History of 2nd January

69 - Roman Lower Rhine army proclaims its commander, Vitellius, emperor
366 - The Alamanni cross the frozen Rhine River in large numbers, invading the Roman Empire.
533 - John II begins his reign as Catholic Pope
1235 - Emperor Joseph II orders Jews of Galicia Austria to adopt family names
1492 - Spain recaptures Granada from the Moors (Granada Day)
1570 - Tsar Ivan the Terrible march to Novgorod begins
1585 - Spain & Catholic France sign Saint League of Joinville
1602 - Battle at Kinsale, Ireland: English army beats Spanish
1602 - Spanish force in Ireland surrender to the English at Kinsdale
1678 - Staatsoper Hamburg opens with Theiles "Adam und Eva"
1757 - British troops occupy Calcutta India
1776 - 1st revolutionary flag displayed
1776 - Austria ends interregation torture
1788 - Georgia is 4th state to ratify US constitution
1790 - Mozart's opera "Cosi fan tutti" premieres, Vienna
1791 - Big Bottom massacre in the Ohio Country, marking the beginning of the Northwest Indian War.
1800 - Free black community of Phila petitions Congress to abolish slave
1811 - US Sen Thomas Pickering is 1st senator censured (revealed confidential documents communicated by the president of the US)
1814 - Lord Byron completes "The Corsair"
1818 - Lord Byron completes "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage" (4th canto)
1818 - The British Institution of Civil Engineers is founded.
1831 - Liberator, abolitionist newspaper, begins publishing in Boston
1832 - 1st Curling club in US (Orchard Lake Curling Club) opens
1833 - Re-establishment of British rule on the Falklands.
1839 - 1st photo of the Moon (French photographer Louis Daguerre)
1842 - 1st US wire suspension bridge for general traffic opens in Penn
1843 - Wagner's opera "Der Fliegende Holländer" premieres, Dresden
1861 - SC seizes inactive Ft Johnson in Charleston Harbor
1861 - Colonel Charles Stone is put in charge of organizing DC militia
1863 - Battle of Murfreesboro (Stone's River) ends
1870 - Construction of Brooklyn Bridge begins
1871 - King Amadeus I of Spain inaugurated at 25
1879 - 1st Test match hat-trick, Fred Spofforth at the MCG
1879 - British battleship Thunder explodes in Gulf of Ismid, 9 die
1879 - Dr Benjamin E Mays, named president of Atlanta Board of Education
1879 - Northwestern League (minor baseball league) organized, Rockford, Ill
1881 - Camille Saint-Saëns' 3rd Concerto in B, premieres
1882 - Because of anti-monopoly laws, Standard Oil is organized as a trust
1885 - Gen Wolseley receives last distress signal of Gen Gordon in Khartoum
1890 - Alice Sanger becomes 1st female White House staffer
1890 - Record 19'2" alligator shot in Louisiana by E A McIlhenny
1893 - 1st US commemoratives & 1st US stamp to picture a woman issued
1893 - World's Columbian Exposition opens in Chicago [or 0501]
1896 - Battle at Doornkop, South Africa (Boers beat Dr Jamesons troops)
1900 - E Verlinger begins manufacturing 7" single-sided records (Montreal)
1900 - Gustave Charpentiers opera "Louise," premieres in Paris
1900 - John Hay announces the Open Door Policy to promote trade with China.
1903 - Pres T Roosevelt shuts down post office in Indianola Miss, for refusing to accept its appointed postmistress because she was black
1905 - Elara, a satellite of Jupiter, discovered by Perrine
1905 - Japanese troops capture Port Arthur
1905 - The American anarcho-syndicalist union known as the Industrial Workers of the World forms.
1908 - Canadian branch of the Royal Mint opens in Ottawa
1909 - 1st official Dutch 11 city skate (Minne Hoekstra in 13:50)
1910 - 1st junior high schools in US opens (Berkeley Calif)
1911 - Bkln Dodgers pres Charles Ebbets announces purchase of grounds to build a new concrete-and-steel stadium to seat 30,000
1913 - National Woman's Party forms
1914 - Philips installs research dept in Eindhoven
1917 - Royal Bank of Canada takes over Quebec Bank
1918 - Dodgers trade Casey Stengel & Cutshaw to Pitts for Grimes & Mamaux
1918 - NHL Montreal Wanderers disband after Westmount arena burns down
1919 - Anti-British uprising in Ireland
1919 - Lithuania gains independence
1920 - 10,000 US union & socialist organizers arrested (Palmer Raids)
1921 - 1st religious service radio broadcast in US, KDKA-Pittsburgh
1921 - DeYoung Museum in Golden Gate Park opens
1923 - Ku Klux Klan surprise attack on black residential area Rosewood Fla, 8 killed (compensation awarded in 1995)
1925 - Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region established (now in Tadzhik SSR)
1929 - US & Canada agree to preserve Niagara Falls
1932 - Young gang shoot dead 6 police in Springfield Missouri
1933 - Bradman scores 103* against the Bodyline attack in the 2nd Test
1933 - Bruins beat Rangers in NY 13-3
1933 - Ijmuider fishing strike begins (till July 11th)
1933 - US troops leave Nicaragua
1934 - 1st state liquor stores open, in Pennsylvania
1934 - Bradman scores 253 NSW v Queensland, 204 mins, 29 fours 4 sixes
1935 - Bruno R Hauptmann trial begins for kidnap-murder of Lindbergh baby
1936 - 1st electron tube to enable night vision described, St Louis, Mo
1936 - Bradman scores 357 for SA v Vic, 424 minutes, 40 fours
1938 - Book publisher Simon and Schuster founded
1939 - Bradman scores 107 SA v Victoria, his 4th consecutive century
1941 - World War II: German bombing severely damages the Llandaff Cathedral in Cardiff, Wales.
