This day in history

[Richard Frost]

1569: England draws its first lottery

Chartered by Queen Elizabeth I, the first lottery is drawn in England for benefit of "publique good workes". Later, ticketing rights will be sold to brokers, the precursor to what will one day be called stockbrokers.

[Richard Frost]

475 Basiliscus becomes Byzantine Emperor, with a coronation ceremony in the Hebdomon palace in Constantinople

1493 Last day for all Jews to leave Sicily

1528 Gustav I of Sweden crowned King of Sweden, rules for 37 years and becomes known as the "father of the nation"

1554 Bayinnaung crowned King of Burma, goes on to assemble the largest empire in the history of Southeast Asia

1598 Pope Clement VIII seizes duchy of Ferrara on death of Alfonso

1616 Brazilian city Belem (the entrance gate to the Amazon) founded by Captain Major Francisco Branco

1807 Gunpowder-ship explodes in Leiden, Netherlands, 150 die

1808 The organizational meeting that led to the creation of the Wernerian Natural History Society, a former Scottish learned society, is held in Edinburgh.

1809 British take Cayenne (French Guiana) from French (until 1814)

1816 France decrees Bonaparte family excluded from the country forever

1820 Astronomical Society of London (now the Royal Astronomical Society) founded in England

1836 HMS Beagle with Charles Darwin reaches Sydney, Australia

1866 The Royal Aeronautical Society is formed in London.

1895 The National Trust is founded in Britain.

1899 Lynmouth Lifeboat rescues 18 people from the stricken schooner Forest Hall off the coast of Devon

1906 Henry Campbell-Bannerman's cabinet (which included H. H. Asquith, David Lloyd George, and Winston Churchill) embarks on sweeping social reforms after a Liberal landslide in the British general election

1908 A long-distance radio message is sent from the Eiffel Tower for the first time.

1913 After using other pseudonyms over the years, Josef Dzhugashvili signs himself as Stalin ("man of steel") in a letter to the newspaper Social Democrat

1916 Britain proclaims Gilbert & Ellice Islands as a colony in Pacific

1939 Timely Comics (later Marvel) founded by American publisher Martin Goodman in New York

1944 British Prime Minister Winston Churchill & French General Charles de Gaulle begin a 2-day wartime conference in Marrakesh

1948 1st Supermarket in UK opens

1948 Mahatma Gandhi begins his final fast

1950 Swedish tanker rams British submarine Truculent in Thames, 64 die

1954 Queen Elizabeth II opens New Zealand parliament

1959 American record company Motown is founded by Berry Gordy Jr. as Tamla Records

1966 "Batman", starring Adam West as Batman, Burt Ward as Robin, and Cesar Romero as The Joker, debuts on ABC

1966 3 British Members of Parliament are attacked in a hotel in Salisbury, Rhodesia (now Harare, Zimbabwe)

1967 Dr. James Bedford becomes the first person to be cryonically preserved with intent of future resuscitation; remains preserved at the Alcor Life Extension Foundation

1971 2 bombs explode at UK Employment Secretary Robert Carr's home

1987 Britain's Prince Edward resigns from his Royal Marines training

1995 Murder trial against O.J. Simpson, begins in LA

1998 Nineteen European nations agree to forbid human cloning.

2004 The world's largest ocean liner, RMS Queen Mary 2, makes its maiden voyage.

2005 Deep Impact (space mission) launches from Cape Canaveral on a Delta 2 rocket.

2006 A stampede during the Stoning the Devil ritual on the last day at the Hajj in Mina, Saudi Arabia, kills at least 362 Muslim pilgrims

2006 French warship Clemenceau reaches Egypt and is barred access to the Suez Canal. Greenpeace activists board the ship.

2006 The foreign ministers of the United Kingdom, France, and Germany declare that negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program have reached a dead end and recommend that Iran be referred to the United Nations Security Council.

