This day in history

[Richard Frost]

20th January 1841

Hong Kong Island signed over to Britain

A South China deep-water harbour, and island of about 3,000 residents, is ceded to the British after its victory in the First Opium War. China regained sovereignty in 1997.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Hong_Kong

[Richard Frost]

1276 French Cardinal Pierre de Tarantaise elected head of the Catholic Church, takes the name of Pope Innocent V

1287 The treaty of San Agayz is signed. Minorca is conquered by King Alfons III of Aragon.

1522 Head inquisitor Adrian Florisz Boeyens elected pope

1525 Swiss Anabaptist Movement is born when Conrad Grebel, Felix Manz, George Blaurock, and a dozen others baptize each other in the home of Manz's mother in Zürich, breaking a thousand-year tradition of church-state union

1542 English Parliament passes bill of attainder against Queen Katherine Howard

1549 Act of Uniformity passed by the English Parliament requiring clergy use The Book of Common Prayer

1677 1st medical publication in America (pamphlet on smallpox), published in Boston

Execution of Louis XVI
1793 Louis XVI of France is executed by guillotine in Paris, following his conviction for "high treason" by the newly created French Parliament (Convention nationale), during the French Revolution

1793 Prussia & Russia sign partition treaty, dividing Poland.

1813 First reference to pineapple cultivation in Hawaii in diary entry by Francisco de Paula Marin

1846 1st edition of Charles Dickens' newspaper "The Daily News"

1863 City of Dublin leases part of Cattle Market for 100,000 years

1899 Opel manufactures its first automobile

1919 Irish militant nationalist party Sinn Féin creates its own parliament in Dublin and declares Ireland independent of Great Britain, sparking the Irish War of Independence

1920 14th Davis Cup: Australasia beats Great Britain in Sydney (4-1)

1921 British crime writer Agatha Christie publishes her first novel "The Mysterious Affair at Styles" introducing the character Hercule Poirot

1924 Vladimir Lenin's Testament is handed over to the Communist Party; it calls for changes to the Soviet governing structure and criticizes Joseph Stalin, Leon Trotsky and other members

1932 USSR and Finland stop non-attack treaty

1934 Parisian baker and "student of medieval life" Henri Littière appears in court charged with forcing his adulterous wife Juliette to wear a chastity belt. Having committed the same offence in 1932, he was sentenced to three months in prison and fined 50 francs for cruelty to his wife

1935 The Wilderness Society is founded by conservationists

1941 British communist newspaper "Daily Worker" banned

1944 447 German bombers attack London

1944 649 British bombers attack Magdeburg

1945 British troops land on Ramree, near coast of Burma

1954 USS Nautilus, the first nuclear-powered submarine, launched on the Thames River in Connecticut

1960 Rock falls traps 437 at Coalbrook, South Africa; 417 die of methane poisoning

1962 Snow falls in San Francisco

1968 US B-52 bomber with nuclear bomb on board crashes in Greenland

1969 A partial meltdown at the Lucens nuclear reactor in Switzerland seriously contaminating the cavern containing the reactor; the plant is sealed and decommissioned

1976 Supersonic Concorde has its 1st commercial flights

1979 Neptune becomes outermost planet (Pluto moves closer)

1981 Norman Stronge and his son James (both former Ulster Unionist Members of Parliament) are assassinated by the Irish Republican Army at their home Tynan Abbey, which is then burnt down

1988 US accepts immigration of 30,000 US-Vietnamese children

1997 An inquiry in North Wales names more than 80 child abusers

2008 The Eyak language in Alaska becomes extinct as its last native speaker dies

2017 More than 2 million people protest worldwide in the 'Women's March' against Donald Trump, with 500,000 marching in Washington, D.C.

