This day in .....

9 January 1431 – The trial of Joan of Arc begins in Rouen

Trial of Joan of Arc

1431 trial and execution of French saint

For the film, see The Trial of Joan of Arc.

The trial of Joan of Arc, a French military leader under Charles VII during the Hundred Years' War, began on 9 January 1431 and ended with her execution on 30 May.^[1] The trial is one of the most famous in history, becoming the subject of many books and films.

Joan was captured during the siege of Compiègne in 1430 by Burgundian forces and subsequently sold to their English allies. She was prosecuted by a pro-English ecclesiastical court at Rouen in 1431. The court found her guilty of heresy and she was burned at the stake. The verdict was later nullified at a rehabilitation trial, which was overseen by the inquisitor general Jean Bréhal in 1456. Considered a French national heroine, Joan was declared a saint by the Catholic Church in 1920.

1. ^ Hobbins 2007, p. 1.

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10 January 1776 – American Revolution: Thomas Paine publishes his pamphlet Common Sense.

Common Sense

1776 pamphlet by Thomas Paine

This article is about the pamphlet. For the everyday philosophical concept, see common sense. For other uses, see Common sense (disambiguation).

Common Sense^[a] is a 47-page pamphlet written by Thomas Paine in 1775–1776 advocating independence from Great Britain to people in the Thirteen Colonies. Writing in clear and persuasive prose, Paine collected moral and political arguments to encourage common people in the Colonies to fight for egalitarian government. It was published anonymously on January 10, 1776,^[1] at the beginning of the American Revolution and became an immediate sensation.

Published in Philadelphia, Common Sense was sold and distributed widely and read aloud at taverns and meeting places. In proportion to the population of the colonies at that time, 2.5 million, it had the largest sale and circulation of any book published in American history.^[2] As of 2006, it remains the all-time best-selling American title and is still in print today.^[3]

Common Sense made public a persuasive and impassioned case for independence, which had not yet been given serious intellectual consideration in Britain or the American colonies. In England, John Cartwright had published Letters on American Independence in the pages of the Public Advertiser during the early spring of 1774, advocating legislative independence for the colonies. In Virginia, Thomas Jefferson penned A Summary View of British America three months later. Neither went as far as Paine in proposing full-fledged independence.^[4] Paine connected independence with common dissenting Protestant beliefs as a means to present a distinctly American political identity, and structured Common Sense as if it were a sermon.^[5][6] Historian Gordon S. Wood described Common Sense as "the most incendiary and popular pamphlet of the entire revolutionary era."^[7]

The text was translated into French by Antoine Gilbert Griffet de Labaume in 1791.^[8]

Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).

1. ^ Foner, Philip. "Thomas Paine". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved January 9, 2021.
2. ^ Conway (1893)
3. ^ Kaye (2005), p. 43.
4. ^ Chiu, Frances. A Routledge Guidebook to Paine's Rights of Man. Routledge, 2020. Pp. 46-56.
5. ^ Wood (2002), pp. 55–56
6. ^ Anthony J. Di Lorenzo, "Dissenting Protestantism as a Language of Revolution in Thomas Paine's Common Sense" (registration required) in Eighteenth-Century Thought, Vol. 4, 2009. ISSN 1545-0449.
7. ^ Wood (2002), p. 55
8. ^ Rosenfeld, Sophia. Common Sense: A Political History. 2011. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, page 303.

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11 January 1908 – Grand Canyon National Monument is created.

Grand Canyon National Park

National park in Arizona, United States

This article is about the national park in the southwestern United States. For the canyon itself, see Grand Canyon.

Grand Canyon National Park is a national park of the United States located in northwestern Arizona, the 15th site to have been named as a national park. The park's central feature is the Grand Canyon, a gorge of the Colorado River, which is often considered one of the Wonders of the World. The park, which covers 1,217,262 acres (1,901.972 sq mi; 4,926.08 km²) of unincorporated area in Coconino and Mohave counties, received more than 4.9 million recreational visitors in 2024.^[5] The Grand Canyon was designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1979. The park celebrated its 100th anniversary on February 26, 2019.^[6]

1. ^ Grand Canyon in United States of America Archived July 24, 2019, at the Wayback Machine. protectedplanet.net. United Nations Environment World Conservation Monitoring Centre and the IUCN's World Commission on Protected Areas. Retrieved July 25, 2019.
2. ^ "Grand Canyon National Park Visitor Center". Geographic Names Information System. United States Geological Survey, United States Department of the Interior. Retrieved August 14, 2011.
3. ^ "Listing of acreage – December 31, 2011" (XLSX). Land Resource Division, National Park Service. Retrieved March 7, 2012. (National Park Service Acreage Reports)
4. ^ "Annual Park Recreation Visits (1904 – Last Calendar Year)". National Park Service Visitor Use Statistics. Retrieved November 12, 2025.
5. ^ Crane, Ken (April 19, 2025). "National Parks by Popularity 2024". Park Quest. Retrieved August 1, 2025.
6. ^ "Grand Canyon Centennial History". Time. Retrieved April 19, 2019.

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12 January 1866 – The Royal Aeronautical Society is formed in London

Royal Aeronautical Society

British multi-disciplinary professional institution

The Royal Aeronautical Society, also known as the RAeS, is a British multi-disciplinary professional institution dedicated to the global aerospace community. Founded in 1866, it is the oldest aeronautical society in the world.^[1] Members, Fellows, and Companions of the society can use the post-nominal letters MRAeS, FRAeS, or CRAeS, respectively.^[2]

1. ^ "Royal Aeronautical Society, About Us". aerosociety.com. Retrieved 20 September 2016.
2. ^ "Royal Aeronautical Society, Become a Member". aerosociety.com. Retrieved 20 September 2016.

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13 January 1888 – The National Geographic Society is founded in Washington, D.C.

National Geographic Society

American scientific organization

The National Geographic Society, headquartered in Washington, D.C., United States, is one of the largest nonprofit scientific and educational organizations in the world.^[2]

Founded in 1888, its interests include geography, archaeology, natural science, the promotion of environmental and historical conservation, and the study of world culture and history. The National Geographic Society's logo is a yellow portrait frame—rectangular in shape—which appears on the margins surrounding the front covers of its magazines and as its television channel logo. Through National Geographic Partners (a joint venture with the Walt Disney Company), the Society operates the magazine, TV channels, a website, worldwide events, and other media operations.

