Today in History

Jan 26 (Reuters) – Following are some of the major events to have occurred on January 26:

1905 – The world’s largest diamond, the Cullinan weighing 3,106 carats, was discovered near Pretoria.

1926 – John Logie Baird demonstrates first working TV system.

1939 – In the Spanish Civil War, the Nationalist forces of General Francisco Franco captured Barcelona.

1994 – Gunman fires start pistol rounds at Britain’s Prince Charles during an event in Sydney, Australia.

1997 – Twins born record 92 days apart at Rockford Memorial Hospital in U.S.

1998 – U.S. President Bill Clinton denies “sexual relations” with intern.

2001 – An earthquake measuring 7.7 on the Richter scale struck the western Indian state of Gujarat, killing 18,000 people.

2003 – U.S. tennis star Martina Navratilova became the oldest player to win a Grand Slam when, at 46, she took the Australian Open mixed doubles title with partner Leander Paes.

2006 – The Islamist group Hamas won 74 seats in the 132-member Palestinian parliament, defeating President Mahmoud Abbas’s long-dominant Fatah which had 45 seats.

2009 – Iceland’s ruling coalition collapsed under pressure from sometimes violent demonstrations, the first government to fall as a direct result of the global economic crisis.

2015 – Greek F-16 crashes in Spain.

Jan 25 (Reuters) – Following are some of the major events to have occurred on January 25:

1947 – Al Capone, the U.S. gangster who dominated the Chicago area in the Prohibition era, died. Capone was jailed in 1931 for tax evasion, and released in 1939.

1991 – Residential building collapses in Tel Aviv after Iraqi Scud missile attack.

1996 – The Council of Europe’s parliamentary assembly voted to admit Russia to the 38-nation body.

2003 – Major demonstrations at World Economic Forum in Landquart, Switzerland.

2003 – Anti-war campaigners leave London for Baghdad to be human shields.

2004 – Mikheil Saakashvili was sworn in as president of Georgia after winning 96 percent of the vote in an election.

2005 – 258 Hindu pilgrims were crushed or burned to death in a stampede and fire during a pilgrimage to the popular Mandher Devi temple near Wai in western India.

2005 – Mexican female wrestler Juana Barraza arrested on suspicion of serial murder.

2006 – Astronomers detected the most Earth-like planet, named OGLE-2005-BLG-390Lb, around a star other than our sun, raising hopes of finding a space rock that might support life.

2009 – Student chefs in Mexico set a new world record for the biggest cheesecake.

2016 – Oslo city council begins world’s first experiment to capture carbon dioxide from the fumes of burning rubbish.

Jan 24 (Reuters) – Following are some of the major events to have occurred on January 24:

1943 – A meeting between British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt in Casablanca ended with demands for Germany’s unconditional surrender in World War Two.

1965 – Winston Churchill, statesman and British prime minister from 1940-45 and 1951-55, died.

1995 – Queen Nefret’s jewels discovered near Cairo.

2000 – Men build banana pyramid in Spain’s Canary Islands.

2000 – Britain’s EMI group PLC and Time Warner Inc announced a merger to create the world’s biggest music group.

2004 – NASA’s Opportunity rover arrived safely on Mars and sent pictures of the planet back to Earth about four hours after it landed.

2005 – The U.N. General Assembly marked its first commemoration of the liberation of Nazi concentration camps as a reminder that mass murder still threatened the world.

2009 – Thailand “Scorpion Queen” sets new record, staying 33 days with 5,000 live scorpions.

2011 – Suicide bomber attacks Moscow’s Domodedovo airport.

2016 – Hong Kong experiences coldest day in 59 years.

2018 – Gunmen storm Save the Children offices in Kabul.

Jan 20 (Reuters) – Following are some of the major events to have occurred on January 20:

1945 – Franklin Delano Roosevelt was inaugurated for a record fourth term as president of the United States.

1968 – Rotterdam Oil Refinery fire.

1981 – Ronald Reagan became president of the United States at the age of 69 years and 349 days, the oldest to take office. On the same day, 52 American hostages held by Iranian Islamic radicals in their Tehran embassy for 444 days were released.