2019 A light aircraft carrying EPL team Cardiff City's record signing Emiliano Sala of French club FC Nantes disappears near the Channel islands en route to Wales

2020 World's oldest asteroid impact at 2.2 billion years old found in Yarrabubba, Western Australia, may have ended an ice age, reported in "Nature Communications"

[macliam]

21 January

1919 Irish militant nationalist party Sinn Féin creates its own parliament in Dublin and declares Ireland independent of Great Britain, sparking the Irish War of Independence

An interesting adjective to use of a political party, presumably Ulster Unionisits, who were the first to threaten violence in opposition to Home Rule, are also "militant"? It is also factually incorrect. Daíl Éireann, chaired by Sean T. O’Kelly, included ALL Irish politicians elected in the 1918 GE, although the Unionists and the Irish Parliamentary Party refused to attend. Sinn Féin and the Irish Labour Party TDs met for the very first time at Mansion House in Dublin and, as part of that session, the sovereignty of the Irish Republic was declared. The Daíl (not Sinn Féin) then created the Army of the Republic (IRA) to defend the new republic and this led to the Anglo-Irish War.

1876 - James Larkin, organizer of Irish Transport and General Workers' Union and socialist politician, is born in Liverpool - an example of the impact of the Irish diaspora. Larkin formed the Irish Citizen Army to protect strikers in Dublin, but travelled to the USA in 1914, to raise funds and promote socialism. He was imprisoned in the USA as part of the "Red scare" until 1923 and on his return to ireland he became a Labour TD. Interestingly, his successor as leader of the ITGWU, James Connolly, who commanded of the Irish Citizen Army in the 1916 uprising, was born in Glasgow, another member of the diaspora.

1919 - Two armed Royal Irish Constabulary men were shot dead by IRA volunteers including Seán Treacy and Dan Breen in an ambush at Soloheadbeg, Co. Tipperary, in a raid to steal explosives. This is regarded as the first incident in the Anglo-Irish War and attacks on RIC members continue for the rest of the year.

2002 - In a change to previous policy, Sinn Féin allows it's TDs to sit in Dublin's Dáil - which saw it become a major player in the republic. However, Gerry Adams vowed that Sinn Féin MPs will never sit in the British parliament, as they move into Commons offices for the first time.

[Richard Frost]

22nd January

871 Battle of Basing: Danish invasion army beats Saxon Ethelred of Wessex

1371 King Robert II of Scotland (1371-90) is crowned, becoming the first monarch of the House of Stewart

1472 Great comet of 1471 (C/1471 Y1) becomes the closest comet in modern times, coming within 10 million kilometers of Earth

1506 The first contingent of 150 Swiss Guards arrive at the Vatican

1510 Jews are expelled from Colmar, Alsace

1517 Ottoman forces take Cairo, capital of the Mamluk Sultanate

1528 England & France declare war on Roman Emperor Charles V

1575 Queen Elizabeth I grants Thomas Tallis & William Byrd music press monopoly

1689 Lord Halifax becomes Speaker of the House of Lords

1689 Prince William of Orange (future King William III of Britain), summons Convention Parliament to discuss ruling jointly with his wife Mary (daughter of exiled King James II)

1690 Iroquois tribes renew allegiance to British against French

1760 Battle at Wandewash India: British troops beat French

1771 Spain cedes Falkland Islands to Britain

1775 Marshal Oscar von Lubomirski expels Jews from Warsaw, Poland

1816 Lord Byron completes poems "Parisina" and "Siege of Corinth"

1817 British freighter Diana sinks off Malaya

1824 Ashantis defeat British forces in the Gold Coast

1831 Charles Darwin takes his Bachelors of Art exam at Christ's College, Cambridge, coming tenth out of 171 candidates

1837 Earthquake in southern Syria kills thousands

1842 Charles Dickens arrives in Boston, Massachusetts with his wife, Catherine

1873 British SS Northfleet sinks at Dungeness, England, 300 die

1877 Arthur Tooth, an Anglican clergyman is taken into custody after being prosecuted for using ritualist practices

1879 Battle of Rorke's Drift: British garrison of 150 holds off 3,000-4,000 Zulu warriors. Eleven Victoria Crosses and a number of other decorations were awarded to the defenders.

