topsy’s death.[13]
- 1912 – The Scout Association is incorporated throughout the British Empire by royal charter.[14]
- 1918 – The Finnish Declaration of Independence is recognized by Russia, Sweden, Germany and France.[15]
- 1944 – World War II: Operation Carpetbagger, involving the dropping of arms and supplies to resistance fighters in Europe, begins.[16]
- 1948 – Burma gains its independence from the United Kingdom becoming an independent republic,[17] named the Union of Burma, with Sao Shwe Thaik as its first President and U Nu its first Prime Minister.
- 1951 – Korean War: Chinese and North Korean forces capture Seoul.[18]
- 1956 – The Greek National Radical Union is formed by Konstantinos Karamanlis.[19]
- 1958 – Sputnik 1, the first artificial Earth satellite, launched by the Soviet Union in 1957, falls to Earth from orbit.[20]
- 1959 – Luna 1 becomes the first spacecraft to reach the vicinity of the Moon.[21]
- 1972 – Rose Heilbron becomes the first female judge to sit at the Old Bailey in London, UK.[22]
- 1976 – The Troubles: The Ulster Volunteer Force shoots dead six Irish Catholic civilians in County Armagh, Northern Ireland. The next day, gunmen would shoot dead ten Protestant civilians nearby in retaliation.[23]
- 1987 – The Maryland train collision: An Amtrak train en route to Boston from Washington, D.C., collides with Conrail engines in Chase, Maryland, United States, killing 16 people.[24]
- 1989 – Second Gulf of Sidra incident: A pair of Libyan MiG-23 “Floggers” are shot down by a pair of US Navy F-14 Tomcats during an air-to-air confrontation.[25]
- 1990 – In Pakistan’s deadliest train accident an overloaded passenger train collides with an empty freight train, resulting in 307 deaths and 700 injuries.[26]
- 1998 – A massive ice storm hits eastern Canada and the northeastern United States, continuing through January 10 and causing widespread destruction.[27]
- 1999 – Former professional wrestler Jesse Ventura is sworn in as governor of Minnesota, United States.[28]
- 2004 – Spirit, a NASA Mars rover, lands successfully on Mars at 04:35 UTC.[29]
- 2004 – Mikheil Saakashvili is elected President of Georgia following the November 2003 Rose Revolution.[30]
- 2006 – Ehud Olmert becomes acting Prime Minister of Israel after the incumbent, Ariel Sharon, suffers a second, apparently more serious stroke.[31]
- 2007 – The 110th United States Congress convenes, electing Nancy Pelosi as the first female Speaker of the House in U.S. history.[32]
- 2010 – The Burj Khalifa, the current tallest building in the world, officially opens in Dubai.[33]
- 2013 – A gunman kills eight people in a house-to-house rampage in Kawit, Cavite, Philippines.[34]
- 2018 – Hennenman–Kroonstad train crash: A passenger train operated by Shosholoza Meyl collides with a truck on a level crossing at Geneva Station between Hennenman and Kroonstad, Free State, South Africa. Twenty people are killed and 260 injured.[35]
-Source: wikipedia