1. ^ ^{a b} "NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY | Open990". www.open990.org. Archived from the original on March 21, 2021. Retrieved March 21, 2021.
2. ^ Yeadon, David (2004). National Geographic Guide to the World's Secret Places. National Geographic. ISBN 0792265645. Retrieved August 16, 2022.

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14 January 1814 – Treaty of Kiel: Frederick VI of Denmark cedes the Kingdom of Norway to Charles XIII of Sweden in return for Pomerania.

Treaty of Kiel

1814 treaty between the UK, Sweden, and Denmark–Norway

The Treaty of Kiel (Danish: Kieltraktaten) or Peace of Kiel (Swedish and Norwegian: Kielfreden or freden i Kiel) was concluded between the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and the Kingdom of Sweden on one side and the Kingdoms of Denmark and Norway on the other side on 14 January 1814 in Kiel.^[1] It ended the hostilities between the parties in the ongoing Napoleonic Wars, where the United Kingdom and Sweden were part of the anti-French camp (the Sixth Coalition) while Denmark–Norway was allied to the French Empire.^[1]

Frederick VI of Denmark joined the anti-French alliance, ceded Heligoland to George III of the United Kingdom, and further ceded the Kingdom of Norway to Charles XIII of Sweden in return for Swedish Pomerania.^[1] Specifically excluded from the exchange were the Norwegian dependencies of Greenland, Iceland and the Faroe Islands, which remained in the union with Denmark.^[2] (Norway would unsuccessfully contest the Danish claim to all of Greenland in the Eastern Greenland Case of 1931–1933.^[3])

However, not all provisions of the treaty would come into force. Norway declared its independence, adopted a constitution and elected Crown Prince Christian Frederik as its own king. Sweden therefore refused to hand over Swedish Pomerania, which instead passed to Prussia after the Congress of Vienna in 1815. After a short war with Sweden, Norway accepted entering into a personal union with Sweden at the Convention of Moss. King Christian abdicated after convening an extraordinary Storting, which revised the Constitution to allow for the Union. It was formally established when the Storting elected Charles XIII as king of Norway on 4 November 1814.

1. ^ ^{a b c} Schäfer (2002), p. 137
2. ^ Dörr (2004), p. 103
3. ^ Cavell (2008), pp. 433ff

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15 January 1759 – The British Museum opens to the public.

British Museum

National museum in London, England

For other uses, see British Museum (disambiguation).

The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world.^[3] It documents the story of human culture from its beginnings to the present.^[a] Established in 1753, the British Museum was the world's first public national museum.^[4] In 2023, the museum received 5,820,860 visitors and was the most visited attraction in the United Kingdom.^[2]

At its beginning, the museum was largely based on the collections of the Anglo-Irish physician and scientist Sir Hans Sloane.^[5] It opened to the public in 1759, in Montagu House, on the site of the current building. The museum's expansion over the following 250 years was largely a result of British colonisation and resulted in the creation of several branch institutions, or independent spin-offs, the first being the Natural History Museum in 1881. Some of its best-known acquisitions, such as the Greek Elgin Marbles and the Egyptian Rosetta Stone, are subject to long-term disputes and repatriation claims.^[6][7]

In 1973, the British Library Act 1972^[8] detached the library department from the British Museum, but it continued to host the now separated British Library in the same Reading Room and building as the museum until 1997. The museum is a non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. Like all UK national museums, it charges no admission fee except for loan exhibitions.^[9]

1. ^ "Collection size". British Museum. Archived from the original on 12 August 2017. Retrieved 22 July 2016.
2. ^ ^{a b} "British Museum is the most-visited UK attraction again". BBC News. 18 March 2024. Archived from the original on 18 March 2024. Retrieved 18 March 2024.
3. ^ van Riel, Cees (30 October 2017). "Ranking The World's Most Admired Art Museums, And What Big Business Can Learn From Them". Forbes. Archived from the original on 18 May 2023. Retrieved 18 May 2023.
4. ^ "History of the British Museum". The British Museum. Archived from the original on 9 October 2016. Retrieved 12 July 2018.
5. ^ "The Life and Curiosity of Hans Sloane". The British Library. Archived from the original on 19 November 2018. Retrieved 4 February 2026.
6. ^ "The Big Question: What is the Rosetta Stone, and should Britain return". The Independent. 9 December 2009. Archived from the original on 11 March 2018. Retrieved 2 April 2020.
7. ^ Tharoor, Kanishk (29 June 2015). "Museums and looted art: the ethical dilemma of preserving world cultures". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 10 June 2020. Retrieved 18 April 2018.
8. ^ "British Library Act 1972". legislation.gov.uk. 1972. Archived from the original on 8 August 2022. Retrieved 22 July 2022.
9. ^ "Admission and opening times". British Museum. 14 June 2010. Archived from the original on 8 July 2016. Retrieved 4 July 2010.

Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).

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16 January 1909 – Ernest Shackleton's expedition finds the magnetic South Pole

Ernest Shackleton

Anglo-Irish Antarctic explorer (1874–1922)

"Shackleton" redirects here. For other uses, see Shackleton (disambiguation).

Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton (15 February 1874 – 5 January 1922) was an Anglo-Irish Antarctic explorer who led three British expeditions to the Antarctic. He was one of the principal figures of the period known as the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration.

Born in Kilkea, County Kildare, Ireland, Shackleton and his Anglo-Irish family^[1] moved to Sydenham in suburban south London when he was ten. Shackleton's first experience of the polar regions was as third officer on Captain Robert Falcon Scott's Discovery Expedition of 1901‍–‍1904, from which he was sent home early on health grounds, after he and his companions Scott and Edward Adrian Wilson set a new southern record by marching to latitude 82° S. During the Nimrod Expedition of 1907‍–‍1909, he and three companions established a new record Farthest South latitude of 88°23′ S, only 97 geographical miles (112 statute miles or 180 kilometres) from the South Pole, the largest advance to the pole in exploration history. Also, members of his team climbed Mount Erebus, the most active Antarctic volcano. On returning home, Shackleton was knighted for his achievements by King Edward VII.