2010 Earthquake devastates Haiti, killing approximately 160,000 and destroying the majority of the capital Port-au-Prince

2020 Taal volcano, 70km (45 miles) south of Manila in the Philippines begins erupting prompting evacuations

2022 UK PM Boris Johnson admits he attended a "bring your own booze" staff party in May 2020 during the country's first lockdown

[Richard Frost]

532 Nika riots begin in Constantinople, a revolt against Byzantine Emperor Justinian I that leaves half the city burned and thousands dead. The riots were prompted by the failed execution of chariot racing supporters and only stopped after Empress Theodora refused to flee, forcing her husband to act decisively.

888 Odo (Eudes), Count of Paris, succeeds Charles III the Fat to become King of West Francia (888-898)

1099 Crusaders set fire to Mara, Syria

1404 The Act of Multipliers is passed by the English Parliament forbidding alchemists to use their knowledge to create precious metals (it was feared that if any alchemist should succeed it would bring ruin upon the state)

1607 The Bank of Genoa fails after announcement of national bankruptcy in Spain

1610 Galileo Galilei discovers Callisto, 4th satellite of Jupiter

1695 Jonathan Swift ordained an Anglican priest in Ireland

1822 The design of the Greek flag is adopted by the First National Assembly at Epidaurus

1840 The steamship Lexington burns and sinks four miles off the coast of Long Island with the loss of 139 live

1842 Dr. William Brydon, a surgeon in the British Army during the First Anglo-Afghan War, becomes famous for (reputedly) being the sole survivor of an army of 16,500 when he reaches the safety of a garrison in Jalalabad.

1893 British Independent Labour Party forms (Keir Hardie as its leader)

1908 Henri Farman becomes the first person to fly an observed circuit of more than 1km, winning the Grand Prix d'Aviation

1915 Earthquake in Avezzano, Italy kills 29,800

1915 Winston Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty, presents plan for assault on Dardanelles

1917 Ammunitions ship explosion at Ekonomiia port near Archangel, Russia kills many and injures hundreds

1917 Train at Ciurea station in Romania catches fire and explodes, between 800-1,000 die, making it the third worst rail accident in history

1920 NY Times editorial (falsely) reports rockets can never fly

1923 Taking advantage of the chaotic condition of Germany, Hitler stages a demonstration of 5000 storm troopers and denounces the 'November crime'

1938 The Church of England accepts the theory of evolution

1939 The Black Friday bush fires burn 20,000 square kilometres of land in Australia, claiming the lives of 71 people.

1943 Adolf Hitler declares "Total War" against the Allies

1943 British Prime Minister Winston Churchill arrives in Casablanca, French Morocco for a conference of Allied forces in World War II

1958 9,000 scientists of 43 nations petition UN for nuclear test ban

1962 Chubby Checker's song "The Twist", credited with starting the Twist dance craze, goes to #1 in the charts two years after first reaching number one spot

1964 Hindu-Muslim rioting breaks out in the Indian city of Calcutta - now Kolkata - resulting in the deaths of more than 100 people.

1976 American inventor Ray Kurzweil and the National Federation of the Blind unveil the Kurzweil Reading Machine, the first omni-font optical character recognition system

1978 NASA select its first American women astronauts

1979 YMCA files libel suit against Village People's YMCA song

1982 Air Florida 737 took off in a snowstorm, crashes into 14th St Bridge in Washington, D.C., & falls into Potomac River, killing 78

1985 Express train derails in Ethiopia, killing at least 428

1989 British comedy sketch show series "A Bit of Fry and Laurie" starring Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie debuts on BBC1

2001 Earthquake measuring magnitude 7.6 strikes El Salvador, killing more than 840 people

2004 Harold Shipman, a British GP who is believed to have killed more than 200 of his patients in Manchester, is found hanged in his prison cell

2020 Oldest material existing on earth at 7.5 billion years old revealed by scientists studying the Murchison meteorite that fell to earth in Australia in 1960s

2020 Queen Elizabeth II issues a statement saying she reluctantly supports Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's wish to live a more independent life

2021 Irish PM Minister Micheal Martin issues apology for treatment of unmarried mothers and babies in church-run institutions 1920-1990s after report 9,000 children had died

2021 World's oldest known cave painting of an animal - a pig, 45,000 years old, discovered in Leang Tedongnge cave, island of Sulawesi, Indonesia

2022 Australia equals hottest temperature on record of 50.7C (123.26F) in Onslow, Western Australia

2022 Britain's Prince Andrew stripped of his military titles and royal patronages by Buckingham Palace, amid continuing sexual assault allegations

[Richard Frost]

Continental Congress ratifies the Treaty of Paris, ending the American Revolution

On January 14, 1784, the Continental Congress ratifies the Treaty of Paris, ending the War for Independence.

