On this date in:
The Unix epoch is the time 00:00:00 UTC on January 1, 1970.
On this date in:
45 B.C. New Year's Day was celebrated on Jan. 1 for the first time as the Julian calendar took effect.
1781, 1,500 soldiers from the Pennsylvania Line--all 11 regiments under General Anthony Wayne’s command--insist that their three-year enlistments are expired, kill three officers in a drunken rage and abandon the Continental Army’s winter camp at Morristown, New Jersey.
1797 Albany became the capital of New York state, replacing Kingston.
1808 A law prohibiting the importation of slaves into the United States went into effect.
1840 The first recorded bowling match was recorded in the U.S.
1853 1st practical fire engine (horse-drawn) in US enters service
1859, Harper's Weekly featured a cartoon about New Year's Day.
1862 1st US income tax (3% of incomes > $600, 5% of incomes > $10,000)
1863 President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, declaring that slaves in rebel states were free.
1863 A farmer named Daniel Freeman submits the first claim under the new Homestead Act for a property near Beatrice, Nebraska.
1879 British writer E.M. Forster is born on this day in London.
1892 The Ellis Island Immigrant Station in New York opened.
1895, J. Edgar Hoover, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation from 1924-1972, was born. Following his death on May 2, 1972, his obituary appeared in The New York Times.
1898 New York City was consolidated into five buroughs.
1901 The Commonwealth of Australia was proclaimed.
1902 The first Tournament of Roses (later the Rose Bowl) collegiate football game was played in Pasadena, CA. University of Michigan beat Stanford, 49-0
1907 President Theodore Roosevelt shakes a record 8,513 hands in 1 day
1908 1st time, ball signifying new year dropped at Times Square
1915 On this day, advance elements of the 1st Regiment of the Marine 1st Division arrive in Vietnam.
1919 Edsel Ford succeeded his father, Henry Ford, as president of the Ford Motor Company. That same day, the company announced that it would increase its minimum wage to $6.00 per day. Henry Ford made history in 1914 by increasing the minimum wage in his factories to $5.00 per day, far more than his competitors were paying.
1926 The Rose Bowl was carried coast to coast on network radio for the first time.
1929 Roy Riegels runs 60 yards the wrong way with Rose Bowl fumble recovery
1934 Alcatraz Island officially became a Federal Prison.
1935 1st Sugar Bowl & 1st Orange Bowl Played
1937 The First Cotton Bowl football game was played in Dallas, TX. Texas Christian University (T.C.U.) beat Marquette, 16-6.
1939 William Hewlett and David Packard found Hewlett-Packard.
1942 On this day, President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill issue a declaration, signed by representatives of 26 countries, called the "United Nations." The signatories of the declaration vowed to create an international postwar peacekeeping organization.
1942 Rose Bowl played in North Carolina due to Japanese threat-Oregon 20, Duke 16
1944 Army defeats Navy 10-7 in football "Arab Bowl", Oran, North Africa
1944 General Clark replaces General Patton as commander of 7th Army
1945 France was admitted to the United Nations.
1950 Ho Chi Minh begins offensive against French troops in Indo-China
1951 Massive Chinese/North Korean assault on UN-lines
1951 The Zenith Radio Corporation of Chicago demonstrates the first pay television system.
1954 Rose & Cotton Bowl are 1st sport colorcasts
1956 Elvis Presley records Heartbreak Hotel for RCA in Nashville
1958 Sammy Davis Jr marries Loray White
1953 Country singer Hank Williams Sr., 29, died of a drug and alcohol overdose.
1958 Treaties establishing the European Economic Community went into effect.
1959 Fidel Castro led Cuban revolutionaries to victory over Fulgencio Batista.
1966 On this day, advance elements of the 1st Regiment of the Marine 1st Division arrive in Vietnam.
1960 US census at 179,245,000
1961 Largest check issued, National Bank of Chicago to Sears ($960.242 billion)
1962 US Navy SEAL teams established
1962 the Beatles auditioned for Decca records in London on the same day as Brian Poole and the Tremeloes. Decca chose the Tremeloes.
1966 A twelve day New York City transit strike begins.
1966 All US cigarette packs have to carry "Caution Cigarette smoking may be hazardous to your health"
1967 Green Bay Packers beat Dallas Cowboys 34-27 in NFL championship game
1968 Evel Knievel fails in his attempt to jump 141 feet over Cæsar's Palace Fountain
1971 Tobacco ads representing $20 million dollars in advertising were banned from TV and radio broadcast.
1973 Roseann Quinn, a 27-year-old New Yorker, visits Tweed's Bar on the Upper West Side and is picked up by her soon-to-be killer. The incident inspires the cautionary novel and subsequent movie Looking For Mr. Goodbar.
1975 Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Mitchell & Mardian convicted of Watergate crime
1975 The magazine "Popular Electronics" announced the invention of a person computer called Altair.
1977 1st woman formally ordained an Episcopal priest (Jacqueline Means)
1977 Tony Dorsett runs for record 202 yards in the Sugar Bowl
1978 An Air India Boeing 747 jet crashes into the sea just after takeoff from a Bombay airport on this day in 1978, killing all 213 people on board. The crash was apparently the result of pilot error and equipment malfunction.
1979 The United States and China held celebrations in Washington and Beijing to mark the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries.
1983 - The ARPANET officially changes to using the Internet Protocol, creating the Internet.
1984 AT&T was divested of its 22 Bell System companies under terms of an antitrust agreement.
1985 The Internet's Domain Name System is created.
1985 US's 1st manadatory seat belt law goes into effect (NY)
1985 VH-1 made its broadcasting debut
1986 Soviet television aired a five-minute greeting from President Reagan and Americans got the same from Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in the first such exchange between the superpowers.
1990 David Dinkins was sworn in as New York City's first African-American mayor.
1993 Czechoslovakia peacefully split into two new countries, the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
1993 Harry Connick Jr arrested at a New York airport for gun possession
1994 The North American Free Trade Agreement went into effect.
1995 Frederick West, an alleged killer of 12 women and girls, was found hanged in his jail cell in Winston Green prison, in Birmingham.
1996 After 27 years, Betty Rubble debuts as a Flintstone vitamin
1998 An anti-smoking law went into effect in California, prohibiting people from lighting up in bars.
1998 US Census Bureau estimates population at 268,921,733
1999 The euro became the official currency of 11 European countries.
2000 As the world celebrates, no major crisis arises from the dreaded Y2K computer 'millennium bug'.
2002 in the largest U.S. ground operation of the war on terrorism at that point, 200 Marines began a two-day sweep through deserted training camps in southern Afghanistan but found none of the terrorist leaders.
2005 a published report says interrogators at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have routinely used inhumane methods that could be viewed as torture.
2006 Sydney, Australia swelters in 45C(113F) heat, a record for the city.
2008 No-smoking rules went into effect in France, prohibiting people from lighting up in cafes, bars and restaurants.
Most users ever online was 2,307, January 1st, 1970 at 12:00 AM.