After the race to the South Pole ended in December 1911, with Roald Amundsen's conquest, Shackleton turned his attention to the crossing of Antarctica from sea to sea, via the pole. To this end, he made preparations for what became the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914‍–‍1917. The expedition was struck by disaster when its ship, Endurance, became trapped in pack ice and finally sank in the Weddell Sea off Antarctica on 21 November 1915. The crew escaped by camping on the sea ice until it disintegrated, then by launching the lifeboats to reach Elephant Island and ultimately the South Atlantic island of South Georgia, enduring a stormy ocean voyage of 720 nautical miles (1,330 km; 830 mi) in Shackleton's most famous exploit. He returned to the Antarctic with the Shackleton–Rowett Expedition in 1921 but died of a heart attack while his ship was moored in South Georgia. At his wife's request, he remained on the island and was buried in Grytviken cemetery. The wreck of Endurance was discovered just over a century after Shackleton's death.^[2][3]

Away from his expeditions, Shackleton's life was generally restless and unfulfilled. In his search for rapid pathways to wealth and security, he launched business ventures which failed to prosper, and he died heavily in debt. Upon his death, he was lauded in the press but was thereafter largely forgotten, while the heroic reputation of his rival Scott was sustained for many decades. Later in the 20th century, Shackleton was "rediscovered",^[4] and he became a role model for leadership in extreme circumstances.^[5] In his 1956 address to the British Science Association, one of Shackleton's contemporaries, Sir Raymond Priestley, said: "Scott for scientific method, Amundsen for speed and efficiency[,] but[,] when disaster strikes and all hope is gone, get down on your knees and pray for Shackleton", paraphrasing what Apsley Cherry-Garrard had written in a preface to his 1922 memoir The Worst Journey in the World. In 2002, Shackleton was voted eleventh in a BBC poll of the 100 Greatest Britons.

1. ^ "Historical figures: Ernest Shackleton (1874–1922)". BBC History. Archived from the original on 27 April 2020. Retrieved 28 November 2022.
2. ^ Amos, Jonathan (9 March 2022). "Endurance: Shackleton's lost ship is found in Antarctic". BBC News. Archived from the original on 31 March 2022. Retrieved 18 March 2022.
3. ^ Fountain, Henry (9 March 2022). "At the Bottom of an Icy Sea, One of History's Great Wrecks Is Found". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 11 March 2022. Retrieved 19 December 2022.
4. ^ Jones 2003, p. 289.
5. ^ Barczewski 2007, p. 295.

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17 January 1852 – The United Kingdom signs the Sand River Convention with the South African Republic.

Sand River Convention

1852 treaty between the United Kingdom and Boers

The Sand River Convention (Afrikaans: Sandrivierkonvensie) of 17 January 1852 was a convention whereby the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland formally recognised the independence of the Boers north of the Vaal River.^[1]

1. ^ Eybers 1918, pp. 357–359.

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18 January 1788 – The first elements of the First Fleet carrying 736 convicts from Great Britain to Australia arrive at Botany Bay.

First Fleet

11 British ships establishing an Australian penal colony

This article is about the British colonial fleet. For the United States Navy unit known as the First Fleet, see United States First Fleet.

For other uses, see First fleet (disambiguation).

The First Fleet were eleven British ships which transported a group of settlers to mainland Australia, marking the beginning of the European colonisation of Australia. It consisted of two Royal Navy vessels, three storeships and six convict transports under the command of Captain Arthur Phillip. On 13 May 1787, the ships, with over 1,400 convicts, marines, sailors, colonial officials and free settlers onboard, left Portsmouth and travelled over 24,000 kilometres (15,000 mi; 13,000 nmi) and over 250 days before arriving in Botany Bay on 18 January 1788. Governor Arthur Phillip rejected Botany Bay choosing instead Port Jackson, to the north, as the site for the new colony; they arrived there on 26 January 1788,^[1] establishing the colony of New South Wales, as a penal colony which would become the first British settlement in Australia.

1. ^ State Library NSW/https://guides.sl.nsw.gov.au/convicts-bound-for-australia/first_fleet

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19 January 1920 – The United States Senate votes against joining the League of Nations.

League of Nations

Intergovernmental organisation (1920–1946)

Not to be confused with Commonwealth of Nations or Nations League.

This article is about the intergovernmental organisation. For the group in professional wrestling, see League of Nations (professional wrestling).

The League of Nations (LN or LoN; French: Société des Nations [sɔsjete de nɑsjɔ̃], SdN) was the first worldwide intergovernmental organisation whose principal mission was to maintain world peace.^[2] It was founded on 10 January 1920 by the Paris Peace Conference that ended the First World War. The main organisation ceased operations on 18 April 1946 when many of its components were relocated into the new United Nations (UN) which was created in the aftermath of the Second World War.

The League's primary goals were stated in its eponymous Covenant. They included preventing wars through collective security and disarmament and settling international disputes through negotiation and arbitration.^[3] Its other concerns included labour conditions, just treatment of native inhabitants, human and drug trafficking, the arms trade, global health, prisoners of war, and protection of minorities in Europe.^[4] The Covenant of the League of Nations was signed on 28 June 1919 as Part I of the Treaty of Versailles, and it became effective with the rest of the Treaty on 10 January 1920. Australia was granted the right to participate as an autonomous member nation, marking the start of Australian independence on the global stage.^[5] The first meeting of the Council of the League took place on 16 January 1920, and the first meeting of the Assembly of the League took place on 15 November 1920. In 1919, U.S. president Woodrow Wilson won the Nobel Peace Prize for his role as the leading architect of the League. Despite this, he was ultimately unsuccessful in getting his country to join it.

The diplomatic philosophy behind the League represented a fundamental shift from the preceding hundred years. The League lacked its own armed force and depended on the victorious Allied Powers of World War I (Britain, France, Italy and Japan were the initial permanent members of the Council) to enforce its resolutions, keep to its economic sanctions, or provide an army when needed. The great powers were often reluctant to do so. Sanctions could hurt League members, so they were reluctant to comply with them. During the Second Italo-Ethiopian War, when the League accused Italian soldiers of targeting International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement medical tents, Benito Mussolini responded that "the League is very well when sparrows shout, but no good at all when eagles fall out."^[6]

At its greatest extent from 28 September 1934 to 23 February 1935, it had 58 members. After some notable successes and some early failures in the 1920s, the League ultimately proved incapable of preventing aggression by the Axis powers in the 1930s. Its credibility was weakened because the United States never joined. Japan and Germany left in 1933, Italy left in 1937, and Spain left in 1939. The Soviet Union only joined in 1934 and was expelled in 1939 after invading Finland.^{[7][8][9][10]} Furthermore, the League demonstrated an irresolute approach to sanction enforcement for fear it might only spark further conflict, further decreasing its credibility. The onset of the Second World War in 1939 showed that the League had failed its primary purpose: to prevent another world war. It was largely inactive until its abolition. The League lasted for 26 years; the United Nations effectively replaced it in 1945, inheriting several agencies and organisations founded by the League, with the League itself formally dissolving the following year.

