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Events

• 38 BC – Octavian marries Livia Drusilla.
• 1287 – King Alfonso III of Aragon invades Minorca.
• 1377 – Pope Gregory XI moves the Papacy back to Rome from Avignon.
• 1524 – Beginning of Giovanni da Verrazzano's voyage to find a passage to China.
• 1562 – France recognizes the Huguenots under the Edict of Saint-Germain.
• 1595 – Henry IV of France declares war on Spain.
• 1605 – First publication of Don Quixote.
• 1608 – Emperor Susenyos of Ethiopia surprises an Oromo army at Ebenat; his army reportedly kills 12,000 Oromo at the cost of 400 men.
• 1648 – England's Long Parliament passes the Vote of No Addresses, breaking off negotiations with King Charles I and thereby setting the scene for the second phase of the English Civil War.
• 1773 – Captain James Cook and his crew become the first Europeans to sail below the Antarctic Circle.
• 1781 – American Revolutionary War: Battle of Cowpens – Continental troops under Brigadier General Daniel Morgan defeat British forces under Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton at the battle in South Carolina.
• 1799 – Maltese patriot Dun Mikiel Xerri, along with a number of other patriots, is executed.
• 1852 – The United Kingdom recognizes the independence of the Boer colonies of the Transvaal.
• 1873 – A group of Modoc warriors defeat the United States Army in the First Battle of the Stronghold, a part of the Modoc War.
• 1885 – A British force defeats a large Dervish army at the Battle of Abu Klea in the Sudan.
• 1893 – The Citizen's Committee of Public Safety, led by Lorrin A. Thurston, overthrows the government of Queen Liliuokalani of the Kingdom of Hawaii.
• 1899 – The United States takes possession of Wake Island in the Pacific Ocean.
• 1904 – Anton Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard receives its premiere performance at the Moscow Art Theatre.
• 1912 – Sir Robert Falcon Scott (Scott of the Antarctic) reaches the South Pole, one month after Roald Amundsen.
• 1913 – Raymond Poincaré is elected President of France.
• 1917 – The United States pays Denmark $25 million for the Virgin Islands.
• 1929 – Popeye the Sailor Man, a cartoon character created by Elzie Crisler Segar, first appears in the Thimble Theatre comic strip.
• 1941 – Kuomintang forces under orders from Chiang Kai-Shek open fire at communist forces, resuming the Chinese Civil War after World War II.
• 1945 – Soviet forces capture the almost completely destroyed Polish city of Warsaw.
• 1945 – The Nazis begin the evacuation of the Auschwitz concentration camp as Soviet forces close in.
• 1945 – Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg disappears in Hungary while in Soviet custody.
• 1946 – The UN Security Council holds its first session.
• 1949 – The Goldbergs, the first sitcom on American television, first airs.
• 1950 – The Great Brinks Robbery – 11 thieves steal more than $2 million from an armored car Company's offices in Boston, Massachusetts.
• 1961 – President Dwight D. Eisenhower delivers a televised farewell address to the nation three days before leaving office, in which he warns against the accumulation of power by the "military-industrial complex".
• 1966 – A B-52 bomber collides with a KC-135 Stratotanker over Spain, dropping three 70-kiloton nuclear bombs near the town of Palomares and another one into the sea in the Palomares incident.
• 1973 – Ferdinand Marcos becomes "President for Life" of the Philippines.
• 1977 – Convicted murderer Gary Gilmore is executed by a firing squad in Utah, ending a ten-year moratorium on Capital punishment in the United States.
• 1982 – "Cold Sunday" in the United States would see temperatures fall to their lowest levels in over 100 years in numerous cities.
• 1983 – The tallest department store in the world, Hudson's, flagship store in downtown Detroit closes due to high cost of operating.
• 1989 – Stockton massacre: Patrick Purdy opens fire with an assault rifle at the Cleveland Elementary School playground, killing five children and wounding 29 others and one teacher before taking his own life.
• 1991 – Gulf War: Operation Desert Storm begins early in the morning. Iraq fires 8 Scud missiles into Israel in an unsuccessful bid to provoke Israeli retaliation.
• 1991 – Harald V becomes King of Norway on the death of his father, Olav V.
• 1994 – 1994 Northridge Earthquake: A magnitude 6.7 earthquake hits Northridge, California.
• 1995 – The Great Hanshin earthquake: A magnitude 7.3 earthquake hits near Kobe, Japan, causing extensive property damage and killing 6,434 people.
• 1996 – The Czech Republic applies for membership of the European Union.
• 1997 – A Delta 2 carrying a GPS2R satellite explodes 13 seconds after launch, dropping 250 tons of burning rocket remains around the launch pad.
• 1998 – Paula Jones accuses President Bill Clinton of sexual harassment.
• 2001 – President Bill Clinton posthumously raises Meriwether Lewis' rank from Lieutenant to Captain.
• 2002 – Mount Nyiragongo erupts in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, displacing an estimated 400,000 people.
• 2007 – The Doomsday Clock is set to five minutes to midnight in response to North Korea nuclear testing.
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