In the document, which was known as the Second Treaty of Paris because the Treaty of Paris was also the name of the agreement that had ended the Seven Years’ War in 1763, Britain officially agreed to recognize the independence of its 13 former colonies as the new United States of America.

In addition, the treaty settled the boundaries between the United States and what remained of British North America. U.S. fishermen won the right to fish in the Grand Banks, off the Newfoundland coast, and in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence. Both sides agreed to ensure payment to creditors in the other nation of debts incurred during the war and to release all prisoners of war. The United States promised to return land confiscated during the war to its British owners, to stop any further confiscation of British property and to honour the property left by the British army on U.S. shores, including Negroes or slaves. Both countries assumed perpetual rights to access the Mississippi River.

Despite the agreement, many of these issues remained points of contention between the two nations in the post-war years. The British did not abandon their western forts as promised and attempts by British merchants to collect outstanding debts from Americans were unsuccessful as American merchants were unable to collect from their customers, many of whom were struggling farmers.

In Massachusetts, where by 1786 the courts were clogged with foreclosure proceedings, farmers rose in a violent protest known as Shay’s Rebellion, which tested the ability of the new United States to maintain law and order within its borders and instigated serious reconsideration of the Articles of Confederation.

[Richard Frost]

588 BC Nebuchadrezzar II of Babylon lays siege to Jerusalem under Zedekiah's reign. The siege lasts until July 23, 586 BC.

69 Otho seizes power in Rome, proclaiming himself Emperor, only rules for three months before committing suicide

1346 Emperor Louis IV of Bavaria gives his wife Margaretha, Holland and Zealand

1535 King Henry VIII declares himself head of the Church in England

1559 Elizabeth I crowned Queen of England in Westminster Abbey

1582 Russia cedes Livonia & Estonia to Poland, loses access to Baltic

1759 British Museum opens in Montague House, London

1797 1st top hat worn by John Etherington of London

1861 Steam elevator patented by Elisha Otis

1902 Abdulaziz Ibn Saud leads 40 men over the walls of Riyadh and takes the city, marking the beginning of the Third Saudi State

1919 Two million gallons of molasses flood Boston Massachusetts in the "Great Molasses Flood" when a storage tank burst, drowning 21 and injuring 150

1922 Arthur Griffith is elected president of the Irish Free State after Eamon de Valera resigns in opposition to the Anglo-Irish Treaty (De Valera will lead a military opposition seeking a unified and independent Ireland)

1934 8.4 earthquake in India/Nepal, 10,700 die

1934 While robbing the First National Bank in East Chicago, Indianapolis, John Dillinger is shot several times by officer William O'Malley, but survives because he is wearing a bullet proof vest.

1935 300 Dutch ice cream salesmen protest against Italian competition

1951 "Cloud of Death" rolls down Mount Lamington, New Guinea kills 3-5,000

1962 Coco the Clown [Nicolai Poliakoff] is the subject of the BBC TV programme "This is Your Life"

1969 Prime Minister of Northern Ireland Terence O'Neill announces that an official inquiry will analyse the 'troubles' in Northern Ireland

1970 Muammar Gaddafi is proclaimed premier of Libya

1970 Riots break out in the Ardoyne area of Belfast

1984 Tony Benn, described as a “left wing rebel” wins Labour's nomination for the by-election in Chesterfield, UK

1991 Elizabeth II signs letters patent that allows Australia to institute its own Victoria Cross, the first Commonwealth realm to do so

1992 Cleaning woman finds intimate photos of Sarah Ferguson with US man

1993 7.5 earthquake strikes northern Japan, killing 2 people

1994 Queen Elizabeth falls off her horse & breaks her left wrist

1997 Diana, Princess of Wales, calls for an international ban on landmines, angering ministers in the UK

2019 Beginning of humanity's largest gathering, the Kumbh Mela Hindu festival with 15 million people bathing at the joining of Ganges and Yamuna rivers, India. 120 million expected over next 49 days.