1879 Zulu warriors attack British Army camp in Isandhlwana, South Africa

1901 Queen Victoria dies after 63-year reign. The Victorian era comes to an end as the longest-reigning monarch in British history at the time dies at 81, having ascended to the throne at 18. The Edwardian era will follow as her son takes the throne. (NB: Elizabeth 11 reigned for 70 years and 214 days)

1905 In St Petersburg, Russia, a large demonstration of workers led by Father Gapon, march to the Winter Palace with a petition to the Tsar; troops fire on protesters in what becomes known as 'Bloody Sunday'

1918 Ukraine proclaimed a free republic (German puppet)

1941 1st mass killing of Jews in Romania

1944 Allied forces begin landing at Anzio on the Italian mainland

1959 USAF concludes that less than 1% of UFOs are unknown objects

1972 An anti-internment march is held at Magilligan strand, County Derry; as the march nears the internment camp it is stopped by members of the Green Jackets and the Parachute Regiment of the British Army, who used barbed wire to close off the beach

1979 10,000s UK public sector workers go on strike

1990 Robert Tappan Morris, Jr. is convicted of releasing the 1988 Internet worm.

1992 Sarah, Duchess of York (aka Fergie) wears paper bag over her head on airline ride

2001 The British government launches pro-vaccine campaign

[macliam]

22nd January

1972 - Éamon Broy, agent for Michael Collins and later Commissioner of the Garda Síochána, died. This might be a surprise to those who saw Neil Jordan's 1996 film of Michael Collins which depicted Broy (played by Stephen Rea) being tortured and killed by the British.

1972 - The Republic of Ireland signed the treaty of accession to the European Economic Community

1997 - Death in Seattle of Lilly Kempson, aged 99, the last surviving participant of the 1916 Easter Rising. She had been a member of James Connolly's Irish Citizen Army and part of a detachment of about 100 men and women, under the command of Michael Mallin and Constance Markievicz who occupied St. Stephens Green.

[Richard Frost]

23rd January

393 Roman Emperor Theodosius I proclaims his nine year old son Honorius co-emperor

971 War elephant corps of the Southern Han defeated at Shao by crossbow fire from Song Dynasty troops; Southern Han state forced to submit to the Song Dynasty. 1st regular war elephant corps in Chinese army

1265 The meeting of barons, considered to be the first English parliament, It is considered the first English parliament in the technical sense because it was the first time that representatives to the parliament had been elected, rather than appointed. In addition, it was the first time that both knights and burgesses had attended the same parliament, an arrangement that broadened the groups represented.

1368 In a coronation ceremony, Zhu Yuanzhang ascends to the throne of China as the Hongwu Emperor, initiating Ming Dynasty rule over China that would last for three centuries.

1484 Parliament of English King Richard III opens, passes Titulus Regis, (Richard's right to the throne)

1552 2nd version of Book of Common Prayer becomes mandatory in England

1556 Shaanxi Earthquake, the deadliest ever recorded, kills 830,000 in Shaanxi Province, China

1570 Earl of Moray, regent of Scotland, assassinated; civil war breaks out

1571 Queen Elizabeth I of England & Ireland opens Royal Exchange in London

1579 Union of Utrecht signed by Northern Habsburg counties of Holland and Zeeland, and provinces of Utrecht and Groningen, marking the beginning of protestant Dutch Republic

1631 France & Sweden sign anti-German Treaty of Barwald

1643 Sir Thomas Fairfax takes Leeds for Parliamentarians in English Civil War

1668 England, Netherlands & Sweden sign Triple Alliance against French

1719 Liechtenstein became a sovereign member state of the Holy Roman Empire.

1793 2nd Partition of Poland, between Prussia & Russia

1795 War of the First Coalition: French cavalry captures 14 Dutch ships and 850 guns near the port of Den Helder - rare instance of cavalry capturing a fleet

1812 7.8 earthquake shakes New Madrid, Missouri

1833 Joseph Pease becomes the first Quaker to be admitted to the UK Parliament on his affirmation

1846 Tunisia becomes the first Arab nation to outlaw slavery in decree issued by Ahmed I Bey

1856 Steamer Pacific, leaves Liverpool on final voyage (later lost at sea, 186 on board)

1894 G. W. Bunbury of Dublin sets shorthand record of 250 wpm for 10 min

1897 Elva Zona Heaster is found dead in Greenbrier County, West Virginia. Resulting murder trial of her husband perhaps only case in US history where the alleged testimony of a ghost helped secure a conviction.