1941 - World War II: The U.S. government announces its Liberty ship program to build freighters in support of the war effort.
1942 - 28 nations, at war with Axis, pledge no separate peace
1942 - German troops in Bardia surrender
1942 - Japanese troops occupy Manila Philippines
1942 - The United States Navy opens a blimp base at Lakehurst, New Jersey.
1944 - 1st use of helicopters during warfare (British Atlantic patrol)
1945 - Allied air raid on Neurenberg
1945 - George Bush (pres 1989) & Barbara Pierce wed [or January 6]
1945 - Kentucky begins 130 home basketball game win streak, ends in 1955
1945 - Radio Orange ends cooperation at Liese-Aktion
1947 - Mahatma Gandhi begins march for peace in East-Bengali
1948 - WNDT (now WNET) TV channel 13 in New York-Newark, NY (PBS) begins
1949 - KDKA TV channel 2 in Pittsburgh, PA (CBS) begins broadcasting
1949 - Luis Muñoz Marín becomes the first democratically elected Governor of Puerto Rico.
1951 - Philip Barry's "Second Threshold," premieres in NYC
1952 - "Pal Joey" opens at Broadhurst Theater NYC for 542 performances
1953 - NBA Baltimore Bullets begin a 32 game road losing streak
1954 - Herman Wouks "Caine Mutiny," premieres in NYC
1955 - 1st "Bob Cummings Show" premieres on NBC (later on CBS)

1955 - Panamanian president Jose Antonio Remon is assassinated.
1956 - Poujadists/communists win French parliamentary elections
1958 - Dmitri Shostakovitch' 2nd Piano concert, premieres in NY
1959 - Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista flees
1959 - USSR launches Mechta (Luna 1) for 1st lunar fly-by, 1st solar orbit
1960 - 1st redshank old world shore bird reported in N America (Halifax)
1960 - John Reynolds sets age of solar system at 4,950,000,000 years
1960 - Roger Sessions' 4th Symphony, premieres
1960 - Senator John F Kennedy, announces his candidacy for the US Presidency
1961 - 1st AFL Championship Game, Houston Oilers beat LA Chargers 24-16
1961 - Hawaii's, then all time low temperature, 14°F recorded atop Haleakale
1962 - Nighttime version of "Password" with Allen Ludden premieres on CBS
1964 - Ayub Khan elected president of Pakistan
1964 - Failed assassination attempt on president Nkrumah of Ghana
1965 - Martin Luther King Jr begins a drive to register black voters
1965 - NY Jets sign quarterback Joe Namath
1965 - Obverse design of all Canadian coins is changed to depict present-day
1966 - 1st Jewish child born in Spain since 1492 expulsion
1966 - Green Bay Packers beat Cleve Browns 23-12 in NFL championship game
1968 - "Zizi" closes at Broadway Theater NYC after 49 performances
1968 - Christian Barnard performs 2nd heart transplant
1968 - KBHK TV channel 44 in San Francisco, CA (IND) begins broadcasting
1969 - "Fig Leaves Are Falling" opens at Broadhurst Theater NYC for 4 perfs
1969 - "Soviet Sport" calls Emile Zatopek a public enemy
1969 - Lorraine Hansberry's "To be Young, Gifted & Black," premieres in NYC
1969 - Luis Ferré becomes the first statehooder Governor of Puerto Rico.
1969 - Operation Barrier Reef begins in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam.