2019 Plastic will outweigh fish in the world's oceans by 2050 according to report by the World Economic Forum

2019 Theresa May's Brexit deal with the EU is rejected by UK parliament 432 votes to 202, largest parliamentary defeat in its democratic era

2022 Underwater volcano Hunga-Tonga Hunga-Ha'apai violently erupts with 20km ash plume, sending tsunami over nearby Tonga, with shock waves heard in New Zealand

[Richard Frost]

16th January

27 BC The title Augustus is bestowed upon Gaius Julius Caesar Octavian by the Roman Senate

550 Gothic War (535-552): The Ostrogoths, under King Totila, conquer Rome after a long siege, by bribing the Isaurian garrison

929 Caliphate of Cordoba is established by Emir Abd-al-Rahman III

1120 The Council of Nablus is held, establishing the earliest surviving written laws of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem

1362 A great storm tide in the North Sea destroys the German island of Strand and the city of Rungholt

1493 Christopher Columbus leaves the New World and sets sail for Spain

1501 Portuguese navigator Pedro Álvares Cabral and 6 ships begin their return voyage to Lisbon

1531 English Reformation parliament's 2nd sitting

1547 Ivan IV the Terrible, aged 17, crowns himself the 1st tsar of Moscow

1556 Holy Roman Emperor Charles V abdicates his role as King of Spain and appoints his son Philip II of Spain

1572 Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk is tried for treason for his part in the Ridolfi plot to restore Catholicism in England

1581 English parliament passes laws against Catholicism

1707 The Act of Union is ratified by the Scottish Parliament

1749 Hoax article advertising fictitious theatrical performer "The Bottle Conjuror" drew huge crowds to the Haymarket Theatre, London, whose inevitable non-appearance caused a riot. It's alleged the Duke of Montagu perpetrated the fiasco to win a bet

1756 Britain & Prussia sign Treaty of Westminster

1761 The British capture Pondicherry, India, from the French.

1780 Battle of Cape St Vincent: British fleet under Admiral Sir George Rodney defeats Spanish squadron under Don Juan de Lángara

1793 French King Louis XVI sentenced to death by the National Convention during the French Revolution

1809 Peninsular War: The British defeat the French at the Battle of Corunna

1832 Charles Darwin lands at Porto Prayo in the Cape Verde islands, the first landing of his HMS Beagle voyage

1862 Hartley Colliery in Northumberland disaster results in 204 deaths

1913 British House of Commons accepts Home Rule for Ireland (but the Great War gets in the way of it happening)

1917 "Zimmermann Telegram" is sent from Germany to Mexico, stating in the event of the US entering World War I on the allied side, Mexico would be given Texas, Arizona and New Mexico. Intercepted by British intelligence and partially deciphered by the next day. It's release in March shifts US public opinion in favour of war against Germany.

1924 British Government of Stanley Baldwin resigns

1945 Adolf Hitler moves into the Fuhrerbunker, his underground bunker in Berlin

1961 Russian espionage ring detected in Great Britain

1980 Paul McCartney is arrested at Tokyo International Airport for possession of marijuana; he is sent to jail for nine days before being deported

2001 A fuel supply tanker runs aground off the island of San Cristobal, causing an 'ecological disaster'

2002 UN Security Council unanimously establishes an arms embargo and freezes assets of Osama bin Laden, Al-Qaida, and the members of the Taliban

2016 First ever flower grown in space - a zinnia aboard the International Space Station using NASA Veggie system

2019 UK Prime Minister Theresa May wins vote of no confidence in her government 325 to 306

2021 10 Nepali climbers become the first to reach the summit of K2 in winter on the China-Pakistan border

2021 India begin the vaccination of its 1.3 billion people for COVID-19

[macliam]

16th January

1913 British House of Commons accepts Home Rule for Ireland (but the Great War gets in the way of it happening)

An oft overlooked cause of the Anglo-Irish war..... after years of debate, Home Rule was officially sanctioned by Parliament, but the outbreak of WW1 gave opponents the opportunity to bury it.

