January 19 - Events

Events

• 379 – Emperor Gratian elevates Flavius Theodosius at Sirmium to Augustus, and gives him power over all the eastern provinces of the Roman Empire.
• 1419 – Hundred Years' War: Rouen surrenders to Henry V of England, completing his reconquest of Normandy.
• 1511 – Mirandola surrenders to the French.
• 1520 – Sten Sture the Younger, the Regent of Sweden, is mortally wounded at the Battle of Bogesund.
• 1607 – San Agustin Church in Manila is officially completed; it is the oldest church still standing in the Philippines.
• 1661 – Thomas Venner is hanged, drawn and quartered in London.
• 1764 – John Wilkes is expelled from the British House of Commons for seditious libel.
• 1788 – The second group of ships of the First Fleet arrives at Botany Bay.
• 1795 – The Batavian Republic is proclaimed in the Netherlands bringing to an end the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands.
• 1806 – The United Kingdom occupies the Cape of Good Hope.
• 1812 – Peninsular War: After a ten day siege, Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, orders British soldiers of the Light and third divisions to storm Ciudad Rodrigo.
• 1817 – An army of 5,423 soldiers, led by General José de San Martín, crosses the Andes from Argentina to liberate Chile and then Peru.
• 1829 – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Faust Part 1 receives its premiere performance.
• 1839 – The British East India Company captures Aden.
• 1840 – Captain Charles Wilkes circumnavigates Antarctica, claiming what became known as Wilkes Land for the United States.
• 1853 – Giuseppe Verdi's opera Il Trovatore receives its premiere performance in Rome.
• 1861 – American Civil War: Georgia joins South Carolina, Florida, Mississippi, and Alabama in seceding from the United States.
• 1862 – American Civil War: Battle of Mill Springs – The Confederacy suffers its first significant defeat in the conflict.
• 1871 – Franco-Prussian War: In the Siege of Paris, Prussia wins the Battle of St. Quentin. Meanwhile, the French attempt to break the siege in the Battle of Buzenval will end unsuccessfully the following day.
• 1883 – The first electric lighting system employing overhead wires, built by Thomas Edison, begins service at Roselle, New Jersey.
• 1893 – Henrik Ibsen's play The Master Builder receives its premiere performance in Berlin.
• 1899 – Anglo-Egyptian Sudan is formed.
• 1915 – Georges Claude patents the neon discharge tube for use in advertising.
• 1915 – World War I: German zeppelins bomb the towns of Great Yarmouth and King's Lynn in the United Kingdom killing more than 20, in the first major aerial bombardment of a civilian target.
• 1917 – Silvertown explosion: 73 are killed and 400 injured in an explosion in a munitions plant in London.
• 1920 – The United States Senate votes against joining the League of Nations.
• 1935 – Coopers Inc. sells the world's first briefs.
• 1937 – Howard Hughes sets a new air record by flying from Los Angeles, California to New York City in 7 hours, 28 minutes, 25 seconds.
• 1942 – World War II: Japanese forces invade Burma
• 1945 – World War II: Soviet forces liberate the Łódź ghetto. Out more than 200,000 inhabitants in 1940, less than 900 had survived the Nazi occupation.
• 1946 – General Douglas MacArthur establishes the International Military Tribunal for the Far East in Tokyo to try Japanese war criminals.
• 1949 – Cuba recognizes Israel.
• 1953 – 71.7% of all television sets in the United States are tuned in to I Love Lucy to watch Lucy give birth.
• 1960 – Japan and the United States sign the US-Japan Mutual Security Treaty
• 1969 – Student Jan Palach dies after setting himself on fire 3 days earlier in Prague's Wenceslas Square to protest the invasion of Czechoslovakia by the Soviet Union in 1968. His funeral turned into another major protest.
• 1975 – An earthquake strikes Himachal Pradesh, India
• 1977 – President Gerald Ford pardons Iva Toguri D'Aquino (a.k.a. "Tokyo Rose").
• 1977 – Snow falls in Miami, Florida. This is the only time in the history of the city that snow has fallen. It also fell in the Bahamas.
• 1978 – The last Volkswagen Beetle made in Germany leaves VW's plant in Emden. Beetle production in Latin America continues until 2003.
• 1981 – Iran Hostage Crisis: United States and Iranian officials sign an agreement to release 52 American hostages after 14 months of captivity.
• 1983 – Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie is arrested in Bolivia.
• 1983 – The Apple Lisa, the first commercial personal computer from Apple Inc. to have a graphical user interface and a computer mouse, is announced.
• 1986 – The first IBM PC computer virus is released into the wild. A boot sector virus dubbed (c)Brain, it was created by the Farooq Alvi Brothers in Lahore, Pakistan, reportedly to deter piracy of the software they had written.
• 1991 – Gulf War: Iraq fires a second Scud missile into Israel, causing 15 injuries.
• 1993 – Czech Republic and Slovakia join the United Nations.
• 1995 – After being struck by lightening the crew are forced to ditch Bristow Flight 56C. All 18 aboard are later rescued.
• 1996 – The barge North Cape oil spill occurs as an engine fire forces the tugboat Scandia ashore on Moonstone Beach in South Kingstown, Rhode Island.
• 1997 – Yasser Arafat returns to Hebron after more than 30 years and joins celebrations over the handover of the last Israeli-controlled West Bank city.
• 1999 – British Aerospace agrees to acquire the defence subsidiary of the General Electric Company plc, forming BAE Systems in November 1999.
• 2006 – A Slovak Air Force Antonov An-24 crashes in Hungary.
• 2006 – The New Horizons probe is launched by NASA on the first mission to Pluto.
• 2007 – Turkish Journalist Hrant Dink is assassinated in front of his newspaper's office by 17 year old Turkish ultra-nationalist Ogün Samast.