214 Aurelian (born), Roman emperor (died 275)
337 Constantine II, Constantius II, and Constans I succeed their father Constantine I as co-emperors. The Roman Empire is divided between the three Augusti.
384 Honorius (born), Roman emperor (died 423)
533 A Byzantine army of 15,000 men under Belisarius lands at Caput Vada (modern Tunisia) and marches to Carthage.
1087 William II becomes King of England, taking the title King William II, (reigned until 1100).
1087 William the Conqueror (died), English king (born 1028)
1513 James IV of Scotland (died) (born 1473)
1543 Mary Stuart, at nine months old, is crowned “Queen of Scots” in the central Scottish town of Stirling.
1569 Pieter Bruegel the Elder (died), Flemish painter (born 1525)
1583 Humphrey Gilbert (died), English explorer (born 1539)
1585 Cardinal Richelieu (born), French clergyman (died 1642)
1721 Fredrik Henrik af Chapman (born), Swedish admiral and shipbuilder (died 1808)
1731 Francisco Javier Clavijero (born), Mexican priest, historian, and scholar (died 1787)
1737 Luigi Galvani (born), Italian physician and physicist (died 1798)
1739 Stono Rebellion, the largest slave uprising in Britain’s mainland North American colonies prior to the American Revolution, erupts near Charleston, South Carolina.
1754 William Bligh (born), English admiral and politician, 4th Governor of New South Wales (died 1817)
1776 The Continental Congress officially names its new union of sovereign states the United States.
1777 James Carr (born), American politician (died 1818)
1791 Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States, is named after President George Washington.
1815 John Singleton Copley (died), American-English colonial and painter (born 1738)
1823 Joseph Leidy (born), American paleontologist (died 1891)
1828 Leo Tolstoy (born), Russian author and playwright (died 1910)
1834 James Weddell (died), Belgian-English sailor and navigator (born 1787)
1834 Joseph Henry Shorthouse (born), English author (died 1903)
1839 Devil Anse Hatfield (born), American guerrilla leader (died 1921)
1839 John Herschel takes the first glass plate photograph.
1841 Augustin Pyramus de Candolle (died), Swiss botanist (born 1778)
1850 California is admitted as the thirty-first U.S. state.
1850 The Compromise of 1850 transfers a third of Texas’s claimed territory (now parts of Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Wyoming) to federal control in return for the U.S. federal government assuming $10 million of Texas’s pre-annexation debt.
1855 Anthony Francis Lucas (born), Croatian-American engineer and explorer (died 1921)
1855 Crimean War: The Siege of Sevastopol comes to an end when Russian forces abandon the city.
1863 American Civil War: The Union Army enters Chattanooga, Tennessee.
1886 The Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works is finalized.
1887 Alf Landon (born), American lieutenant, banker, and politician, 26th Governor of Kansas (died 1987)
1890 Colonel Sanders (born), American businessman, founded KFC (died 1980)
1894 Arthur Freed (born), American composer and producer (died 1973)
1901 Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (died), French painter and illustrator (born 1864)
1905 Joseph E. Levine (born), American film producer, founded Embassy Pictures (died 1987)
1907 Ernest Wilberforce (died), English bishop (born 1840)
1914 John Passmore (born), Australian philosopher (died 2004)
1914 World War I: The creation of the Canadian Automobile Machine Gun Brigade, the first fully mechanized unit in the British Army.
