202 BC Coronation ceremony of Liu Bang as Emperor Gaozu of Han takes place, initiating four centuries of the Han Dynasty’s rule over China.
1155 Henry the Young King (born), English son of Henry II of England (died 1183)
1261 Margaret of Scotland (born), Queen of Norway (died 1283)
1453 Isabella (died), Duchess of Lorraine (born 1400)
1485 Niclas, Graf von Abensberg (died), German knight (born 1441)
1510 Juan de la Cosa (died), Spanish cartographer and explorer (born 1450)
1525 Cuauhtémoc (died), Aztec ruler (born 1495)
1525 The Aztec king Cuauhtémoc is executed by Hernán Cortés’s forces.
1533 Michel de Montaigne (born), French philosopher (died 1592)
1552 Jost Bürgi (born), Swiss mathematician and clockmaker (died 1632)
1572 Aegidius Tschudi (died), Swiss historian (born 1505)
1573 Elias Holl (born), German architect (died 1646)
1612 John Pearson (born), English bishop, theologian, and scholar (died 1686)
1638 The Scottish National Covenant is signed in Edinburgh.
1670 Benjamin Wadsworth (born), American clergyman and academic (died 1737)
1675 Guillaume Delisle (born), French cartographer (died 1726)
1683 René Antoine Ferchault de Réaumur (born), French scientist (died 1757)
1700 Today is followed by March 1 in Sweden, thus creating the Swedish calendar.
1704 Louis Godin (born), French astronomer (died 1760)
1712 Louis-Joseph de Montcalm (born), French military commander (died 1759)
1714 Gioacchino Conti (born), Italian soprano (died 1761)
1746 Hermann von der Hardt (died), German historian (born 1660)
1784 John Wesley charters the Methodist Church.
1786 John Gwynn (died), English architect and engineer (born 1713)
1788 Thomas Cushing (died), American layer and politician, 1st Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts (born 1725)
1792 Karl Ernst von Baer (born), German biologist, meteorologist, and geographer (died 1876)
1812 Berthold Auerbach (born), German poet and author (died 1882)
1824 Charles Blondin (born), French acrobat (died 1897)
1827 The Baltimore & Ohio Railroad is incorporated, becoming the first railroad in America offering commercial transportation of both people and freight.
1836 Friedrich August Grotefend (died), German philologist (born 1798)
1838 Maurice Lévy (born), French engineer (died 1910)
1840 Henri Duveyrier (born), French explorer (died 1892)
1844 A gun on USS Princeton explodes while the boat is on a Potomac River cruise, killing eight people, including two United States Cabinet members.
1848 Arthur Giry (born), French historian (died 1899)
1849 Regular steamboat service from the west to the east coast of the United States begins with the arrival of the SS California in San Francisco Bay, 4 months 22 days after leaving New York Harbor.
1857 André Dumont (died), Belgian geologist (born 1809)
1866 Vyacheslav Ivanovich Ivanov (born), Russian poet and playwright (died 1949)
1873 William McMaster Murdoch (born), Scottish sailor (died 1912)
1876 John Alden Carpenter (born), American composer (died 1951)
1878 Pierre Fatou (born), French mathematician and astronomer (died 1929)
1883 The first vaudeville theater opens in Boston, Massachusetts.
1885 The American Telephone and Telegraph Company is incorporated in New York State as the subsidiary of American Bell Telephone. (American Bell would later merge with its subsidiary.)
1891 George Hearst (died), American businessman and politician (born 1820)
1893 The USS Indiana, the lead ship of her class and the first battleship in the United States Navy comparable to foreign battleships of the time, is launched.
1894 Ben Hecht (born), American screenwriter, director, and producer (died 1964)
1895 Marcel Pagnol (born), French author, playwright and director (died 1974)
1901 Linus Pauling (born), American chemist and activist, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1994)
1906 Bugsy Siegel (born), American gangster (died 1947)
1908 Billie Bird (born), American actress (died 2002)
1913 George Finnegan (died), American boxer (born 1881)
1915 Peter Medawar (born), Brazilian-English biologist, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1987)
1915 Zero Mostel (born), American actor (died 1977)
1916 Henry James (died), American-English author (born 1843)
1922 The United Kingdom ends its protectorate over Egypt through a Unilateral Declaration of Independence.
1923 Charles Durning (born), American actor (died 2012)
1929 Frank Gehry (born), Canadian-American architect, designed 8 Spruce Street and Walt Disney Concert Hall
1931 Dean Smith (born), American basketball player and coach
1931 Gavin MacLeod (born), American actor
1935 DuPont scientist Wallace Carothers invents nylon.
1936 Charles Nicolle (died), French biologist, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1866)
1936 Kamala Nehru (died), Indian wife of Jawaharlal Nehru (born 1899)
1938 Foge Fazio (born), American football player and coach (died 2009)
1939 The erroneous word “dord” is discovered in the Webster’s New International Dictionary, Second Edition, prompting an investigation.