1908 US & Great Britain demand end of abuses in Congo

1909 1st radio rescue at sea during CQD distress code by the British Royal Mail steamship Republic off Nantucket Island

1912 The International Opium Convention is signed at The Hague

1924 After Stanley Baldwin's resignation, Ramsay MacDonald forms Britain's first Labour Government, climaxing 24 years of struggle by the Labour Party

1937 Karl Radek and sixteen others go on trial in Moscow as part of the Great Purge, many are sentenced to death

1943 British 8th army marches into Tripoli

1945 World War II: Karl Dönitz launches Operation Hannibal to evacuate German soldiers and civilians from Prussia by sea

1950 Israeli Knesset resolves Jerusalem is capital of Israel

1955 Express train travelling from York to Bristol derails, killing 14 and injuring many other passengers

1957 Wham-O Company produces the 1st Frisbee flying disc (originally called the "Pluto Platter" - until 1958)

1962 British intelligence officer Kim Philby defects to USSR

1968 Spy ship USS Pueblo & 83-man crew seized in Sea of Japan by North Korea

1971 Britain allowed to sell arms to S. Africa, after Commonwealth Conference in Singapore ends in compromise

1971 Riots break out in the Shankill Road area of Belfast, North Ireland

1973 Helgafell, island of Heimaey Iceland erupts for 1st time in 7,000 yrs

1973 Jordan Air crash at Kano, Nigeria kills 176 Muslim pilgrims

1973 US President Richard Nixon announces an accord has been reached to end the Vietnam War

1976 The Provisional Irish Republican Army truce of February 1975 is officially brought to an end

1978 Sweden becomes the first nation in the world to ban aerosol sprays, believed to be damaging to earth's ozone layer.

1989 100s feared dead after a powerful earthquake strikes the Soviet Central Asian republic of Tajikistan

1991 World's largest oil spill, caused by embattled Iraqi forces in Kuwait

1993 Indian Airlines B737 crashes at Aurangabad, killing 61

2003 Final communication between Earth and NASA space probe Pioneer 10 (then 7.6 billion miles (12.23 billion kilometers from Earth)

2016 8 museum workers from Egyptian Museum, Cairo referred for prosecution for reattaching Tutankhamun's beard with inappropriate glue

2018 Twelve camels disqualified from the King Abdulaziz Camel beauty contest, Saudi Arabia after their owners used botox on their lips

2020 75th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp marked by an international forum in Jerusalem, Israel

2020 China locks down the city of Wuhan and its 9 million people, in a belated but ultimately successful effort to control the city's COVID-19 epidemic

[Richard Frost]

24 January

41 Claudius succeeds his nephew Caligula as Roman Emperor after the latter's assassination by officers of the Praetorian Guard

1076 Synod of Worms: German King Henry IV fires Pope Gregory VII

1568 In Netherlands, Duke of Alva declares William of Orange an outlaw

1616 Dutch mariner Jacob Le Maire discovers Le Maire Strait, Tierra del Fuego

1634 Emperor Ferdinand II declares Albrecht von Wallenstein a traitor

1644 Parliamentary army wins battle of Nantwich, Cheshire, English Civil War

1679 King Charles II disbands English parliament

1722 Tsar Peter the Great begins civil system

1788 French La Pérouse expedition arrives in Botany Bay, Australia, meeting the newly arrived "First Fleet" penal colony

1789 Louis XVI of France issues an edict calling for the convocation of the Estates-General, a major event in the French Revolution

1839 Charles Darwin elected Fellow of the Royal Society

1900 Battle of Spion Kop: South African Boers defeat the British army after it attempts to cross the Tugela River and relieve the besieged city Ladysmith

1901 Emily Hobhouse views the British administrated concentration camp at Bloemfontein for women and children

1908 Lieutenant General Robert Baden-Powell publishes "Scouting for Boys" as a manual for self-instruction in outdoor skills and self-improvement. The book becomes the inspiration for the Scout Movement.

