January 3

106 BC – Roman author and statesman, Marcus Cicero is born

1496 – Leonardo da Vinci unsuccessfully tests a flying machine

1521 – Martin Luther is excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church by Pope Leo X

1621 – William Tucker, believed to be the first African-American born in the New World, is born

1777 – General George Washington defeats the British at the Battle of Princeton, New Jersey

1793 – Women’s rights advocate, Lucretia Coffin Mott is born

1833 – Britain seizes control of the Falkland Islands

1834 – Stephen Austin is imprisoned in Mexico City by Mexican President Santa Ana on suspicion of inciting rebellion

1841 – Herman Melville sets sail for the South Seas on the whaler Acushnet

1861 – Delaware rejects a proposal to join the South in seceding from the Union

1868 – Samurai and anti-shogunate nobles joined together to restore Emperor Meiji to power, who went on to dismantle feudalism and enact reforms that will set up Japan as the world power that it is today

1870 – Construction on the Brooklyn Bridge begins

1883 – Prime Minister of the UK, Clement Attlee is born

1892 – English author and philologist, J.R.R. Tolkien is born

1901 – South Vietnamese president who was assassinated by his own generals, Ngo Dinh Diem is born

1903 – The Treaty of Commerce is rejected by the Bulgarian government

1907 – Welsh Academy Award-winning actor and director, Ray Milland is born

1909 – Pianist, conductor, and comedian, Victor Borge is born

1910 – The Social Democratic Congress in Germany demands universal suffrage

1911 – Director John Sturges is born

1912 – Plans are announced for a new $150,000 Brooklyn stadium for the Trolley Dodgers baseball team

1916 – Three armored Japanese cruisers are sent to guard the Suez Canal

1917 – US Army lieutenant general, deputy director of Central Intelligence, diplomat, and member of Military Intelligence Hall of Fame, Vernon A. Walters is born

1920 – The last US troops depart France

1920 – The New York Yankees acquire Babe Ruth, thus beginning the “curse of the Bambino” for the Boston Red Sox

1921 – Italy halts issuing passports for people emigrating to the US

1923 – Owner of the Houston Oilers (Tennessee Titans) football team, Bud Adams is born

1924 – King Tutankhamen’s solid gold sarcophagus is uncovered near Luxor, Egypt

1925 – Benito Mussolini dissolves the Italian parliament and becomes a dictator

1929 – Italian director, Sergio Leone is born

1930 – The second conference on Germany’s war reparations begins at Hague in the Netherlands

1931 – After a neighbor visited H.C. Coney to vent that she was unable to feed her children during the Depression and after a major drought, Coney gathered a group of men, 300-500 (different records reflect different totals) to visit the town of England to demand food for the starving people in what is known as the England Food Riot. While no violence occurred, the merchants did offer food either out of fear of the large group of men or out of generosity

1933 – The Japanese take Shuangyashan, China, killing 500 Chinese

1938 – Polio victim Franklin Roosevelt founds the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis aka the March of Dimes Foundation

1945 – General Douglas MacArthur takes command of all US ground forces and Admiral Chester Nimitz takes command of all US naval forces as the US plans attacks against Iwo Jima, Okinawa, and the Japan mainland

1946 – President Harry Truman calls on Americans to spur Congress to act on the labor crisis

1946 – American-English politician and broadcaster, William Joyce dies

1947 – Congressional proceedings are televised for the first time

1952 – Dragnet debuts

1956 – Actor, director, producer, and screenwriter, Mel Gibson is born

1957 – The first electric watch goes on sale – The Hamilton Electric 500

1958 – The British create the West Indies Federation with Lord Hailes as governor general

1958 – Sir Edmund Hillary reaches the South Pole

1959 – Alaska becomes the 49^th state

1959 – Fidel Castro takes over command of the Cuban army

1961 – The US cuts diplomatic ties with Cuba and closes the embassy in Havana

1962 – Fidel Castro is excommunicated by Pope John XXIII

1965 – Thousands of anti-government protestors in Saigon clash with police, the bulk of them Buddhists, who opposed premier Tran Van Huong, whom they saw as a puppet to America

1967 – Jack Ruby, who killed President JFK’s alleged assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, dies before his second trial

1968 –Minnesota Senator Eugene McCarthy announces his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination

1969 – Future Formula One seven-time winner, Michael Schumacher is born

1977 – Apple Computers is incorporated

1978 – North Vietnamese troops reportedly occupy 400 square miles in Cambodia to prepare for attacks against allied forces

1985 – President Ronald Reagan condemns the arson attacks on abortion clinics

1985 – The government of Israel confirms the resettlement of 10,000 Ethiopian Jews

1987 – The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducts its first woman, Aretha Franklin

1990 – Former leader of Panama, Manuel Noriega, surrenders to US forces after ten days hiding out at the Vatican embassy in Panama City to escape drug trafficking charges

1990 – Matthew Stuart tells prosecutors that his brother Charles was responsible for the murder of Charles’ wife, Carol Stuart, and her unborn child. Charles called authorities using his cell phone to declare that he and his wife had been shot while traveling through a black neighborhood. Under intense public scrutiny, the Boston PD began combing through housing projects and strip-searching black men on the streets without pretense. Charles, who was recovering from a non-life-threatening gunshot wound to the stomach, began showing interest in a female co-worker, and police overlooked it. Willie Bennett was arrested after his nephew jokingly claimed he was responsible for the murders. Charles was shown mug shots of Bennett, along with photos of clean-cut Boston police officers and Matthew Stuart, and decided the charade had gone on long enough. He had assisted Charles under the impression that it was an insurance scam, not his brother’s way of getting rid of his wife so that he could be with another woman. Upon learning that Matthew was going to flip on him, Charles jumped to his death off of the Tobin Bridge over the Mystic River and Willie Bennett was released

1993 – George H.W. Bush and Boris Yeltsin sign the second Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, aimed at reducing nuclear warheads by approximately 3,000

1993 – Backup quarterback Frank Reich leads the Buffalo Bills to a 41-38 overtime victory against the Houston Oilers in an AFC wild-card playoff game that will be immortalized as “The Comeback.”   At halftime, Houston was leading 35-3 and many Bills fans had left the game. The 32 point comeback is the largest in NFL history

1994 – In South Africa, over 7 million receive citizenship after having been denied under Apartheid policies

1996 – The first flip phone goes on sale, sold by Motorola

1999 – Mars Polar Lander launched

1999 – Over 100 people die in a blizzard in the Great Lakes region

2000 – After the death of Charles Schultz and a 50-year run, the last original weekday Peanuts comic strip is published

2003 – American football player, Sid Gillman dies

2005 – American illustrator, Will Eisner dies

2010 – American theologian and philosopher, Mary Daly dies