1126 William IX (died), Duke of Aquitaine (born 1071)
1258 Baghdad falls to the Mongols, and the Abbasid Caliphate is destroyed.
1278 Margaret II (died), Countess of Flanders (born 1202)
1306 In front of the high altar of Greyfriars Church in Dumfries, Robert the Bruce murders John Comyn sparking revolution in the Scottish Wars of Independence
1355 The St. Scholastica’s Day riot breaks out in Oxford, England, leaving 63 scholars and perhaps 30 locals dead in two days.
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.
1576 Wilhelm Xylander (died), German scholar (born 1532)
1686 William Dugdale (died), English antiquarian (born 1605)
1722 Bartholomew Roberts (died), Welsh pirate (born 1682)
1744 William Cornwallis (born), English admiral (died1819)
1755 Montesquieu (died), French philosopher (born 1689)
1758 Thomas Ripley (died), English architect (born 1682)
1763 The 1763 Treaty of Paris ends the French and Indian War and France cedes Quebec to Great Britain.
1775 Charles Lamb (born), English author (died 1834)
1783 Fyodor Petrovich Tolstoy (born), Russian painter (died 1873)
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 final battle of the war
1846 Ira Remsen (born), American chemist (died 1927)
1847 Nabinchandra Sen (born), Bengali poet (died 1909)
1861 Jefferson Davis is notified by telegraph that he has been chosen as provisional President of the Confederate States of America.
1862 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.
1870 The YWCA is founded in New York City.
1890 Boris Pasternak (born), Russian author and poet, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1960)
1890 Fanni Kaplan (born), Russian activist and rebel (died 1918)
1893 Jimmy Durante (born), American actor and singer (died 1980)
1898 Bertolt Brecht (born), German author (died 1956)
1906 HMS Dreadnought, the first of a revolutionary new breed of battleships is christened and launched by King Edward VII.
1906 Lon Chaney, Jr. (born), American actor (died 1973)
1912 Joseph Lister (died), 1st Baron Lister, English surgeon (born 1827)
1920 Alex Comfort (born), English physician and author (died 2000)
1923 Texas Tech University is founded as Texas Technological College in Lubbock, Texas
1923 Wilhelm Röntgen (died), German physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1845)
1927 Leontyne Price (born), American soprano
1929 Jerry Goldsmith (born), American composer and conductor (died 2004)
1929 Jim Whittaker (born), American mountaineer
1929 Lou Whittaker (born), American mountaineer
1930 E. L. Konigsburg (born), American author and illustrator (died 2013)
1930 Robert Wagner (born), American actor
1937 Roberta Flack (born), American singer-songwriter and pianist
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.
1947 Nicholas Owen (born), English journalist
1949 Nigel Olsson (born), English drummer, songwriter, and producer (The Spencer Davis Group and Plastic Penny)
1950 Marcel Mauss (died), French sociologist (born 1872)
1950 Mark Spitz (born), American swimmer
1954 President Dwight Eisenhower warns against United States intervention in Vietnam.
1955 Jim Cramer (born), American financier and author, co-founded TheStreet.com
1961 George Stephanopoulos (born), American journalist
1962 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 Glenn Beck (born), American journalist, producer, and author
1967 The 25th Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified.
1989 Ron Brown is elected chairman of the Democratic National Committee becoming the first African American to lead a major American political party.
1992 Alex Haley (died), American author (born 1921)
1996 The IBM supercomputer Deep Blue defeats Garry Kasparov in chess for the first time.
1998 Voters in Maine repeal a gay rights law passed in 1997 becoming the first U.S. state to abandon such a law.
2002 Dave Van Ronk (died), American singer-songwriter and guitarist (born 1936)
2003 Ron Ziegler (died), American politician, White House Press Secretary (born 1939)
2005 Arthur Miller (died), American playwright (born 1915)
2009 The communication satellites Iridium 33 and Kosmos-2251 collide in orbit, destroying both.
2013 36 people are killed and 39 injured in a stampede in Allahabad, India, during the Kumbh Mela festival.
EO Smith
Latest posts by EO Smith (see all)
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- Alternative Facts and Science - 24 January, 2017