Current scholarly consensus views that, even though the League failed to achieve its main goal of world peace, it did manage to build new roads towards expanding the rule of law across the globe; strengthened the concept of collective security, gave a voice to smaller nations; fostered economic stabilisation and financial stability, especially in Central Europe in the 1920s; helped to raise awareness of problems such as epidemics, slavery, child labour, colonial tyranny, refugee crises and general working conditions through its numerous commissions and committees; and paved the way for new forms of statehood, as the mandate system put the colonial powers under international observation.^[11]

1. ^ "League of Nations". United Nations Secretary-General. 4 October 2010. UN Doc ID A/65/488. Archived from the original on 16 April 2024. Retrieved 27 July 2024.
2. ^ Christian, Tomuschat (1995). The United Nations at Age Fifty: A Legal Perspective. Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. p. 77. ISBN 978-90-411-0145-7.
3. ^ "The Covenant of the League of Nations". The Avalon Project. Archived from the original on 26 July 2011. Retrieved 30 August 2011.
4. ^ See Article 23, "The Covenant of the League of Nations". The Avalon Project. Archived from the original on 26 July 2011. Retrieved 20 April 2009., Treaty of Versailles. Archived from the original on 19 January 2010. Retrieved 23 January 2010. and Minority Treaties.
5. ^ Rees, Yves (2020). "The women of the League of Nations". La Trobe University. Retrieved 28 October 2023.
6. ^ Jahanpour, Farhang. "The Elusiveness of Trust: the experience of Security Council and Iran" (PDF). Transnational Foundation of Peace and Future Research. p. 2. Archived (PDF) from the original on 27 July 2014. Retrieved 27 June 2008.
7. ^ Osakwe, C O (1972). The participation of the Soviet Union in universal international organizations.: A political and legal analysis of Soviet strategies and aspirations inside ILO, UNESCO and WHO. Springer. p. 5. ISBN 978-90-286-0002-7.
8. ^ Pericles, Lewis (2000). Modernism, Nationalism, and the Novel. Cambridge University Press. p. 52. ISBN 978-1-139-42658-9.
9. ^ Ginneken, Anique H. M. van (2006). Historical Dictionary of the League of Nations. Scarecrow Press. p. 174. ISBN 978-0-8108-6513-6.
10. ^ Ellis, Charles Howard (2003). The Origin, Structure & Working of the League of Nations. Lawbook Exchange Ltd. p. 169. ISBN 978-1-58477-320-7.
11. ^ Cite error: The named reference Pedersen2007 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

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20 January 1649 – The High Court of Justice for the trial of Charles I begins its proceedings.

Trial of Charles I

1649 trial resulting in conviction of King Charles I

"High Court of Justice (1649)" redirects here. For other similarly named courts, see High Court of Justice (disambiguation).

The trial of Charles I took place in January 1649,^[a] marking the first time a reigning monarch was tried and executed by his own subjects. Following years of conflict during the English Civil War, which pitted the Royalists loyal to Charles I against the Parliamentarians seeking to limit his powers, the king was captured by Parliamentary forces in 1646.

In November 1648, after a series of failed negotiations and increasing tensions, the Rump Parliament established the High Court of Justice to try Charles for treason. The court was presided over by John Bradshaw, and the proceedings were marked by controversy and legal disputes, as many questioned the legitimacy of trying a king. The charges against Charles included high treason, specifically waging war against the realm and betraying the trust of the people.

In accordance with his belief that he ruled by divine right and could not be subjected to the authority of Parliament, Charles maintained a defiant stance throughout the trial, refusing to recognise the court's legitimacy. He was ultimately found guilty and sentenced to death. On 30 January 1649 Charles I was executed outside the Banqueting House in Whitehall, London. His execution sent shockwaves across Europe and heralded a new era in English governance, leading to the establishment of the Commonwealth under Oliver Cromwell. The trial and execution of Charles I remain pivotal events that challenged the traditional notions of monarchy and laid the groundwork for the modern British constitutional system.
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21 January 1720 – Sweden and Prussia sign the Treaty of Stockholm.

Treaties of Stockholm (Great Northern War)

1719 and 1720 peace treaties between Sweden and allied Hanover and Prussia

The Treaties of Stockholm were two treaties signed in 1719 and 1720 that ended the war between Sweden and an alliance of Hanover and Prussia.

Aspects of the conflict that remained unresolved would be dealt with by two further treaties, the Treaty of Frederiksborg between Sweden and Denmark-Norway in 1720 and the Treaty of Nystad between Sweden and Russia in 1721.

Frederick I began negotiating the Treaties of Stockholm following the death of Charles XII of Sweden in 1718. The death of the Swedish monarch heralded the impending conclusion of the Great Northern War.

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22 January 1968 – Apollo Program: Apollo 5 lifts off carrying the first Lunar module into space.

Apollo 5

Uncrewed first test flight of the Apollo Lunar Module

Apollo 5 (launched January 22, 1968), also known as AS-204, was the uncrewed first flight of the Apollo Lunar Module (LM) that would later carry astronauts to the surface of the Moon. The Saturn IB rocket bearing the LM lifted off from Cape Kennedy on January 22, 1968. The mission was successful, though due to programming problems an alternate mission to that originally planned was executed.

Like Apollo 4, this flight was long delayed, due in part to setbacks in development of the LM, manufactured by Grumman Aircraft. The original Saturn IB rocket that was to take the first LM (LM-1) to space was taken down during the delays and replaced with the one that would have launched Apollo 1 if the spacecraft fire that killed three astronauts had not occurred. LM-1 arrived at the Kennedy Space Center in June 1967; the following months were occupied in testing and placing the LM atop the Saturn IB. After final delays due to equipment trouble, the countdown began on January 21, 1968, and the space vehicle was launched the following day.

Once the craft reached orbit and the LM separated from the S-IVB booster, the program of orbital testing began, but a planned burn was aborted automatically when the Apollo Guidance Computer detected the craft was not going as fast as planned. Flight Director Gene Kranz and his team at Mission Control in Houston quickly decided on an alternate mission, during which the mission's goals of testing LM-1 were accomplished. The mission was successful enough that a contemplated second uncrewed mission to test the LM was cancelled, advancing NASA's plans to land an astronaut on the Moon by the end of the 1960s.