Nonetheless, thousands of Irish Volunteers answered the appeal of John Redmond MP (leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party) to fight in defence of a small nation like Belgium as vindication of their own country’s right to freedom...

A minority refused - and formed the core of those who rebelled in Easter 1916, but beyond that there were no real hostilities for the rest of the war period. However, in the 1918 elections, due to the lack of movement on Home rule, the Irish Parliamentary Party lost all but 6 seats of the 73 seats they held in the 1910 election - and the republican Sinn Féin party gained 73 of the 105 Irish seats. However, Sinn Féin refused to sit in Parliament (as they would not swear allegiance to the king) and formed the first Dáil Éireann (Assembly of Ireland) proclaiming an Irish republic.

Westminster's refusal to recognize the outcome of the election as a call for independence led Sinn Féin to assemble many returned veterans from WW1 into the Army of the Irish Republic...... and the Anglo-Irish war commenced in January 1919. Three years later, on this same date in 1922, Michael Collins took control of Dublin Castle (the centre of British rule in Ireland) from the British authorities on behalf of the new Irish Free State.

[Richard Frost]

17 January 1966

The 1966 Palomares B-52 crash, also called the Palomares incident, occurred on 17 January 1966, when a B-52G bomber of the United States Air Force's Strategic Air Command collided with a KC-135 tanker during mid-air refueling at 31,000 feet (9,450 m) over the Mediterranean Sea, off the coast of Spain. The KC-135 was destroyed when its fuel load ignited, killing all four crew members. The B-52G broke apart, killing three of the seven crew members aboard.

At the time of the accident, the B-52G was carrying four B28FI Mod 2 Y1 thermonuclear (hydrogen) bombs, all of which fell to the surface. Three were found on land near the small fishing village of Palomares in the municipality of Cuevas del Almanzora, Almería, Spain. The non-nuclear explosives in two of the weapons detonated upon impact with the ground, resulting in the contamination of a 0.77-square-mile (2 km2) area with radioactive plutonium. The fourth, which fell into the Mediterranean Sea, was recovered intact after a search lasting two and a half months.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1966_Palomares_B-52_crash

[Richard Frost]

Post-World War I peace conference begins in Paris

On January 18, 1919, in Paris, France, some of the most powerful people in the world meet to begin the long, complicated negotiations that would officially mark the end of the First World War.

Leaders of the victorious Allied powers—France, Great Britain, the United States and Italy—would make most of the crucial decisions in Paris over the next six months. For most of the conference, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson struggled to support his idea of a “peace without victory” and make sure that Germany, the leader of the Central Powers and the major loser of the war, was not treated too harshly. On the other hand, Prime Ministers Georges Clemenceau of France and David Lloyd George of Britain argued that punishing Germany adequately and ensuring its weakness was the only way to justify the immense costs of the war. In the end, Wilson compromised on the treatment of Germany in order to push through the creation of his pet project, an international peacekeeping organization called the League of Nations.

Representatives from Germany were excluded from the peace conference until May, when they arrived in Paris and were presented with a draft of the Versailles Treaty. Having put great faith in Wilson’s promises, the Germans were deeply frustrated and disillusioned by the treaty, which required them to forfeit a great deal of territory and pay reparations. Even worse, the infamous Article 231 forced Germany to accept sole blame for the war. This was a bitter pill many Germans could not swallow.

The Treaty of Versailles was signed on June 28, 1919, five years to the day after a Serbian nationalist’s bullet ended the life of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand and sparked the beginning of World War I. In the decades to come, anger and resentment of the treaty and its authors festered in Germany. Extremists like Adolf Hitler’s National Socialist (Nazi) Party capitalized on these emotions to gain power, a process that led almost directly to the exact thing Wilson and the other negotiators in Paris in 1919 had wanted to prevent—a second, equally devastating global war.