1915 German-British sea battle at Dogger Bank & Helgoland

1916 The Military Service Bill, calling for conscription of men for war services, passes in the British House of Commons

1924 Russian city of St Petersburg renamed Leningrad (changed back in 1991)

1939 30,000 killed by earthquake in Concepcion Chile

1939 Adventure film "Gunga Din", based on the poem by Rudyard Kipling and starring Cary Grant, Victor McLaglen, and Douglas Fairbanks Jr. is released

1941 British troops march into Abyssinia

1943 Adolf Hitler orders German troops at Stalingrad to fight to the death

1943 Jewish patients, nurses and doctors incinerated at Auschwitz-Birkenau

1945 Scottish 52nd Lowland division occupies Heinsberg

1956 An inquiry considers building homes in a war devastated area in London

1958 After warming to 100,000,000 degrees, 2 light atoms are bashed together to create a heavier atom, resulting in 1st man-made nuclear fusion

1962 28 refugees escape from East to West Germany

1962 Brian Epstein signs management contract with the Beatles

1966 117 passengers are killed after an Air India Boeing-707 plane crashes into Mont Blanc, France

1969 Deputy Prime Minister Brian Faulkner resigns from the Northern Ireland cabinet in protest at the lack of 'strong government' on the part of PM Terence O'Neill

1969 Queen Juliana of the Netherlands appointed honorary citizen of Addis Ababa

1969 Spanish dictator General Franco announces state of emergency

1969 Students protest the erection of steel gates around the London School of Economics

1972 Japanese Sgt. Shoichi Yokoi is found hiding in a Guam jungle, where he had been since the end of World War II.

1984 Apple Computer Inc unveils its revolutionary Macintosh personal computer

1985 15th Space Shuttle (51-C) Mission-Discovery 3 is launched

1986 Leon Brittan, Trade and Industry Secretary under Thatcher is 2nd cabinet minister to resign after 'Westland affair'

1989 1st reported case of AIDS transmitted by heterosexual oral sex

1993 Polish ferry boat John Heweliusz sinks, 52 killed

1993 Soyuz TM-16 launches

2006 Walt Disney International and Bob Iger announce it is buying computer animation film studio Pixar for $7.4 billion

2011 At least 35 died and 180 injured in a bombing at Moscow's Domodedovo airport.

2013 17 people are killed and 34 are injured in a bus crash in Taperas, Bolivia

2013 A Japanese Coast guard ship engages a Taiwanese activist ship in the Senkaku Islands dispute

2019 17 temperature records broken in South Australia including highest ever recorded for capital Adelaide at 46.6C

2019 Search for missing Argentine footballer Emiliano Sala is called off after rescuers fail to find aircraft that disappeared from radar over English Channel 3 days earlier; search resumes funded by soccer community donations; wreckage discovered Feb 3

2022 At least 34 people killed and 65,000 left homeless after two different tropical storms batter Madagascar and Mozambique with Madagascar's capital Antananarivo particularly affected

[macliam]

24 January 1978

The "Bonnie and Clyde" of the troubles, Dr. Rose Dugdale, a British debutante, Oxford PPE graduate, PhD turned IRA volunteer married IRA man Eddie Gallagher in Limerick Gaol whilst both were serving sentences for earlier crimes.

Dugdale and Gallagher did not follow Army Council orders but launched their own operations. In January 1974 they had attempted to bomb Strabane RUC barracks from a helicopter they had hijacked, throwing milk churns filled with explosives onto the building (neither did any damage). Then they raided Russborough House, near Dublin, and stole 19 paintings worth £8m. They demanded for £500,000 and the release of some IRA prisoners, but Dugdale was arrested 10 days later in West Cork and all the paintings recovered. Dugdale was sentenced to 9 years concurrently for the attempted bombing and the art raid and in 1975, she gave birth to her son Ruari, in prison.