1. ^ ^{a b c d e} "Apollo 5". NASA Space Science Data Coordinated Archive. Retrieved September 26, 2016.
2. ^ McDowell, Jonathan. "SATCAT". Jonathan's Space Pages. Retrieved March 23, 2014.

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23 January 393 – Roman emperor Theodosius I proclaims his eight-year-old son Honorius co-emperor.

Roman emperor

Ruler of the Roman Empire

For the ruler of the archaic Roman Kingdom, see King of Rome. For the dual chief magistrate during the Republic, see Roman consul. For a chronological list, see List of Roman emperors.

The Roman emperor was the ruler and monarchical head of state of the Roman Empire, starting with the granting of the title augustus to Octavian in 27 BC.^[2] The title of imperator, originally a military honorific, was usually used alongside caesar, originally a cognomen. When a given Roman is described as becoming emperor in English, it generally reflects his accession as augustus, and later as basileus. Early emperors also used the title princeps ("first one") alongside other Republican titles, notably consul and pontifex maximus.

The legitimacy of an emperor's rule depended on his control of the Roman army and recognition by the Senate; an emperor would normally be proclaimed by his troops, or by the Senate, or both. The first emperors reigned alone; later emperors would sometimes rule with co-emperors to secure the succession or to divide the administration of the empire between them. The office of emperor was thought to be distinct from that of a rex ("king"). Augustus, the first emperor, resolutely refused recognition as a monarch.^[3] For the first three hundred years of Roman emperors, efforts were made to portray the emperors as leaders of the Republic, fearing any association with the kings who ruled Rome prior to the Republic.

From Diocletian, whose reformed tetrarchy divided the position into one emperor in the West and one in the East, emperors ruled in an openly monarchic style.^[4] Although succession was generally hereditary, it was only hereditary if there was a suitable candidate acceptable to the army and the bureaucracy,^[5] so the principle of automatic inheritance was not adopted, which often led to several claimants to the throne. Despite this, elements of the republican institutional framework (Senate, consuls, and magistrates) were preserved even after the end of the Western Empire.

Constantine the Great, the first Christian emperor, moved the capital from Rome to Constantinople, formerly known as Byzantium, in 330 AD. Roman emperors had always held high religious offices, early emperors were even worshiped as gods, at least following their death when they were said to have become divine. Under Constantine there arose the specifically Christian idea that the emperor was God's chosen ruler on earth, a special protector and leader of the Christian Church, a position later termed Caesaropapism. In practice, an emperor's authority on Church matters was frequently subject to challenge. In the later period, although theoretically one empire, there were two emperors, one in the east and one in the west. The Western Roman Empire collapsed in the late 5th century after multiple invasions by Germanic barbarian tribes, with no recognized claimant to Emperor of the West remaining after the death of Julius Nepos in 480. Instead, the Eastern emperor Zeno proclaimed himself as the sole emperor of a theoretically undivided Roman Empire (although in practice he had no authority in the West). The subsequent Eastern emperors ruling from Constantinople styled themselves as "Basileus of the Romans" (Ancient Greek: βασιλεύς Ῥωμαίων, Basileus Romaíon) but are often referred to in modern scholarship as Byzantine emperors.

The papacy and Christianised Germanic kingdoms of the West acknowledged the Eastern emperors until the accession of Empress Irene in 797. After this, the papacy created a rival lineage of Roman emperors in western Europe, the Holy Roman Emperors, which ruled the Holy Roman Empire for most of the period between 800 and 1806. These emperors were never recognized in Constantinople and their coronations resulted in the medieval problem of two emperors. The last Eastern emperor was Constantine XI Palaiologos, who died during the Fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire in 1453. After conquering the city, Ottoman sultans adopted the title "Caesar of the Romans" (kayser-i Rûm). A Byzantine group of claimant emperors existed in the Empire of Trebizond until its conquest by the Ottomans in 1461, although they had used a modified title since 1282.

1. ^ Bury 2012, p. 408.
2. ^ Watkin 2017, p. 37.
3. ^ Galinsky 2005, pp. 13–14.
4. ^ Williams 1997, p. 147.
5. ^ Heather 2005, p. 28.

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24 January 914 – Start of the First Fatimid invasion of Egypt.

Fatimid invasion of Egypt (914–915)

10th-century invasion of Egypt

The first Fatimid invasion of Egypt occurred in 914–915, soon after the establishment of the Fatimid Caliphate in Ifriqiya in 909. The Fatimids launched an expedition east, against the Abbasid Caliphate, under the Berber General Habasa ibn Yusuf. Habasa succeeded in subduing the cities on the Libyan coast between Ifriqiya and Egypt, and captured Alexandria. The Fatimid heir-apparent, al-Qa'im bi-Amr Allah, then arrived to take over the campaign. Attempts to conquer the Egyptian capital, Fustat, were beaten back by the Abbasid troops in the province. A risky affair even at the outset, the arrival of Abbasid reinforcements from Syria and Iraq under Mu'nis al-Muzaffar doomed the invasion to failure, and al-Qa'im and the remnants of his army abandoned Alexandria and returned to Ifriqiya in May 915. The failure did not prevent the Fatimids from launching another unsuccessful attempt to capture Egypt four years later. It was not until 969 that the Fatimids conquered Egypt and made it the centre of their empire.

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25 January 1479 – The Treaty of Constantinople ends the 16-year-long First Ottoman–Venetian War.

Treaty of Constantinople (1479)

1479 treaty between Venice and the Ottoman Empire

The Treaty of Constantinople was signed on 25 January 1479, which officially ended the sixteen-year-long war between the Republic of Venice and the Ottoman Empire. The Venetians were forced to hand over Scutari (which had been besieged by the Ottomans for many months) in Albania and the island of Lemnos and the Mani Peninsula in Greece; and acknowledge the loss of Negroponte (Euboea) and Croia. The treaty allowed a full restoration of Venetian trading privileges in the Ottoman Empire against an annual flat tax of 10,000 ducats, as well as a 100,000 ducats in arrears owed by Venetian citizens to the Porte.

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26 January 1808 – The Rum Rebellion is the only successful (albeit short-lived) armed takeover of the government in New South Wales.