1970 - Dutch premiere of musical "Hair" in Amsterdam
1970 - US population is 293,200,000; Black population: 22,600,000 (11.1%)
1971 - A barrier collapses at Ibrox Park football ground at end of a soccer match in Glasgow Scotland, killing 66
1972 - "Rothschilds" closes at Lunt-Fontanne Theater NYC after 505 perfs
1972 - Dallas Cowboys beat SF '49ers 14-3 in NFC championship game
1972 - Mariner 9 begins mapping Mars
1972 - Miami Dolphins beat Balt Colts 21-0 in AFC championship game
1974 - 55 MPH speed limit imposed by Richard Nixon
1974 - Worst fire in Argentine history destroys 1.2 million acres
1975 - US Dept of Interior designates grizzly bear a threatened species
1977 - Bowie Kuhn suspends Braves owner Ted Turner for one year due to tampering charges in Gary Matthews free-agency signing
1978 - Bulent Ecevit forms govt in Turkey
1978 - Rhino Records releases their 1st album "Wildmania"
1979 - 30th Islander shut-out opponent-Glenn Resch 9-0 vs Vancouver
1979 - Gavaskar gets twin tons for India for the third time (v WI)
1979 - Sid Vicious' trial for murder of girlfriend Nancy Spungen begins
1980 - 68th Australian Men Tennis: Guillermo Vilas beat John Sadri (76 63 62)
1981 - Mary Terstegge Meagher swims female record 200 m butterfly (2:05.65)
1981 - Sylvester Clarke knocks out spectator with brick, WI v Pakistan
1982 - "Camelot" closes at Winter Garden Theater NYC after 48 performances
1982 - 70th Australian Mens Tennis: Johan Kriek beats S Denton (62 76 67 64)
1982 - Islanders start 23 undefeated home streak (21-0-2) 14 straight wins
1982 - SD Chargers beat Miami Dolphins, 41-38 in 13:52 of OT
1983 - "Annie" closes at Alvin Theater NYC after 2,377 performances
1983 - "Sophisticated Ladies" closes at Lunt-Fontanne NYC after 767 perfs
1983 - Don Muraco beats Pedro Morales to become WWF Intercontinental Champ
1983 - Gary Trudeau takes a 20-month break from writing "Doonesbury"
1983 - Ken Anderson of Cincinnati completes record 20 consecutive passes
1984 - Darryl Cullinan, 16, scores his 1st first-class cricket century
1984 - Miami beats Nebraska in Orange Bowl for college football championship
1984 - Riot in Tunis kills over 100
1984 - Wilson Goode, sworn-in as Phila's 1st black mayor
1985 - 90th hat trick in Islander history-Brent Sutter
1985 - Australia beat WI by innings at SCG, Bob Holland 10 match wkts
1985 - Egyptian Pres Mubarak reappoints Coptic pope Shenuda III
1985 - Nevada-Las Vegas beats Utah 142-140, highest college basketball score
1985 - Undefeated BYU becomes college football champions
1986 - 191.66 million shares traded in NY Stock Exchange
1986 - NY Islander, Mike Bossy, scores his 500th goal
1987 - Penn State upsets Miami in Fiesta Bowl for college football champ
1987 - Troops of Chad President Habré conquer Fada oasis
1988 - Ashland Oil storage tank spills 3.8 million gallons, Penn
1988 - Mulroney & Reagan sign Canada-US free trade agreement
1989 - Notre Dame beats West Virginia for college football championship
1989 - UCLA wins a record 7th consecutive bowl game
1990 - Dow Jones hits record 2,800 (2,810.15)
1990 - Sting joins wrestlings 4 Horsemen (Flair, Arn Anderson, Ole Anderson)
1991 - Colorado wins its 1st AP national title poll
1992 - Test debut of Shane Warne, v India at Sydney
1993 - "Gypsy Passion" closes at Plymouth Theater NYC after 55 performances
1994 - "Abe Lincoln in Illinois" closes at Beaumont NYC after 40 perfs
1994 - "Shakespeare after My Father" closes at Helen Hayes NYC after 266 perf
1994 - Battles between army & rebellious indians in South Mexico, kill 57
1995 - Bus crashes in Luzon Philippines, 29 killed
1995 - Carquest Bowl 5: South Carolina beats West Virginia, 24-21
1995 - Most distant galaxy yet discovered found by scientists using Keck telescope in Hawaii (est 15 billion light years away)
1997 - Howard Stern Radio Show premieres in Columbus OH on WBZX 99.7 FM
1998 - Autopsy of Chris Farley shows he overdosed of opiates & cocaine
1999 - A brutal snowstorm smashes into the Midwestern United States, causing 14 inches (359 mm) of snow in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and 19 inches (487 mm) in Chicago, where temperatures plunge to -13°F (-25°C); 68 deaths are reported.
2001 - Sila Calderón becomes the first female Governor of Puerto Rico.
2002 - Eduardo Duhalde is appointed interim President of Argentina by the Legislative Assembly.
2004 - Stardust successfully flies past Comet Wild 2, collecting samples that it will return to Earth two years later.