January 1

1901 - Commonwealth of Australia was proclaimed.

1863 - President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclaimation, declaring that slaves in rebel states were free.

1892 - Ellis Island Immigrant Station in New York formally opened.

1898 - Manhattan, the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island were consolidated into New York City.

1862 - Income tax first collected in the U.S. (3% of incomes > $600, 5% of incomes > $10,000).

January 2

1727 - James Wolfe - commander of the British expedition that captured Quebec in 1759 was born at Westerham, England.

1492 - the leader of the last Arab stronghold in Spain surrendered to Spanish forces loyal to King Ferdenand II and Queen Isabella I.

1788 - Georgia became the fourth state to radify the U.S. Constitution.

January 3

1827 - Letitia Youmans - founder of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union was born in Hamilton, Ontario (Upper Canada).

1777 - General George Washington's army routed the British in the battle of Princeton, New Jersey.

1521 - Martin Luther was excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church.

1833 - Britain seized control of the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic.

1868 - The Meiji Restoration re-established the authority of Japan's Emporer and heralded the fall of the military rulers known as "shoguns".

January 4

1642 - English philosopher and mathematician Sir Isaac Newton was born.

1830 - Upper Canada College was opened at York, now Toronto, Ontario (Upper Canada)

1809 - Louis Braille, inventor of a reading system for the blind was born in Coupvray, France.

1821 - the first native-born American Saint, Elizabeth Ann Seton, died in Emmitsburge, Maryland.

1885 - Dr. William W. Grant of Davenport, Iowa, performed what's believed to have been the first appendectomy. The patient was 22 year-old Mary Gartside.

1896 - Utah was admitted as the 45th state.

January 5

1896 - Austrian newspaper, Wiener Presse, reported the discovery by German physicist Wilhelm Roetgen of a type of radiation that came to be known as "x-rays".

1589 - Catherine de Medici of France died at the age of 69.

1781 - A British naval expedition led by Benedict Arnold burned Richmond, Virginia.

1895 - French Captain, Alfred Dreyfus, convicted of treason, was publicly stripped of his rank. He was ultimately vidicated.

January 6

1412 - According to tradition Joan of Arc, French heroine of the Hundred Years War, was born in Domremy.

1540 - England's King Henry VIII married his fourth wife, Anne of Cleves.(The marriage lasted 6 months.).

1759 - George Washington and Martha Dandridge Custis were married.

1838 - Samuel Morse first publicly demonstrated his telegraph in Morristown, New Jersey.

January 7

1782 - First commercial American bank, The Bank of North America, opens.

1789 - the first U.S. Presidential election was held. Americans voted for electors who, a month later, chose George Washington to be the nation's first president.

1610 - Astronomer, Galileo Galilei sighted four of Jupiter's moons.

1800 - the 13th president of the U.S., Milliard Fillmore, was born in Summerhill, New York.

January 8

1642 - Astronomer, Galilleo Galilei died in Arcetri, Italy.

1815 - U.S. forces led by General Andrew Jackson defeated the British in the Battle of New Orleans - the closing engagement of the War of 1812.

1894 - Fire caused serious damage at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago.

January 9

1613 - Explorer and cartographer Samuel de Champlain published his Voyages, describing his adventures from 1604 - 1612. These adventures included 2 trips, in 1605 and 1606, spent exploring the coastline of what is now New England, going as far south as Cape Cod. During this period he also established settlement at Quebec for fur-trading, and developed alliances with several First Nations. He also participated in military campaigns.

1861 - The first shots in the U.S. Civil War were fired when the steamship Star of the West was attacked by Confederate Troops in Charleston.

1788 - Connecticut became the fifth state to radify the U.S. Constitution.

1793 - Frenchman, Jean Pierre Blanchard, using a hot-air balloon flew between Philadelphia and Woodbury, New Jersey.

1861 - Mississippi seceded from the Union.

January 10

1776 - Thomas Paine published his influential pamphlet, "Common Sense".

1861 - Florida suceded from the Union.

1870 - John D. Rockefeller incorporated Standard Oil.

January 11

1813 - First pineapples planted in Hawaii.

1815 - Sir John a. Macdonald, the first Prime Minister of Canada, was officially born in Glascow, Scotland. (He was actually born the previous day but was registered Jan. 11.)

1757 - the first secretary of the U.S. Treasury, Alexander Hamilton was born in the West Indies.

1805 - Michigan Territory was created.

1861 - Alabama seceded from the Union.

January 12

1519 - Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I died.

1773 - the first public museum in America was established in Charleston, South Carolina.

January 13

1849 - The Hudson's Bay company signed a lease with the British government acquiring control of Vancouber Island for seven shillings a year.

1794 - President George Washington approved a measure adding two stars and two stripes to the American flag, following the admission of Vermont and Kentucky to the Union. (The number of stripes was later reduced to 13 again.)

1864 - composer Stephen Foster died in New York.

1893 - Britain's Independant Labor Party (a precursor to the current Labor Party) held its first meeting.

1898 - Emily zola's famous defense of Captain Alfred Dreyfus, "J'accuse," was published in Paris.

January 14

1784 - The United States ratified a peace treaty with England ending the Revolutionary War.

1639 - The first constitution of Connecticut - the "Fundamental Orders" - was adopted.

1742 - English astronomer Edmund Halley, who observed the comet that now bears his name, died at age 85.

1858 - French emperor Napoleon III escaped an attempt on his life.

1900 - Puccini's opera "Tosca" received a mixed reception at its World Premiere in Rome.

January 15

1861 - steam operated elevator patented by Elisha Otis.