Rum Rebellion

1808 coup in Britain's New South Wales Colony

The Rum Rebellion of 1808 was a coup d'état in the British penal colony of New South Wales, staged by the New South Wales Corps in order to depose Governor William Bligh. Australia's first and only military coup, its name derives from the illicit rum trade of early Sydney, over which the 'Rum Corps', as it became known, maintained a monopoly. During the first half of the 19th century, it was widely referred to in Australia as the Great Rebellion.^[2]

Bligh, a former Royal Navy captain known for his overthrow in the mutiny on the Bounty, had been appointed governor in 1805 to rein in the power of the Corps. Over the next two years, Bligh made enemies not only of Sydney's military elite, but several prominent civilians, notably John Macarthur, who joined Major George Johnston in organising an armed takeover. On 26 January 1808, 400 soldiers marched on Government House and arrested Bligh. He was kept in confinement in Sydney, then aboard a ship off Hobart, Van Diemen's Land, for the next two years while Johnston acted as Lieutenant-Governor of New South Wales. The military remained in control until the 1810 arrival from Britain of Major-General Lachlan Macquarie, who took over as governor.^[3]

1. ^ "First Australian political cartoon fuels Rum Rebellion folklore" (PDF). Media Releases. State Library of New South Wales. 2008. Archived from the original (PDF) on 29 February 2008. Retrieved 4 February 2008. When an unknown artist created Australia's first political cartoon, little did he know his drawing would seep into the country's folklore and shape the perceptions on Governor Bligh's dramatic arrest and overthrow, 200 years ago on Australia Day. This cartoon [was] created within hours of the mutiny and ridicul[es] Bligh. ... The coloured work depicts the hunted Governor being dragged from underneath a bed by the red-coated members of the NSW Corps, later referred to as the Rum Corps. 'It was very unlikely that Bligh would have hidden under the bed, the image was political propaganda, intending to portray Bligh as a coward.' The slur on Bligh's character created by the cartoon was extremely powerful. The work was first illuminated by candles and displayed prominently in the window of Sergeant Major Whittle's house. Throughout the years the image continued to blur the reality about the true events of the rebellion.
2. ^ "NOTABLE AUSTRALIAN EVENTS". The Sunday Times. No. 619. New South Wales, Australia. 7 November 1897. p. 9. Retrieved 25 February 2019 – via National Library of Australia.
3. ^ "Rum Rebellion | Australian history". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 30 March 2021.

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27 January 1961 – The Soviet submarine S-80 sinks when its snorkel malfunctions, flooding the boat.

Soviet submarine S-80

Diesel-electric submarine of the Soviet Navy

S-80 was a diesel-electric submarine of the Soviet Navy.

Its keel was laid down on 13 March 1950 at Krasnoye Sormovo as a Project 613 unit (NATO : Whiskey class). It was launched on 21 October, and delivered to Baku on the Caspian Sea on 1 November for tests, then transferred north via inland waterways in December. It was commissioned into the Northern Fleet on 2 December 1952, and operated there until mid-1957.

Beginning in July 1957, S-80 was overhauled at Severodvinsk and converted to Project 644 ("Whiskey Twin-Cylinder") guided missile submarine, by having launch tubes for two SS-N-3 Shaddock anti-ship missiles fitted externally. It returned to sea in April 1959.

1. ^ ^{a b c d e} Friedman, pp. 396-397

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28 January 1591 – Execution of Agnes Sampson, accused of witchcraft in Edinburgh

Agnes Sampson

16th-century Scottish healer and purported witch

Agnes Sampson (died 28 January 1591)^[1] was a Scottish healer and purported witch. Also known as the "Wise Wife of Keith",^[2] Sampson was executed during the North Berwick witch trials in the last decade of the 16th century.^[3]

1. ^ Calendar State Papers Scotland, vol. 10 (Edinburgh, 1936), p. 464 '[Confession of Agnes Samsone] "Certane notes of Agnes Samsone her confession, 27 Januarii 1590; quhairupon sche was convict be ane assise and brint in Edinburgh 28 day for ane witch."'. A note of her execution has a date of 16 January 1591. In Scotland in this period the Julian calendar was in effect and the year began 25 March. This article uses the Julian calendar (as does this source) but always treats 1 January as the beginning of the year.
2. ^ Thomson, Thomas (14 April 1826). "The historie and life of King James the Sext: being an account of the affairs of Scotland, from the year 1566, to the year 1596; with a short continuation to the year 1617". Edinburgh : Bannatyne Club, 1825 (i.e. 1826). Retrieved 14 April 2023 – via Internet Archive.
3. ^ Gareth Russell, Queen James: The Lives and Loves of Britain's First King (London: William Collins, 2025), pp. 154–157.

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29 January 1850 – Henry Clay introduces the Compromise of 1850 to the U.S. Congress.

Compromise of 1850

American legislative compromise

The United States after the ratification of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, with the Mexican Cession still unorganized

The United States after the Compromise of 1850

The Compromise of 1850–1851 was a package of five separate bills passed by the United States Congress in September 1850 that temporarily defused tensions between slave and free states during the years leading up to the American Civil War. Designed by Whig senator Henry Clay and Democratic senator Stephen A. Douglas, with the support of President Millard Fillmore, the compromise centered on how to handle slavery in recently acquired territories from the Mexican–American War (1846–1848).

The provisions of the compromise included a provision that approved California's request to enter the Union as a free state, and strengthened fugitive slave laws with the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. The compromise also banned the slave trade in Washington, D.C. (while still allowing slavery itself there), defined northern and western borders for Texas while establishing a territorial government for the Territory of New Mexico, with no restrictions on whether any future state from this territory would be a free or slave state and established a territorial government for the Territory of Utah also with no restrictions on if the territory would become a slave or free state.^[1][2]

A debate over slavery in the territories erupted during the Mexican–American War, as many white Southerners sought to expand slavery to the newly acquired lands and many Northerners opposed any such expansion. The debate was further complicated by Texas's claim to all former Mexican territory north and east of the Rio Grande, including areas it had never effectively controlled. These issues prevented the passage of organic acts to create organized territorial governments for the land acquired in the Mexican–American War. In early 1850, Clay proposed a package of eight bills that would settle most of the pressing issues before Congress. Clay's proposal was opposed by President Zachary Taylor, anti-slavery Whigs like William Seward, and pro-slavery Democrats like John C. Calhoun, and congressional debate over the territories continued. The debates over the bill are among the most famous in Congressional history, and the divisions devolved into fistfights and drawn guns on the floor of Congress.