In 1975, Gallagher and another activist, Marian Coyle, kidnapped Dr. Tiede Herrema, a Dutch businessman who ran a factory that employed around 1400 people in Limerick. He demanded the release of 3 prisoners, including Dugdale, but after a massive security operation across Ireland, the kidnappers were traced to a house in Monasterevin, County Kildare. After a further two-week-long siege, Herrema was released, shaken, but unharmed. Gallagher was arrested and sentenced to 20 years for his actions.

Dugdale was released from prison in 1980 and Gallagher was released in 1990, but their relationship did not survive his 14 years in prison. Gallagher returned to the North and Dugdale, now 82, continues to live in Dublin. Dr. Herrema died at the age of 99 in 2020 - he visited Gallagher and Coyle after their releases and said they were "young people who did something stupid".

[Richard Frost]

25th January

41 After a night of negotiation, Claudius is accepted as Roman Emperor by the Senate

1327 King Edward III accedes to the English throne aged 14, after his mother Isabella of France, and her lover Roger Mortimer depose his father Edward II

1348 Friuli Earthquake in |European southern Alps measuring approximately 6.9, largely destroys Villach, killing 5,000

1554 Sir Thomas Wyatt gathers an army in Kent, rebels against Queen Mary

1777 Americans drag cannon up hill of Kingsbridge Road to fight British, prompting a name change to Gun Hill Road (Bronx, New York)

1802 Napoleon Bonaparte elected president of Italian (Cisalpine) Republic

1839 Henry Fox Talbot exhibits early photographs to the Royal Institution in the UK

1840 American naval expedition under Charles Wilkes is first to identify Antarctica as a new continent

1881 Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell form the Oriental Telephone Company.

1890 Journalist Nellie Bly beats the fictitious journey of Jules Verne's Phileas Fogg around the world by 8 days (72 days)

1939 1st nuclear fission experiment (splitting of a uranium atom) in the US, in basement of Pupin Hall, Columbia University by a team including Enrico Fermi

1939 Earthquake hits Chillan Chile, 10,000 killed

1940 Nazi decrees establishment of Jewish ghetto in Lodz Poland

1955 Russia ends state of war with Germany

1955 US & Panama sign canal treaty

1971 Charles Manson & 3 women followers convicted of Tate-LaBianca murders

1971 Military coup in Uganda under Major General Idi Amin

1971 The 170 delegates of the Ulster Unionist Council (UUC) call for the resignation of Northern Ireland Prime Minister James Chichester-Clark

1974 Dr. Christiaan Barnard transplants 1st heterotopic heart transplant (adding donor heart without removal of old)

1979 1st documented case of a robot killing a human in US

1994 Accused of molesting a 13-year-old boy, Michael Jackson settles a civil lawsuit out of court

1998 Britain's Queen Mother, 97, gets an emergency hip replacement

1999 Earthquake hits Colombia, South America, killing around 300 and injuring 1000

The first colour image compiled by photos from the Spirit rover - at the time the highest quality photo taken on another planet

2005 A stampede at the Mandher Devi temple in Mandhradevi in India kills at least 258

2006 Three independent observing campaigns announce the discovery of OGLE-2005-BLG-390Lb through gravitational microlensing, the first cool rocky/icy extrasolar planet around a main-sequence star.

2010 Ethiopian Airlines Flight 409 crashes into the Mediterranean Sea shortly after take-off from Beirut Rafic Hariri International Airport, killing all 90 people on-board.

2011 Egyptian Revolution of 2011 begins with a series of street demonstrations, rallies, acts of civil disobedience, labour strikes and violent clashes in Cairo, Alexandria and other major cities

2013 6 civilians and 1 police officer are shot dead and 456 people are injured during a nationwide protest against Egypt’s 2011 revolution

2018 Doomsday clock moved by 30 seconds to 2 minutes to midnight by Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, closest since 1950s

[macliam]

25th January

>>>>>>>>

2018 Doomsday clock moved by 30 seconds to 2 minutes to midnight by Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, closest since 1950s

As of yesterday, now at 90 seconds to midnight........https://youtu.be/KxB9dM0u4mU

Good to see we're advancing, eh?