January 4

Events

• 46 BC – Julius Caesar fights Titus Labienus in the Battle of Ruspina.^[1]
• 871 – Battle of Reading: Æthelred of Wessex and his brother Alfred are defeated by a Danish invasion army.^[2]
• 1649 – English Civil War: The Rump Parliament votes to put Charles I on trial.^[3]
• 1717 – The Netherlands, Great Britain, and France sign the Triple Alliance^[4] in an attempt to maintain the Treaty of Utrecht; Britain having signed a preliminary alliance with France on November 28 (November 17, 1716).
• 1762 – Great Britain declares war on Spain, thus entering the Seven Years' War.^[5]
• 1798 – Constantine Hangerli arrives in Bucharest, Wallachia, as its new Prince, invested by the Ottoman Empire.^[6]
• 1853 – After having been kidnapped and sold into slavery in the American South, Solomon Northup regains his freedom; his memoir Twelve Years a Slave later becomes a national bestseller.^[7]
• 1854 – The McDonald Islands are discovered by Captain William McDonald aboard the Samarang.^[8]
• 1863 – The New Apostolic Church, a Christian and chiliastic church, is established in Hamburg, Germany.^[9]
• 1878 – Russo-Turkish War (1877–78): Sofia is liberated from Ottoman rule^[10] and designated the capital of Liberated Bulgaria.
• 1884 – The Fabian Society is founded in London, United Kingdom.^[11]
• 1896 – Utah is admitted as the 45th U.S. state.^[12]
• 1903 – Topsy, an elephant, is electrocuted by the owners of Luna Park, Coney Island. The Edison film company records the film Electrocuting an Elephant of Topsy's death.^[13]
• 1912 – The Scout Association is incorporated throughout the British Empire by royal charter.^[14]
• 1918 – The Finnish Declaration of Independence is recognized by Russia, Sweden, Germany and France.^[15]
• 1944 – World War II: Operation Carpetbagger, involving the dropping of arms and supplies to resistance fighters in Europe, begins.^[16]
• 1948 – Burma gains its independence from the United Kingdom becoming an independent republic,^[17] named the Union of Burma, with Sao Shwe Thaik as its first President and U Nu its first Prime Minister.
• 1951 – Korean War: Chinese and North Korean forces capture Seoul.^[18]
• 1956 – The Greek National Radical Union is formed by Konstantinos Karamanlis.^[19]
• 1958 – Sputnik 1, the first artificial Earth satellite, launched by the Soviet Union in 1957, falls to Earth from orbit.^[20]
• 1959 – Luna 1 becomes the first spacecraft to reach the vicinity of the Moon.^[21]
• 1972 – Rose Heilbron becomes the first female judge to sit at the Old Bailey in London, UK.^[22]
• 1976 – The Troubles: The Ulster Volunteer Force shoots dead six Irish Catholic civilians in County Armagh, Northern Ireland. The next day, gunmen would shoot dead ten Protestant civilians nearby in retaliation.^[23]
• 1987 – The Maryland train collision: An Amtrak train en route to Boston from Washington, D.C., collides with Conrail engines in Chase, Maryland, United States, killing 16 people.^[24]
• 1989 – Second Gulf of Sidra incident: A pair of Libyan MiG-23 "Floggers" are shot down by a pair of US Navy F-14 Tomcats during an air-to-air confrontation.^[25]
• 1990 – In Pakistan's deadliest train accident an overloaded passenger train collides with an empty freight train, resulting in 307 deaths and 700 injuries.^[26]
• 1998 – A massive ice storm hits eastern Canada and the northeastern United States, continuing through January 10 and causing widespread destruction.^[27]
• 1999 – Former professional wrestler Jesse Ventura is sworn in as governor of Minnesota, United States.^[28]
• 2004 – Spirit, a NASA Mars rover, lands successfully on Mars at 04:35 UTC.^[29]
• 2004 – Mikheil Saakashvili is elected President of Georgia following the November 2003 Rose Revolution.^[30]
• 2006 – Ehud Olmert becomes acting Prime Minister of Israel after the incumbent, Ariel Sharon, suffers a second, apparently more serious stroke.^[31]
• 2007 – The 110th United States Congress convenes, electing Nancy Pelosi as the first female Speaker of the House in U.S. history.^[32]
• 2010 – The Burj Khalifa, the current tallest building in the world, officially opens in Dubai.^[33]
• 2013 – A gunman kills eight people in a house-to-house rampage in Kawit, Cavite, Philippines.^[34]
• 2018 – Hennenman–Kroonstad train crash: A passenger train operated by Shosholoza Meyl collides with a truck on a level crossing at Geneva Station between Hennenman and Kroonstad, Free State, South Africa. Twenty people are killed and 260 injured.^[35]