After Taylor died and was succeeded by Fillmore, Douglas took the lead in passing Clay's compromise through Congress as five separate bills. Under the compromise, Texas surrendered its claims to present-day New Mexico and other states in return for federal assumption of Texas's public debt. California was admitted as a free state, while the remaining portions of the Mexican Cession were organized into New Mexico Territory and Utah Territory. Under the concept of popular sovereignty, the white people of each territory would decide whether or not slavery would be permitted. The compromise also included a more stringent Fugitive Slave Law and banned the slave trade in Washington, D.C. The issue of slavery in the territories would be re-opened by the Kansas–Nebraska Act (1854), but the Compromise of 1850 played a major role in postponing the Civil War.

1. ^ Drexler, Ken. "Research Guides: Compromise of 1850: Primary Documents in American History: Introduction". guides.loc.gov. Retrieved December 3, 2022.
2. ^ "Compromise of 1850 (1850)". National Archives. June 28, 2021. Retrieved December 3, 2022.

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30 January 1920 – Japanese carmaker Mazda is founded, initially as a cork-producing company.

Mazda

Japanese multinational automaker

This article is about the car manufacturer. For the Zoroastrian deity, see Ahura Mazda. For other uses, see Mazda (disambiguation).

Mazda Motor Corporation (マツダ株式会社, Matsuda Kabushiki gaisha) is a Japanese multinational automotive manufacturer headquartered in Fuchū, Hiroshima, Japan.^[5] The company was founded on January 30, 1920, as Toyo Cork Kogyo Co., Ltd., a cork-making factory, by Jujiro Matsuda.^[6][7] The company then acquired Abemaki Tree Cork Company.^[8] It changed its name to Toyo Kogyo Co., Ltd. in 1927 and started producing vehicles in 1931.^[9]

Mazda is known for its innovative technologies, such as the Wankel engine, the SkyActiv platform, and the Kodo Design language. It also has a long history of motorsport involvement, winning the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1991 with the rotary-powered Mazda 787B.^[10] In the past and present, Mazda has been engaged in alliances with other automakers. From 1974 until the late 2000s, Ford was a major shareholder of Mazda. Other partnerships include Toyota, Nissan, Isuzu, Suzuki and Kia. In 2023, it produced 1.1 million vehicles globally.^[11]

The name Mazda was derived from Ahura Mazda, the god of harmony, intelligence and wisdom in Zoroastrianism, as well as from the surname of the founder, Matsuda.^[12]

1. ^ "Financial results for fiscal year March 2025" (PDF). mazda.com. Retrieved May 31, 2025.
2. ^ ^{a b c} "Consolidated Financial Results" (PDF). mazda.com/en/investors. Archived from the original (PDF) on July 15, 2023. Retrieved July 14, 2023.
3. ^ "Stock Information". Archived from the original on July 15, 2023. Retrieved July 8, 2024.
4. ^ "Mazda Integrated Report 2022" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on April 6, 2023. Retrieved July 14, 2023.
5. ^ "Offices Archived October 7, 2009, at the Wayback Machine." Mazda. Retrieved on October 29, 2009.
6. ^ "Japan's Mazda founded". History. Archived from the original on March 8, 2010. Retrieved May 1, 2023.
7. ^ "Mazda fête son centenaire en 2020". L'argus (in French). France. Archived from the original on April 9, 2023. Retrieved March 15, 2024.
8. ^ "Mazda, un peu d'histoire". guide auto web. January 10, 2008. Archived from the original on March 15, 2024. Retrieved March 15, 2024.
9. ^ "History of Mazda 1931-1945". Mazda. Retrieved April 27, 2023.^{[permanent dead link]}
10. ^ "History of Mazda 1991-2000". Mazda. Retrieved April 27, 2023.^{[permanent dead link]}
11. ^ "Financial results for FY March 2023" (PDF). mazda.com. Archived (PDF) from the original on July 15, 2023. Retrieved July 14, 2023.
12. ^ "Mazda: A Story Behind the Name of "Mazda" | We are Mazda". www.mazda.com. Archived from the original on February 24, 2018. Retrieved February 21, 2024.

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31 January 1928 – Leon Trotsky is exiled to Alma-Ata.

Leon Trotsky

Soviet politician and revolutionary (1879–1940)

"Trotsky" redirects here. For other uses, see Trotsky (disambiguation).

Lev Davidovich Trotsky^[b][c] (né Bronstein;^[d] 7 November [O.S. 26 October] 1879 – 21 August 1940), better known as Leon Trotsky,^[e] was a Russian revolutionary, Soviet politician and political theorist. He was a key figure in the 1905 Revolution, October Revolution of 1917, Russian Civil War, and the establishment of the Soviet Union, from which he was exiled in 1929 before his assassination in 1940. Trotsky and Vladimir Lenin were widely considered the two most prominent figures in the Soviet state from 1917 until Lenin's death in 1924. Ideologically a Marxist and a Leninist, Trotsky's ideas and beliefs inspired a school of Marxism known as Trotskyism.

Trotsky joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1898, being arrested and exiled to Siberia for his activities. In 1902 he escaped to London, where he met Lenin. Trotsky initially sided with the Mensheviks against Lenin's Bolsheviks in the party's 1903 schism, but declared himself non-factional in 1904. During the 1905 Revolution, Trotsky was elected chairman of the Saint Petersburg Soviet. He was again exiled to Siberia, but escaped in 1907 and lived abroad. After the February Revolution of 1917, Trotsky joined the Bolsheviks and was elected chairman of the Petrograd Soviet. He helped to lead the October Revolution, and as the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs negotiated the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, by which Russia withdrew from World War I. He served as People's Commissar for Military Affairs from 1918 to 1925, during which he built the Red Army and led it to victory in the civil war. In 1922 Lenin formed a bloc with Trotsky against the growing Soviet bureaucracy^[3] and proposed that he should become a deputy premier,^[4] but Trotsky declined.^[5] Beginning in 1923, Trotsky led the party's Left Opposition faction, which supported greater levels of industrialisation, voluntary collectivisation and party democratisation in a shared framework with the New Economic Policy.^[6]

After Lenin's death in 1924, Trotsky emerged as a prominent critic of Joseph Stalin, who soon politically outmanoeuvred him. Trotsky was expelled from the Politburo in 1926 and from the party in 1927, exiled to Alma Ata in 1928 and deported in 1929. He lived in Turkey, France and Norway before settling in Mexico in 1937. In exile, Trotsky wrote polemics against Stalinism, advocating proletarian internationalism against Stalin's theory of socialism in one country. Trotsky's theory of permanent revolution held that the revolution could only survive if spread to more advanced capitalist countries. In The Revolution Betrayed (1936), he argued that the Soviet Union had become a "degenerated workers' state", and in 1938 founded the Fourth International as an alternative to the Comintern. After being sentenced to death in absentia at the Moscow show trials in 1936, Trotsky was assassinated in 1940 in Mexico City by Ramón Mercader, a Stalinist agent.