[Richard Frost]

379 Theodosius installed as co-emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire by Emperor Gratian

1363 English King Edward III introduces his Sumptuary Laws, restricting what people ate and wore to preserve social status (largely ignored)

1419 French city of Rouen surrenders to Henry V in Hundred Years' War

1492 Supplies to build Portuguese trading post Castelo de São Jorge da Mina (Elmina Castle) arrive on the Gold Coast (now Ghana), first European building south of the Sahara

1493 France cedes Roussillon & Cerdagne to Spain by treaty of Barcelona

1511 Italian city Mirandola surrenders to the French

1520 Sten Sture the Younger, Regent of Sweden, is mortally wounded at the Battle of Bogesund

1547 Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, is executed in the Tower of London for treason

1668 King Louis XIV (The Sun King) & Emperor Leopold I sign treaty dividing Spain

1714 Richard Steele publishes "Crisis" defending Hanoverian success

1746 "Bonnie Prince Charlie", (Pretender to the British throne) Prince Charles Edward Stuart's troops occupy Stirling.

1785 First manned balloon flight in Ireland

1795 Democratic revolution in Amsterdam ends oligarchy

1806 United Kingdom re-occupies the Cape of Good Hope following victory in the Battle of Blaauwberg over French vassal, the Batavian Republic. Establishes British rule in South Africa.

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

1825 Ezra Daggett and nephew Thomas Kensett patent food storage in tin cans

1839 Aden conquered by British East India Company

1883 The first electric lighting system employing overhead wires, built by Thomas Edison, begins service at Roselle, New Jersey

1885 Battle of Abu Kru (Battle of Gubat), Sudan: British Desert Column defeat Mahdist forces: 121 British and untold Mahdists killed

1899 Anglo-Egyptian Sudan forms

1903 1st regular transatlantic radio broadcast between US & England

1915 Neon Tube sign patented by George Claude

1915 World War I: 4 people in Norfolk are killed in the 1st German Zeppelin air raid attack on the United Kingdom

1917 The Silvertown explosion: 73 die when a munitions factory in Essex explodes.

1923 UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Stanley Baldwin and US Secretary of the Treasury Andrew Mellon agree to reschedule repayment of Britain's $4.5 billion war debt over 62 years

1927 British government decides to send troops to China

1937 Millionaire Howard Hughes sets transcontinental air record (7h 28m 25s)

1938 General Motors begins mass production of diesel engines

1941 British offensive in Eritrea

1941 British troops occupies Kassalaf, Sudan

1942 Japanese forces invade Burma

1943 1st Warsaw Ghetto Uprising begins

1943 Joint Chiefs of Staff decide on invasion in Sicily

1955 "Scrabble" debuts on board game market

1966 Indira Gandhi elected India's 4th Prime Minister

1968 Northern Ireland Prime Minister Terence O'Neill calls for "a new endeavour by organisations in Northern Ireland to cross denominational barriers and advance the cause of better community relations"

1977 Snow falls in Miami, Florida. This is the only time in the history of the city that snowfall has occurred. 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 would continue until 2003.

1983 Klaus Barbie, SS chief in Lyon in Nazi-occupied France, arrested in Bolivia

1990 Turning point in the exodus of hundreds of thousands of Kashmiri Hindus from Indian-administrated Kashmir due to violence from Muslim militants

2013 Calcium deposits are discovered on Mars by NASA’s Curiosity Rover

2013 Four climbers are killed by an avalanche in Glen Coe, Scotland

2021 The US death toll from COVID-19 passes 400,000

2021 US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says China is committing genocide in its repression of Uighurs and other Muslim people

2022 Major report on antimicrobial resistance shows 4.95m deaths worldwide associated with drug-resistant bacteria, making untreatable infections now a leading cause of death.

2022 UK PM Boris Johnson eases Omicron COVID-19 restrictions, saying the current wave of infections has peaked