History Events on January 03

Boko Haram militants raze the entire town of Baga in north-east Nigeria, starting the Baga massacre and killing as many as 2,000 people.

#Boko_Haram

Stephen F. Austin receives a grant of land in Texas from the government of Mexico.

#Stephen_F._Austin

American Civil War: Delaware votes not to secede from the United States.

#American_Civil_War

Israeli-Palestinian conflict: Israeli forces seize the Palestinian freighter Karine A in the Red Sea, finding 50 tons of weapons.

#Israeli-Palestinian_conflict

The West Indies Federation is formed.

#West_Indies_Federation

In Moscow, Russia, George H. W. Bush and Boris Yeltsin sign the second Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START).

#George_H._W._Bush

American General George Washington defeats British General Lord Cornwallis at the Battle of Princeton.

#General_(United_States)

Austria, the United Kingdom, and France form a secret defensive alliance against Prussia and Russia.

#Prussia

Sino-French War: Beginning of the Battle of Núi Bop

#Sino-French_War

Alaska is admitted as the 49th U.S. state.

#Alaska

In the Battle of Bapaume, an engagement in the Franco-Prussian War, General Louis Faidherbe's forces bring about a Prussian retreat.

#Battle_of_Bapaume_(1871)

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, the central bank of the Philippines, is established.

#Bangko_Sentral_ng_Pilipinas

A fire damages the top part of the Eiffel Tower.

#Eiffel_Tower

Proceedings of the U.S. Congress are televised for the first time.

#United_States_Congress

A magnitude 7.7 earthquake destroys the city of Almaty in Russian Turkestan.

#1911_Kebin_earthquake

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.

#Baixa_de_Cassanje

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.

#Chester_W._Nimitz

Baikal Airlines Flight 130 crashes near Irkutsk, Russia, resulting in 125 deaths.

#Baikal_Airlines_Flight_130

United States invasion of Panama: Manuel Noriega, former leader of Panama, surrenders to American forces.

#United_States_invasion_of_Panama

Construction work begins on the Brooklyn Bridge in New York, United States.

#Brooklyn_Bridge

Joseph Jenkins Roberts is sworn in as the first president of Liberia.

#Joseph_Jenkins_Roberts

The SL-1 nuclear reactor is destroyed by a steam explosion in the only reactor incident in the United States to cause immediate fatalities.

#SL-1

Emperor Decius orders everyone in the Roman Empire (except Jews) to make sacrifices to the Roman gods.

#Decius

The March of Dimes is established as a foundation to combat infant polio by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

#March_of_Dimes

Flash Airlines Flight 604 crashes into the Red Sea, resulting in 148 deaths, making it one of the deadliest aviation accidents in Egyptian history.

#Flash_Airlines_Flight_604

By the Coonan Cross Oath, the Eastern Church in India cuts itself off from colonial Portuguese tutelage.

#Coonan_Cross_Oath

Meiji Restoration in Japan: The Tokugawa shogunate is abolished; agents of Satsuma and Ch?sh? seize power.

#Meiji_Restoration

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.

#Siege_of_Sidney_Street

Apple Computer is incorporated.

#Apple_Inc.

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.

#World_War_II

Frances P. Bolton and her son, Oliver from Ohio, become the first mother and son to serve simultaneously in the U.S. Congress.

#Frances_P._Bolton

Martial law is declared in Honduras to stop a revolt by banana workers fired by the United Fruit Company.

#Martial_law

More than seven million people from the former apartheid Homelands receive South African citizenship.

#Apartheid

Benito Mussolini announces he is taking dictatorial powers over Italy.

#Benito_Mussolini

Pope Leo X excommunicates Martin Luther in the papal bull Decet Romanum Pontificem.

#Pope_Leo_X

The United Kingdom claims sovereignty over the Falkland Islands.

#Falkland_Islands

Cold War: The United States severs diplomatic relations with Cuba over the latter's nationalization of American assets.

#Cold_War

The Mars Polar Lander is launched by NASA.

#Mars_Polar_Lander

Benning Wentworth issues the first of the New Hampshire Grants, leading to the establishment of Vermont.

#Benning_Wentworth

The Hamilton Watch Company introduces the first electric watch.

#Hamilton_Watch_Company

The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly, comes into force.

#International_Covenant_on_Economic,_Social_and_Cultural_Rights

Chang'e 4 makes the first soft landing on the far side of the Moon, deploying the Yutu-2 lunar rover.

#Chang'e_4

Computer analysts report two major security vulnerabilities, named "Meltdown" and "Spectre," affecting the microprocessors of almost all computers in the world.

Following the fallout caused by the execution of Nimr al-Nimr, Iran ends its diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia.

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.

Final daily edition of the Peanuts comic strip.

Pope John XXIII excommunicates Fidel Castro.

#Pope_John_XXIII

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.

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.

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.

An Atlantic coast storm sets the lowest confirmed barometric pressure reading for a non-tropical system in the continental United States.

The first issue of Berlingske, Denmark's oldest continually operating newspaper, is published.