Historical Events on January 3, Facts & Special Events On This Day - CalendarZ

Historical Events on January 3

1521
Pope Leo X excommunicates Martin Luther in the papal bull Decet Romanum Pontificem.
1653
By the Coonan Cross Oath, the Eastern Church in India cuts itself off from colonial Portuguese tutelage.
1749
Benning Wentworth issues the first of the New Hampshire Grants, leading to the establishment of Vermont.
1749
The first issue of Berlingske, Denmark's oldest continually operating newspaper, is published.
1777
American General George Washington defeats British General Lord Cornwallis at the Battle of Princeton.
1815
Austria, the United Kingdom, and France form a secret defensive alliance against Prussia and Russia.
1823
Stephen F. Austin receives a grant of land in Texas from the government of Mexico.
1848
Joseph Jenkins Roberts is sworn in as the first president of Liberia.
1861
American Civil War: Delaware votes not to secede from the United States.
1868
Meiji Restoration in Japan: The Tokugawa shogunate is abolished; agents of Satsuma and Chōshū seize power.
1870
Construction of the Brooklyn Bridge begins.
1871
Battle of Bapaume, a battle in the Franco-Prussian war occurs.
1885
Sino-French War: Beginning of the Battle of Núi Bop
1888
The James Lick telescope at the Lick Observatory, measuring 91 cm in diameter, is used for the first time. It was the largest refracting telescope in the world at the time.
1911
A magnitude 7.7 earthquake destroys the city of Almaty in Russian Turkestan.
1911
A gun battle in the East End of London left two dead and sparked a political row over the involvement of then-Home Secretary Winston Churchill.
1913
An Atlantic coast storm sets the lowest confirmed barometric pressure reading for a non-tropical system in the continental United States.
1919
At the Paris Peace Conference, Emir Faisal I of Iraq signs an agreement with Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann on the development of a Jewish homeland in Palestine.
1925
Benito Mussolini announces he is taking dictatorial powers over Italy.
1932
Martial law is declared in Honduras to stop a revolt by banana workers fired by the United Fruit Company.
1933
Minnie D. Craig becomes the first woman elected as Speaker of the North Dakota House of Representatives, the first woman to hold a Speaker position anywhere in the United States.
1938
The March of Dimes is established by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
1944
World War II: Top Ace Major Greg "Pappy" Boyington is shot down in his Vought F4U Corsair by Captain Masajiro Kawato flying a Mitsubishi A6M Zero.
1945
World War II: Admiral Chester W. Nimitz is placed in command of all U.S. Naval forces in preparation for planned assaults against Iwo Jima and Okinawa in Japan.
1946
Popular Canadian American jockey George Woolf dies in a freak accident during a race; the annual George Woolf Memorial Jockey Award is created to honor him.
1947
Proceedings of the U.S. Congress are televised for the first time.
1949
The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, the central bank of the Philippines, is established.
1953
Frances P. Bolton and her son, Oliver from Ohio, become the first mother and son to serve simultaneously in the U.S. Congress.
1956
A fire damages the top part of the Eiffel Tower.
1957
The Hamilton Watch Company introduces the first electric watch.
1958
The West Indies Federation is formed.
1959
Alaska is admitted as the 49th U.S. state.
1961
The United States severs diplomatic relations with Cuba over the latter's nationalization of American assets.
1961
The SL-1 nuclear reactor is destroyed by a steam explosion in the only reactor incident in the United States to cause immediate fatalities.
1961
A protest by agricultural workers in Baixa de Cassanje, Portuguese Angola, turns into a revolt, opening the Angolan War of Independence, the first of the Portuguese Colonial Wars.
1962
Pope John XXIII excommunicates Fidel Castro.
1976
International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights entered into force.
1977
Apple Computer is incorporated.
1990
Manuel Noriega, former leader of Panama, surrenders to American forces.
1993
In Moscow, Russia, George Bush and Boris Yeltsin sign the second Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START).
1994
More than seven million people from the former apartheid Homelands receive South African citizenship.
1999
The Mars Polar Lander is launched.
2000
Final daily Peanuts comic strip.
2002
Israeli forces seize the Palestinian freighter Karine A in the Red Sea, finding 50 tons of weapons.
2004
Flash Airlines Flight 604 crashes into the Red Sea, resulting in 148 deaths, making it one of the deadliest aviation accidents in Egyptian history.
2009
The first block of the blockchain of the decentralized payment system Bitcoin, called the Genesis block, was established by the creator of the system, Satoshi Nakamoto.
2015
Boko Haram militants raze the entire town of Baga in north-east Nigeria, starting the 2015 Baga massacre and killing as many as 2,000 people.

January 3 Birthdays

January 3 Deaths