1996 – Palestinians voted for the first time in elections that consolidated PLO chief Yasser Arafat’s rule of the West Bank and Gaza. He became the first democratically elected leader of the Palestinian people with 88.1 percent of the vote.

2001 – Vice President Gloria Arroyo was sworn in as President of the Philippines after the Supreme Court ruled that disgraced President Joseph Estrada was unfit to hold office.

2004 – Bishop Thomas O’Brien believed to be first Bishop in U.S. history to stand trial for a felony.

2006 – A Slovak military plane crashed into a snowy mountain in Hungary, killing 42 people, mostly peacekeepers from a NATO mission in Kosovo.

2009 – Hundreds of thousands gather for inauguration of first African-American U.S. President Barack Obama.

2011 – More than 120 people charged in FBI operation against Mafia.

2017 – British protesters unfurl anti-Trump banners as Donald Trump is inaugurated as U.S. President.

2018 – U.S. government shutdown after failure to agree funding.

Jan 19 (Reuters) – Following are some of the major events to have occurred on January 19:

1918 – The Russian constitutional assembly in Petrograd was dissolved by the Bolsheviks.

1938 – Hundreds died in Spain when General Franco’s forces bombed Barcelona and other cities.

1966 – Indira Gandhi was elected prime minister of India in succession to Lal Shastri who died on January 11. Shastri had succeeded Gandhi’s father, Jawaharlal Nehru.

1975 – Twenty people were injured at France’s Paris-Orly Airport in a battle which erupted after Arab gunmen attempted a grenade attack on an El Al jumbo jet and seized three hostages.

1990 – Aldo Gucci, last surviving son of fashion house founder, dies.

1991 – At least three Iraqi SCUD missiles hit Tel Aviv.

1997 – Yasser Arafat returns to Hebron after more than 30 years and joins some 25,000 people celebrating after Israel handed over control of the West Bank city.

2000 – Italy’s disgraced former Prime Minister Bettino Craxi died in exile in Tunisia.

2004 – U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean defiantly lists states where he will continue to fight for the Democratic presidential nomination.

2007 – Turkish-Armenian editor Hrant Dink, convicted a year earlier for insulting Turkey’s identity, was shot dead outside his newspaper’s offices in Istanbul.

2014 – Bomb blast in Bannu kills Pakistani soldiers.

Jan 18 (Reuters) – Following are some of the major events to have occurred on January 18:

1919 – The Versailles Peace Conference ending World War One opened. It was chaired by French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau.

1943 – After seven days of heavy fighting, Soviet troops relieved Leningrad after a 16-month German siege.

1989 – Mick Jagger, Tina Turner perform together at Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

1991 – Iraq fired at least eight missiles at Israel in an attempt to get the Jewish state involved in the Gulf War.

2003 – Protesters took to the streets from Tokyo to London to San Francisco in anti-war demonstrations fired up by speculation that a U.S.-led strike on Iraq was drawing near.

2005 – European planemaker Airbus launched the A380, hailed as the largest civil airliner ever built, capable of carrying up to 800 passengers.

2007 – Atomic scientists adjust Doomsday clock, placing hands at five minutes to midnight in light of global nuclear threat.

2007 – London’s Metropolitan Police break world record for most people handcuffed together.

2008 – Prized 2,500-year-old Euphronios Krater vase unveiled in Rome.

2010 – Mehmet Ali Agca, who tried to kill Pope John Paul II, is released from a Turkish prison.

2014 – Syrian opposition agrees to attend international peace talks.

Jan 17 (Reuters) – Following are some of the major events to have occurred on January 17:

1919 – Classical pianist Ignacy Jan Paderewski became prime minister of Poland.

1929 – United States ratifies Kellogg-Briant Pact.

1987 – King Hussein of Jordan and Pope John Paul II meet in Vatican.

1991 – In the Gulf War, U.S.-led allied forces launched “Operation Desert Storm”, an air and missile offensive against Iraqi positions.

1994 – Los Angeles earthquake leaves dozens dead.

1995 – More than 6,400 people were killed when an earthquake measuring 7.2 on the Richter scale hit Kobe, Japan.

2002 – Hundreds of thousands displaced in DRC as Mount Nyiragongo volcano erupts.

2004 – Todd Woodbridge sets world record for doubles titles in Sydney.