1915 Albert Spalding (died), American baseball player, manager, and businessman, co-founded Spalding (born 1850)
1920 Robert Wood Johnson III (born), American businessman and philanthropist (died 1970)
1923 Cliff Robertson (born), American actor, director, and screenwriter (died 2011)
1923 Daniel Carleton Gajdusek (born), American physician, Nobel Prize laureate (died 2008)
1924 Jane Greer (born), American actress and singer (died 2001)
1926 In the United States the National Broadcasting Company is formed.
1932 Sylvia Miles (born), American actress
1940 George Stibitz pioneers the first remote operation of a computer.
1941 Dennis Ritchie (born), American computer scientist, created the C programming language (died 2011)
1941 Hans Spemann (died), German embryologist, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1869)
1941 Otis Redding (born), American singer-songwriter and producer (died 1967)
1942 Danny Kalb (born), American singer and guitarist (Blues Project)
1942 Inez Foxx (born), American singer (Inez and Charlie Foxx)
1942 World War II: A Japanese floatplane drops incendiary bombs on Oregon.
1943 World War II: The Allies land at Salerno and Taranto, Italy.
1945 Dee Dee Sharp (born), American singer
1945 Second Sino-Japanese War: The Empire of Japan formally surrenders to China.
1946 Bruce Palmer (born), Canadian bass player (Buffalo Springfield and The Mynah Birds) (died 2004)
1946 Doug Ingle (born), American singer-songwriter and keyboard player (Iron Butterfly)
1947 First case of a computer bug being found: a moth lodges in a relay of a Harvard Mark II computer at Harvard University.
1947 Freddy Weller (born), American singer-songwriter and guitarist (Paul Revere & the Raiders)
1948 Kim Il-sung declares the establishment of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
1948 Pamela Des Barres (born), American actress, singer, and author (The GTOs)
1950 John McFee (born), American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer (The Doobie Brothers and Southern Pacific)
1951 Tom Wopat (born), American actor, singer, and director
1952 David A. Stewart (born), English singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer (Eurythmics, The Tourists, Vegas, Platinum Weird, and SuperHeavy)
1956 Elvis Presley appears on The Ed Sullivan Show for the first time.
1960 Hugh Grant (born), English actor and producer
1965 Hurricane Betsy makes its second landfall near New Orleans, Louisiana, leaving 76 dead and $1.42 billion ($10–12 billion in 2005 dollars) in damages, becoming the first hurricane to top $1 billion in unadjusted damages.
1965 The United States Department of Housing and Urban Development is established.
1966 Adam Sandler (born), American actor, singer, screenwriter, and producer
1966 The National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act is signed into law by U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson.
1969 In Canada, the Official Languages Act comes into force, making the French language equal to the English language throughout the Federal government.
1970 A British airliner is hijacked by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and flown to Dawson’s Field in Jordan.
1971 The four-day Attica Prison riot begins, which eventually results in 39 dead, most killed by state troopers retaking the prison.
1972 In Kentucky’s Mammoth Cave National Park, a Cave Research Foundation exploration and mapping team discovers a link between the Mammoth and Flint Ridge cave systems, making it the longest known cave passageway in the world.
1975 Michael Bublé (born), Canadian singer-songwriter and actor
1978 Jack Warner (died), Canadian-American film producer, co-founded Warner Bros. (born 1892)
1981 Jacques Lacan (died), French psychoanalyst and psychiatrist (born 1901)
1991 Tajikstan declares independence from the Soviet Union.
1993 Helen O’Connell (died), American singer, actress, and dancer (born 1920)
1993 The Palestine Liberation Organization officially recognizes Israel as a legitimate state.
1994 Patrick O’Neal (died), American actor (born 1927)
1997 Burgess Meredith (died), American actor, singer, director, and producer (born 1907)
1999 Sega releases the first 128 bit video game console the Dreamcast.
2001 At exactly 01:46:40 UTC, the Unix billenium is reached, marking the beginning of the use of 10-digit decimal Unix timestamps.
2007 Hughie Thomasson (died), American singer-songwriter and guitarist (Lynyrd Skynyrd and Outlaws) (born 1952)
2009 At exactly 9:09:09 PM, the Dubai Metro, the first urban train network in the Arabian Peninsula, is ceremonially inaugurated.
2010 A natural gas pipeline explosion in San Bruno, California, creates a “wall of fire” more than 1,000 feet (300 m) high.
2013 Alberto Bevilacqua (died), Italian director and screenwriter (born 1934)
2013 Patricia Blair (died), American actress (born 1933)
EO Smith
Latest posts by EO Smith (see all)
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- Alternative Facts and Science - 24 January, 2017