On This Day

474 – Zeno is crowned as co-emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire^[1]

1003 – Boleslaus III is restored to authority with armed support from Bolesław I the Brave of Poland.

1098 – A First Crusade army led by Bohemond of Taranto wins a major battle against the Seljuq emir Ridwan of Aleppo during the siege of Antioch.^[2]

1539 – The first recorded race is held on Chester Racecourse, known as the Roodee.^[3]

1555 – Bishop of Gloucester John Hooper is burned at the stake.^[4]

1621 – Gregory XV becomes Pope, the last Pope elected by acclamation.^[5]

1654 – The Capture of Fort Rocher takes place during the Anglo-Spanish War.^[6]

1775 – American Revolutionary War: The British Parliament declares Massachusetts in rebellion.^[7]

1778 – Rhode Island becomes the fourth US state to ratify the Articles of Confederation.^[8]

1822 – Haiti attacks the newly established Dominican Republic on the other side of the island of Hispaniola.^[9]

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 sixth President of the United States in a contingent election.

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 Provisional Confederate Congress 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.

1893 – Verdi's last opera, Falstaff premieres at La Scala, Milan.^[10]

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 the Americas, 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 Việt Nam Quốc Dân Đảng assassinate the labor recruiter Bazin, prompting a crackdown by French colonial authorities.^[11]

1932 – Prohibition law is abolished in Finland after a national referendum, where 70% voted for a repeal of the law.^[12][13]

1934 – The Balkan Entente is formed between Greece, Romania, Yugoslavia, and Turkey.

1941 – World War II: Bombing of Genoa: The Cathedral of San Lorenzo in Genoa, Italy, is struck by a bomb which fails to detonate.

1942 – Year-round Daylight saving time (aka War Time) is reinstated in the United States as a wartime measure to help conserve energy resources.^[14]

1943 – World War II: Pacific War: 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 attack 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.^[15]

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.

1961 – The Beatles at the Cavern Club: Lunchtime – The Beatles perform under this name at The Cavern Club for the first time following their return to Liverpool from Hamburg.^[16]

1964 – The Beatles make their first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, performing before a record-setting audience of 73 million viewers across the United States.

1965 – Vietnam War: 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 M_w  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 human 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.^[17]

1978 – The Budd Company unveils its first SPV-2000 self-propelled railcar in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

1982 – Japan Air Lines Flight 350 crashes near Haneda Airport in an attempted pilot mass murder-suicide, killing 24 of the 174 people on board.^[18]

1986 – Halley's Comet last appeared in the inner Solar System.

1987 – Civil unrest broke out across Palestine.^[19]

1991 – Dissolution of the Soviet Union: Voters in Lithuania vote for independence from the Soviet Union.

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.^[20]

2001 – The Ehime Maru and USS Greeneville collision takes place, killing nine of the thirty-five people on board the Japanese fishery high-school training ship Ehime Maru, leaving the USS Greeneville (SSN-772) with US $2 million in repairs, at Pearl Harbor.^{[21][22][23][24][25]}

2016 – Two passenger trains collide in the German town of Bad Aibling in the state of Bavaria. Twelve people die and 85 others are injured.^[26]

2018 – Winter Olympics: Opening ceremony is performed in Pyeongchang County in South Korea.^[27]

2020 – Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele has the army soldiers enter the Legislative Assembly to assist in pushing for the approval for a better government security plan, causing a brief political crisis.^[28]

2021 – Second impeachment trial of Donald Trump begins.^[29]

2025 - The Baltic states synchronize their electric power transmission infrastructure with the Continental Europe Synchronous Area (CESA), in objective to disconnect from the Russo-Belarussian agreement to use the IPS/UPS system.^[30]