January 15

588 BC – Nebuchadrezzar II of Babylon lays siege on Jerusalem

1535 – Henry VIII declares himself head of the Church of England

1559 – Queen Mary I of England, Elizabeth Tudor, is formally crowned Queen Elizabeth I at Westminster Abbey in London

1622 – French comic dramatist, Moliere (Jean Baptiste Poquelin) is born

1624 – Riots break out in Mexico when it is announced that all churches are to be closed

1716 – Singer of the Declaration of Independence, Philip Livingston, is born

1759 – The British Museum opens

1777 – New Connecticut aka Vermont, declares independence from both Britain and New York

1811 – Congress plans to annex Spanish East Florida

1823 – Civil War photographer, Mathew Brady is born

1831 – Victor Hugo completes Notre Dame de Paris, better known as The Hunchback of Notre Dame

1865 – Union troops capture Fort Fisher, North Carolina

1870 – The first recorded use of the Democratic Party donkey appears in Harper’s Weekly

 1889 – The Coca-Cola Company, which started off as the Pemberton Medicine Company, is incorporated in Atlanta, Georgia

 1892 – Canadian James Naismith publishes the rules of Basketball, a game he invented for his gym class at the YMCA in Springfield, Massachusetts

1895 – Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s ballet “Swan Lake” premieres in St. Petersburg, Russia

1906 – Greek tycoon, Aristotle Onassis is born

1908 – US physicist born in Hungary known as the “Father of the H-bomb,” Edward Teller, is born

1913 – The first telephone line between Berlin and New York begins operation

1918 – 2^nd President of Egypt, Gamal Abdel Nasser is born

1919 – Russian economist and philosopher, Rosa Luxemburg dies

1919 – Peasants in Central Russia rise up in revolt against the Bolsheviks

1919 – In Berlin, the Spartacists, a group of radicals’ efforts to launch a coup against the Social Democratic Party are suppressed, and their leaders, Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg are killed

1919 – Huge tanks of molasses burst at the US Industrial Alcohol Company, flooding the streets of Boston with burning goo and literally sweeping away freight cars and caving in buildings. 21 die and dozens more are injured, and more than 100 lawsuits will be filed against the company. Nearly $1 million was paid out in settlements as restitution for the molasses tanks not being built strong enough to contain the liquid

1920 – Selling liquor and beer becomes illegal as the Dry Law takes effect

1920 – The US approves a $150 million loan to Poland, Austria, and Armenia to aid in the war against the Russian Communists

1927 – The Dumbarton Bridge opens in San Francisco allowing the first auto traffic to cross the bay

1929 – The US ratifies the Kellogg-Briand anti-war pact

1929 – Nobel Peace Prize-winning civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. is born

1930 – Amelia Earhart sets an aviation record for women at 171 mph

1933 – The utopian Amana colonists of Iowa begin using US currency for the first time

1936 – In London, Japan quits all naval disarmament talks after being denied equality

1936 – The son of auto pioneer Henry Ford, Edsel Ford, forms the Ford Foundation

1941 – American singer and songwriter, Captain Beefheart is born

1943 – Construction on the world’s largest office building, the Pentagon, is completed

1944 – The US Fifth Army breaks the German Winter Line in Italy when it captures Mount Trocchio

1945 – Princess Michael of Kent is born

1947 – The body of American waitress Elizabeth Short, dubbed “the Black Dahlia,” is found nude, posed, scrubbed clean and drained of blood in a vacant lot near Leimert Park in Los Angeles. Her body was cut in half and mutilated severely, and her killer never found

1948 – Singer and songwriter, Ronnie Van Zant is born

1949 – Chinese Communists occupy Tientsin after a 27-hour battle with Nationalist forces

1950 – American General Henry H. Arnold dies

1951 – Ilse Koch, wife of the commandant of the Buchenwald concentration camp known as the “Witch of Buchenwald,” is sentenced to life in prison for her extreme acts of sadism against the prisoners which involved whipping, forcing them to have sex with her and murdering tattooed prisoners to make book covers, gloves and lampshades out of their skin

1953 – John Foster Dulles testifies before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, prior to taking office as the new Secretary of State, that US foreign policy must strive for the “liberation of captive peoples” living under Communist rule

1962 – At a news conference, President Kennedy was asked if US troops were fighting in Vietnam, to which he answered, “No,” even though US soldiers serving as combat advisers were being wounded and suffering casualties

1965 – Sir Winston Churchill has a severe stroke

1965 – Irish actor, James Nesbitt is born

1967 – 462 Yale faculty members call for an end to the bombing in North Vietnam

1967 – The Green Bay Packers beat the Kansas City Chiefs in the first-ever world championship game of American football, taking place at Los Angeles Coliseum

1970 – The Republic of Biafra surrenders to Nigeria

1970 – Muammar al-Qaddafi becomes premier of Libya

1972 – Struggling folk singer Don McLean’s “American Pie” reached #1 on the Billboard charts

1973 – Four of six remaining Watergate defendants plead guilty

1973 – President Richard Nixon suspends military action in North Vietnam to allow the peace talks between Henry Kissinger and North Vietnamese leader Le Duc Tho a chance to succeed

1975 – The Alvor Agreement is signed, ending the Angolan War of Independence and granting the country independence from Portugal

1976 – Sara Jane Moore is sentenced to life in prison for her botched attempt to assassinate President Gerald Ford

1981 – Hill Street Blues debuts on NBC

1982 – Prince Alexander of Yugoslavia is born

1988 – Nobel Prize-winning Irish politician, Sean MacBride dies

1991 – UN deadline for Iraq to withdraw its forces from occupied Kuwait passes, setting the stage for Operation Desert Storm

1991 – Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II approves Australia instituting its own Victoria Cross honors system, and it’s the first country in the British Commonwealth allowed to do so

1992 – Slovenia and Croatia’s independence from the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia is recognized by the international community

1993 – Television soap Santa Barbara runs its final episode after eight years and numerous awards

1994 – American singer, songwriter, and musician, Harry Nilsson dies

2001 – Wikipedia goes online

2009 – Captain Chesley Burnett Sullenberger III safely lands US Airways Flight 1549 in New York City’s Hudson River after both engines are lost due to a striking flock of geese. All 155 passengers and crew survived and due to the extraordinary amount of skill and composure demonstrated in the “Miracle on the Hudson,” Captain “Sully” received many honors