1879 - Mazo de la Roche, author of "The Whiteoaks of Jalna" books, was born in Toronto. She wrote 23 novels, more then 50 short stories, 13 plays and many other works. The first book about an Ontario family named Whiteoak was published in 1927 and won the Atlantic monthly award for the best novel of the year.

1559 - England's Queen Elizabeth I was crowned in Westminister Abbey.

1844 - The University of Notre Dame received its charter from the state of Indiana.

1870 - The Democratic party was represented as a donkey for the first time in a caroon by thomas Nast in Harper's Weekly.

1892 - The rules of basketball were published for the first time, in Springfield, Massachusetts, where the game originated.

January 16

1547 - Ivan the Terrible was crowned Czar of Russia.

1883 - the U.S. Civil Service Commission was established.

January 17

1694 - The Bishop of Quebec read a pastoral letter declaring it a sin to "witness corrupting and impure plays," referring to theatrical performances staged at Quebec City.

1706 - Benjamin Franklin was born in Boston.

1893 - the 19th president of the United States, Rutherford B. Hayes, died in Fremont, Ohio, at age 70.

1893 - Hawii's monarchy was overthrown as a group of businessmen and sugar planters forced Queen Liliuokalani to abdicate.

January 18

1778 - Captain James Cook stumbles over sanwhich Islands (Hawaiian Islands)

1788 - the first English settlers arrieved in Australia's Botany Bay to establish a penal colony.

1862, the 10th president of the U.S. John Tyler died in Richmond, Virginia at age 71.

January 19

1807 - Robert E. Lee, the commander of the Confederate Armies was born in Stratford, Virginia.

1736 - James Watt, inventor of the steam engine was born in Scotland.

1809 - Author Edgar Allan Poe, was born in Boston.

1853 - Verdi's opera "II Trovatore" premiered in Rome.

1861 - Georgia seceded from the Union.

January 20

1654 - Lowest temperature ever recorded in the U.S. (-70 F) at Rogers Passs, MT.

1801 - John Marshall was appointed chief justice or the U.S.

1841 - The island of Hong Kong was ceded to Great Britain. (It returned to Chinese control in July 1997.)

1887 - the U.S. Senate approved an agreement to lease Pearl Harbour in Hawii as a naval base.

1896 - comedian George Burns was born Nathan Birnbaum in New York.

January 21

1799 - Edward Jenner's smallpox vaccination introduced.

1891 - Calixa Lavallee, composer of "O Canada", died at his home in Boston at age 48. Although considered one of Canada's musical pioneers, Lavallee's work, with the exception of the country's national anthem, remains largely unknown to the public. Born in Vercheres, Quebec, the young Lavallee left Canada in 1857 to seek his fortune in the U.S. His published works include two operettas, choral and orchestral selections, piano pieces and songs. Many of his compositions have been lost.

1793 - During the French Revolution, King Louis XVI, condemned for treason, was executed on the guillotine.

1861 - Jefferson Davis of Mississippi and four other Southerners resigned from the U.S. Senate.

January 22

1901 - Britain's Queen Victoria died at age 82.

January 23

1789 - Georgetown University was established in present-day Washington, D.C.

1845 - Congress decided all national elections would be held on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November.

1849 - English-born Elizabeth Blackwell became the first woman in america to recieve a Doctor of Medicine degree from the Medical Institution of Geneva, N.Y.

January 24

1848 - James W. Marshall discovered a gold nugget at Sutter's Mill in northern California, a discovery that led to the gold ruch of '49.

January 25

1787 - Shay's Rebellion suffered a setback when debt ridden farmers led by Captain Daniel Shays failed to capture an arsenal at Springfield, Mass.

1890 - the United Mine Workers of America was founded.

January 26

1875 - Dentist's electric drill is patented

1788 - the first European settlers inAustralia, led by Captian Arthur Phillip, landed in present-day Sidney.

1802 - Congress passed an act calling for a library to be established within the U.S. Capitol.

1837 - Michigan became the 26th state.

1861 - Louisian seceded from the Union.

1870 - Virginia rejoined the Union.

January 27

1901 - opera composer, Giuseppe Verdi died in Milan, Italy at the age 87.

1756 - composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born in Salzburg, Austria.

1832 - Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, woh wrote "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" under the pen name of Lewis Carroll, was born in Cheshire, England.

1880 - Thomas Edison received a patent for his incadescent lamp.

January 28

1613 - Galileo may have unknowingly viewed undiscovered planet Neptune.

1547 - England's King Henry VIII died; he was succeeded by his 9 year-old son, Edward VI.

1596 - English navigator Sir Francis Drake died off the coast of Panama, he was buried at sea.

Cuban revolutionary Jose Marti was born in Havana.

January 29

1820 - King George III died at Windsor Castle, ending a reign that had seen both the American and French revolutions.

1843 - the 25th president of the U.S., William McKinley, was born in Niles, Ohio.

1845 - Edgar Allan Poe's poem "The Raven" was first published, in the New York Evening Mirror.

1850 - Henry Clay introduced in the senate a compromise bill on slavery which included the admission of California into the Union as a free state.

1861 - Kansas became the 34th state of the Union.

1900 - the American League, consisting of eight baseball teams, was organized in Philadelphia.

January 30

1649 - England's King Charles I was beheaded.

1882 - the 32nd president of the U.S. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, was born in Hyde Park, N.Y.

January 31

1865 - Congress passes 13th Amendment, abolishing slavery in America.

1606 - Guy Fawkes, convicted for his part in the "Gunpowder Plot" against the English Parliament and King James I, was executed.

1797 - composer Franz Schubert was born in Vienna, Austria.

1865 - General Robert E. Lee was named general-in-chief of all the Confederate armies.