393 Roman Emperor Theodosius I proclaims his nine year old son Honorius co-emperor

971 War elephant corps of the Southern Han defeated at Shao by crossbow fire from Song Dynasty troops forcing the Southern Han state to submit to the Song Dynasty. First regular war elephant corps in the Chinese army.

1368 In a coronation ceremony, Zhu Yuanzhang, aged 40, ascends to the throne of China as the Hongwu Emperor, initiating Ming Dynasty rule over China that would last for three centuries

1556 Shaanxi Earthquake, the deadliest ever recorded, kills 830,000 in Shaanxi Province, China

1570 Earl of Moray, regent of Scotland, assassinated; civil war breaks out

1789 Georgetown, 1st US Catholic college, founded

1793 Humane Society of Philadelphia (1st aid society) organized

1812 7.8 earthquake shakes New Madrid, Missouri

1845 Uniform US election day for President & VP authorized

1849 Elizabeth Blackwell becomes 1st woman in the US to earn a medical degree graduating from New York's Geneva Medical College

1849 US Patent granted for an envelope-making machine to Jesse K. Park and Cornelius S. Watson

1855 1st bridge over the Mississippi River in what is now Minneapolis, Minnesota, opens; named the Father Louis Hennepin Bridge

1856 American sidewheel steamer SS Pacific leaves Liverpool, England on what becomes her final voyage; lost at sea enroute to New York with 186 on board

1859 Mauna Loa volcano in Hawaii begins an eruption that lasts 300 days

1862 Agoston Haraszthy, 1st vintner in Sonoma Valley, California imports 10,000 grape vine cuttings

1870 Marias Massacre: Approximately 200 Piegan Blackfeet Indians (mostly women, children, and elderly men) killed by US Army, in Montana Territory, spawning outrage and preventing the military from regaining control of the Bureau of Indian Affairs

1889 Daniel Hale Williams forms the Provident Hospital in Chicago, the first non-segregated hospital in the US

1897 Elva Zona Heaster is found dead in Greenbrier County, West Virginia. Resulting murder trial of her husband perhaps only case in US history where the alleged testimony of a ghost helped secure a conviction

1909 1st radio rescue at sea during CQD distress code by the British Royal Mail steamship Republic off Nantucket Island

1930 George Washington Birthplace National Monument, Virginia established

1933 20th amendment, which changed the date of US presidential inaugurations to 20th January, is ratified

1941 Groundbreaking for NACA (now NASA) Lewis Research Center

1946 Rear Admiral Sidney W. Souers, USNR, becomes 1st director of CIA

1957 Wham-O Company produces the 1st Frisbee flying disc (originally called the "Pluto Platter" - until 1958)

1960 Bathosphere "Trieste", crewed by Jacques Piccard and US Navy Lieutenant Don Walsh, reaches bottom of Pacific (10,900 m)

1964 24th Amendment to the United States Constitution ratified, barring poll tax in federal elections

1968 Spy ship USS Pueblo & 83-man crew seized in Sea of Japan by North Korea

1970 Australia's 1st amateur radio satellite (Oscar 5) launched (California)

1974 1st edition of women's magazine "Story"

1976 The results to U.S. advice columnist Ann Landers' question (if they could do it all over, would parents still become parents) state that 70% of 10,000 responding parents were negative about being parents

1991 World's largest oil spill, caused by embattled Iraqi forces in Kuwait

1996 The first version of the Java programming language released

2003 Final communication between Earth and NASA space probe Pioneer 10 (then 7.6 billion miles from Earth)

2013 US armed forces overturns 1994 ban on women serving in combat

2016 8 museum workers from Egyptian Museum, Cairo referred for prosecution for reattaching Tutankhamun's beard with inappropriate glue

2016 Category 5 blizzard delivers record 3ft of snow to the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast US, killing 55 and incurring estimated $500m - $3bn economic losses

2017 Thunderstorms and tornadoes in Georgia and Mississippi leave at least 18 dead in the US

2018 Twelve camels disqualified from the King Abdulaziz Camel beauty contest, Saudi Arabia after their owners used botox on their lips

2020 75th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp marked by an international forum in Jerusalem, Israel

2020 Voice of a 3,000 year old Egyptian priest recreated by scientists 3D printing his vocal tract published in "Scientific Reports"

2023 Japan on the brink of not being able to function as a society, because of its falling birth rate and high life expectancy, says Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, in speech to Japanese parliament