- 474 – Zeno is crowned as co-emperor of the Byzantine Empire.[1]
- 1003 – Boleslaus III is restored to authority with armed support from Bolesław I the Brave of Poland.
- 1555 – Bishop of Gloucester John Hooper is burned at the stake.[2]
- 1621 – Gregory XV becomes Pope, the last Pope elected by acclamation.[3]
- 1654 – The Capture of Fort Rocher takes place during the Anglo-Spanish War.[4]
- 1775 – American Revolutionary War: The British Parliament declares Massachusetts in rebellion.[5]
- 1778 – Rhode Island becomes the fourth US state to ratify the Articles of Confederation.[6]
- 1788 – The Habsburg Empire joins the Russo-Turkish War in the Russian camp.
- 1825 – After no candidate receives a majority of electoral votes in the US presidential election of 1824, the United States House of Representatives elects John Quincy Adams as President of the United States.
- 1849 – The new Roman Republic is declared.
- 1861 – American Civil War: Jefferson Davis is elected the Provisional President of the Confederate States of America by the Confederate convention at Montgomery, Alabama.
- 1870 – US president Ulysses S. Grant signs a joint resolution of Congress establishing the U.S. Weather Bureau.
- 1889 – US president Grover Cleveland signs a bill elevating the United States Department of Agriculture to a Cabinet-level agency.
- 1895 – William G. Morgan creates a game called Mintonette, which soon comes to be referred to as volleyball.
- 1900 – The Davis Cup competition is established.
- 1904 – Russo-Japanese War: Battle of Port Arthur concludes.
- 1907 – The Mud March is the first large procession organised by the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS).
- 1913 – A group of meteors is visible across much of the eastern seaboard of North and South America, leading astronomers to conclude the source had been a small, short-lived natural satellite of the Earth.
- 1920 – Under the terms of the Svalbard Treaty, international diplomacy recognizes Norwegian sovereignty over Arctic archipelago Svalbard, and designates it as demilitarized.
- 1922 – Brazil becomes a member of the Berne Convention copyright treaty.
- 1929 – Members of the Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang assassinated the labor recruiter Bazin, prompting a crackdown by French colonial authorities.[7]
- 1934 – The Balkan Entente is formed.
- 1941 – World War II: The Cathedral of San Lorenzo in Genoa, Italy, is struck by a bomb which fails to detonate.
- 1942 – World War II: The Joint Chiefs of Staff hold their first formal meeting to coordinate the activities of the United States Army and Navy.
- 1942 – Year-round Daylight saving time (aka War Time) is re-instated in the United States as a wartime measure to help conserve energy resources.[8]
- 1943 – World War II: Allied authorities declare Guadalcanal secure after Imperial Japan evacuates its remaining forces from the island, ending the Battle of Guadalcanal.
- 1945 – World War II: Battle of the Atlantic: HMS Venturer sinks U-864 off the coast of Fedje, Norway, in a rare instance of submarine-to-submarine combat.
- 1945 – World War II: A force of Allied aircraft unsuccessfully attacked a German destroyer in Førdefjorden, Norway.
- 1950 – Second Red Scare: US Senator Joseph McCarthy accuses the United States Department of State of being filled with Communists.
- 1951 – Korean War: The two-day Geochang massacre begins as a battalion of the 11th Division of the South Korean Army kills 719 unarmed citizens in Geochang, in the South Gyeongsang district of South Korea
- 1959 – The R-7 Semyorka, the first intercontinental ballistic missile, becomes operational at Plesetsk, USSR.
- 1964 – The Beatles make their first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, performing before a record-setting audience of 73 million viewers across the USA.
- 1965 – The United States Marine Corps sends a MIM-23 Hawk missile battalion to South Vietnam, the first American troops in-country without an official advisory or training mission.
- 1971 – The 6.5–6.7 Mw Sylmar earthquake hits the Greater Los Angeles Area with a maximum Mercalli intensity of XI (Extreme), killing 64 and injuring 2,000.
- 1971 – Satchel Paige becomes the first Negro league player to be voted into the USA’s Baseball Hall of Fame.
- 1971 – Apollo program: Apollo 14 returns to Earth after the third manned Moon landing.
- 1975 – The Soyuz 17 Soviet spacecraft returns to Earth.
- 1976 – Aeroflot Flight 3739, a Tupolev Tu-104, crashes during takeoff from Irkutsk Airport, killing 24.[9]
- 1978 – The Budd Company unveils its first SPV-2000 self-propelled railcar in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
- 1986 – Halley’s Comet last appeared in the inner Solar System.
- 1991 – Voters in Lithuania vote for independence.
- 1996 – The Provisional Irish Republican Army declares the end to its 18-month ceasefire and explodes a large bomb in London’s Canary Wharf, killing two people.
- 1996 – Copernicium is discovered, by Sigurd Hofmann, Victor Ninov et al.[10]
- 2016 – Two passenger trains collided in the German town of Bad Aibling in the state of Bavaria. Twelve people died, and 85 others were injured.
- 2018 – Winter Olympics: Opening ceremony is performed in Pyeongchang County in South Korea.
- 2020 – Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele has 1,400 army soldiers enter the Legislative Assembly building causing a brief political crisis.[11]
-Source: wikipedia