2008 – Bobby Fischer, the eccentric genius who became America’s only world chess champion by humbling the Soviet Union’s best, but who spent his last years as a fugitive from U.S. authorities, died.

2014 – California governor declares drought emergency in driest year on record.

2015 – Workers in Cairo attempt to prepare the world’s biggest plate of Koshary, a popular Egyptian dish.

Jan 14 (Reuters) – Following are some of the major events to have occurred on January 14:

1923 – Funeral for King Constantine I of Greece.

1953 – Marshal Josip Broz Tito was elected first president of the Republic of Yugoslavia.

1957 – Humphrey Bogart, whose films included “The Maltese Falcon” and “Casablanca”, died; he won an Oscar for his role in “The African Queen”.

1993 – British boxer Lennox Lewis holds his WBC heavyweight champion belt for the first time after former holder Riddick Bowe relinquished the title.

2003 – Tens of thousands demonstrated in Nicosia in the biggest demonstration in Turkish Cypriot history, demanding an end to decades of isolation.

2004 – President Bush outlined a dramatic shift in U.S. space policy targeting a return to the moon and eventual manned mission to Mars.

2004 – Georgia restores national “five-cross flag” after 500 year hiatus.

2008 – Experts at the Heidelberg University library say dated notes scribbled in the margins of a book by its owner in October 1503 confirm once and for all that Lisa del Giocondo was indeed the model for the “Mona Lisa” in Leonardo da Vinci’s famous portrait.

2009 – Actor Ricardo Montalban, best known as the debonair and mysterious Mr. Roarke on the popular television series “Fantasy Island”, died.

2011 – Tunisian President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali flees after mass protests.

2012 – First graduation ceremony at Opray Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls outside Johannesburg, South Africa.

Jan 13 (Reuters) – Following are some of the major events to have occurred on January 13:

1915 – 30,000 people died in a huge earthquake which struck the central Italian town of Avezzano.

1941 – Irish author James Joyce, whose works included the masterpiece “Ulysses”, died in Zurich, Switzerland.

1991 – In a crackdown on rebel Lithuania, Soviet troops backed by tanks stormed the main television station in the capital Vilnius, killing at least 11 people.

1998 – France marks 100 years since J’Accuse editorial.

2001 – A magnitude 7.6 earthquake shook Central America, with an epicentre just south of San Salvador. At least 725 people were killed.

2003 – Mariah Carey receives commemorative award marking more than 100 gold, platinum and multi-platinum certifications through her career.

2004 – Britain’s most prolific serial killer, Harold Shipman, convicted in 2000 of murdering 15 of his patients, was found hanged in his cell.

2005 – Mark Thatcher, son of former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, pleaded guilty to a role in a foiled coup in Equatorial Guinea under a plea bargain that spared him prison.

2012 – Cruise liner Costa Concordia runs aground near Italian island of Giglio, killing 32 people.

2018 – Saudi Arabia announces women can attend soccer matches.

2018 – False nuclear alarm raised in Hawaii.

Jan 12 (Reuters) – Following are some of the major events to have occurred on January 12:

1932 – Hattie Caraway becomes first woman elected to U.S. Senate.

1950 – A Swedish tanker struck the British submarine Truculent during the submarine’s trials in the River Thames. Fifty-five of the 70 men on the submarine died.

1964 – One month after Zanzibar became independent, the ruling Zanzibar National Party government was overthrown in a coup.

1976 – Dame Agatha Christie, queen of the detective story and creator of detectives Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple, died.

1997 – Cristina Sanchez becomes first ever fully-fledged female bullfighter to don a sequinned “suit of lights”.

1999 – Mark McGwire’s record-setting 70th home run ball sells for $2.7 million.

2002 – The former U.S. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance died.

2002 – British experts arrive in Kabul on rescue mission to save some of Afghanistan’s animal war victims.

2003 – The former Argentinian military dictator General Leopoldo Galtieri died.

2004 – The world’s largest cruise ship, the $800 million Queen Mary 2, set off across the Atlantic on its maiden voyage.

2006 – 362 Muslim pilgrims were crushed to death during a stoning ritual at the annual Haj pilgrimage in Mena, Saudi Arabia.