1940 Basketball is televised for the first time (Fordham University vs. the University of Pittsburgh in Madison Square Garden).
1940 Joe South (born), American singer-songwriter and guitarist (died 2012)
1940 Mario Andretti (born), Italian-American race car driver
1941 Suzanne Mubarak (born), Egyptian wife of Hosni Mubarak, 5th First Lady of Egypt
1942 Brian Jones (born), English guitarist, songwriter, and producer (The Rolling Stones) (died 1969)
1942 The heavy cruiser USS Houston is sunk in the Battle of Sunda Strait with 693 crew members killed, along with HMAS Perth which lost 375 men.
1947 228 massacre: In Taiwan, civil disorder is put down with the loss of an estimated 30,000 civilians.
1948 Bernadette Peters (born), American actress, singer, and author
1948 Mercedes Ruehl (born), American actress
1948 Steven Chu (born), American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate
1953 James D. Watson and Francis Crick announce to friends that they have determined the chemical structure of DNA; the formal announcement takes place on April 25 following publication in April’s Nature (pub. April 2).
1953 Paul Krugman (born), American economist, Nobel Prize laureate
1954 The first color television sets using the NTSC standard are offered for sale to the general public.
1955 Gilbert Gottfried (born), American comedian and actor
1957 John Turturro (born), American actor, director, and screenwriter
1958 A school bus in Floyd County, Kentucky hits a wrecker truck and plunges down an embankment into the rain-swollen Levisa Fork River. The driver and 26 children die in what remains one of the worst school bus accidents in U.S. history.
1958 Jack Abramoff (born), American businessman and felon
1959 Discoverer 1, an American spy satellite that is the first object intended to achieve a polar orbit, is launched. It failed to achieve orbit.
1959 Megan McDonald (born), American author
1961 Eric Bachelart (born), Belgian race car driver
1967 Henry Luce (died), Chinese-American publisher, co-founded Time Magazine (born 1898)
1969 Butch Leitzinger (born), American race car driver
1969 Robert Sean Leonard (born), American actor
1974 Bobby Bloom (died), American singer-songwriter (born 1946)
1979 Sébastien Bourdais (born), French race car driver
1985 The Provisional Irish Republican Army carries out a mortar attack on the Royal Ulster Constabulary police station at Newry, killing nine officers in the highest loss of life for the RUC on a single day.
1991 Reinhard Bendix (died), German sociologist (born 1916)
1991 The first Gulf War ends.
1993 Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents raid the Branch Davidian church in Waco, Texas with a warrant to arrest the group’s leaderDavid Koresh. Four BATF agents and five Davidians die in the initial raid, starting a 51-day standoff.
1993 Ruby Keeler (died), Canadian actress and dancer (born 1910)
1997 An earthquake in northern Iran is responsible for about 3,000 deaths.
1997 GRB 970228, a highly luminous flash of gamma rays, strikes the Earth for 80 seconds, providing early evidence that gamma-ray bursts occur well beyond the Milky Way.
1997 The North Hollywood shootout takes place, resulting in the injury of 19 people and the deaths of both perpetrators.
1998 First flight of RQ-4 Global Hawk, the first unmanned aerial vehicle certified to file its own flight plans and fly regularly in U.S. civilian airspace.
1998 Kosovo War: Serbian police begin the offensive against the Kosovo Liberation Army in Kosovo.
2004 Over 1 million Taiwanese participating in the 228 Hand-in-Hand Rally form a 500-kilometre (310 mi) long human chain to commemorate the 228 Incident in 1947
2007 Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. (died), American historian and critic (born 1917)
2007 Billy Thorpe (died), English-Australian singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer (Billy Thorpe & the Aztecs) (born 1946)
2008 Mike Smith (died), English singer-songwriter, keyboard player, and producer (The Dave Clark Five) (born 1943)
2009 Paul Harvey (died), American radio host (born 1918)
2011 Jane Russell (died), American actress (born 1921)
2013 Donald A. Glaser (died), American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1926)
2013 Pope Benedict XVI resigns as the pope of the Catholic Church becoming the first pope to do so since 1415.
2013 Robert Weimar (died), German psychologist (born 1932)
EO Smith
Latest posts by EO Smith (see all)
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- Alternative Facts and Science - 24 January, 2017