Written out of official history under Stalin, Trotsky was one of the few of his rivals who were never politically rehabilitated by later Soviet leaders. In the Western world Trotsky emerged as a hero of the anti-Stalinist left for his defence of a more democratic, internationalist form of socialism^[7][8] against Stalinist totalitarianism, and for his intellectual contributions to Marxism. While some of his wartime actions are controversial, such as his ideological defence of the Red Terror^[9] and violent suppression of the Kronstadt rebellion, scholarship ranks Trotsky's leadership of the Red Army highly among historical figures, and he is credited for his major involvement with the military, economic, cultural^[10] and political development of the Soviet Union.

Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).

1. ^ Cliff, Tony (2004) [1976]. "Lenin Rearms the Party". All Power to the Soviets: Lenin 1914–1917. Vol. 2. Chicago: Haymarket Books. p. 139. ISBN 9781931859103. Retrieved 17 December 2021. Trotsky was a leader of a small group, the Mezhraionts, consisting of almost four thousand members.
2. ^ "Trotsky". Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary. Merriam-Webster. OCLC 1032680871.
3. ^ Mccauley 2014, p. 59; Deutscher 2003b, p. 63; Kort 2015, p. 166; Service 2010, p. 301–20; Pipes 1993, p. 469; Volkogonov 1996, p. 242; Lewin 2005, p. 67; Tucker 1973, p. 336; Figes 2017, pp. 796–797; D'Agostino 2011, p. 67.
4. ^ Getty 2013b, p. 53; Douds 2019b, p. 165.
5. ^ Bullock 1991b, p. 163; Rees & Rosa 1992b, p. 129; Kosheleva 1995b, pp. 80–81.
6. ^ Deutscher 2015a, pp. 646, 674–678.
7. ^ Barnett, Vincent (2013). A History of Russian Economic Thought. Routledge. p. 101. ISBN 978-1-134-26191-8.
8. ^ Deutscher 2015a, p. 1053.
9. ^ "Leon Trotsky: Terrorism and Communism (Chapter 4)". www.marxists.org. Retrieved 16 November 2022.
10. ^ Knei-Paz 1979, p. 296; Kivelson & Neuberger 2008, p. 149.

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1 February 1793 – French Revolutionary Wars: France declares war on the United Kingdom and the Netherlands.

French Revolutionary Wars

1792–1802 wars

The French Revolutionary Wars (French: Guerres de la Révolution française) were a series of sweeping military conflicts resulting from the French Revolution that lasted from 1792 until 1802. They pitted France against Great Britain, Austria, Prussia, Russia, and several other countries. The wars are divided into two periods: the War of the First Coalition (1792–1797) and the War of the Second Coalition (1798–1802). Initially confined to Europe, the fighting gradually assumed a global dimension. After a decade of constant warfare and aggressive diplomacy, France had conquered territories in the Italian peninsula, the Low Countries, and the Rhineland with its very large and powerful military which had been totally mobilized for war against most of Europe with mass conscription of the vast French population. French success in these conflicts ensured military occupation and the spread of revolutionary principles over much of Europe.^[6]

As early as 1791, the other monarchies of Europe looked with outrage at the revolution and its upheavals; and they considered whether they should intervene, either in support of King Louis XVI to prevent the spread of revolution, or to take advantage of the chaos in France. Austria stationed significant troops on its French border and together with Prussia issued the Declaration of Pillnitz, which threatened severe consequences should anything happen to King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette. After Austria refused to recall its troops from the French border and to back down on the perceived threat of using force, France declared war on Austria and Prussia in the spring of 1792; both countries responded with a coordinated invasion that was turned back at the Battle of Valmy in September. This victory emboldened the National Convention to abolish the monarchy.^[7] A series of victories by the French Revolutionary Army abruptly ended with defeat at Neerwinden in the spring of 1793. The French suffered additional defeats in the remainder of the year, and these difficult times allowed the Jacobins to rise to power and impose the Reign of Terror to unify the nation.

In 1794 the situation improved dramatically for the French as huge victories at Fleurus against the Austrians and Dutch and against the Spanish at the Battle of the Black Mountain signalled the start of a new stage in the wars. By 1795, the French had captured the Austrian Netherlands and the Dutch Republic. The French also put Spain and Prussia out of the war with the Peace of Basel. A hitherto unknown general named Napoleon Bonaparte began his first campaign in Italy in April 1796. In less than a year, French armies under Napoleon destroyed the Habsburg forces and evicted them from the Italian peninsula, winning almost every battle and capturing 150,000 prisoners. With French forces marching toward Vienna, the Austrians sued for peace and agreed to the Treaty of Campo Formio on 17 October 1797, ending the First Coalition against the Republic.

The War of the Second Coalition began in 1798 with the French invasion of Egypt, headed by Napoleon. The allies took the opportunity presented by the French effort in the Middle East to regain territories lost from the First Coalition. The war began well for the allies in Europe, where they gradually pushed the French out of Italy and invaded Switzerland – racking up victories at the battles of Magnano, Cassano, and Novi along the way. However, their efforts largely unraveled with the French victory at Zurich in September 1799, which caused Russia to drop out of the war.^[8] Meanwhile, Napoleon's forces won a series of battles at the Pyramids, Mount Tabor, and Abukir but lost a crucial Siege of Acre in 1799 that turned the tide of the campaign. The perceived victories in Egypt further enhanced Napoleon's popularity back in France, and he returned to France in the autumn of 1799, but leaving the French army in a desperate situation in Egypt as the Egyptian campaign ultimately ended in failure. Furthermore, the Royal Navy had won the Battle of the Nile in 1798, further strengthening British control of the Mediterranean and weakening the French Navy for the rest of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.

Napoleon's arrival from Egypt led to the fall of the French Directory in the Coup of 18 Brumaire, with Napoleon installing himself as consul. Napoleon then reorganized the French army and launched an assault against the Austrians in Italy during the spring of 1800. This brought a decisive French victory at the Battle of Marengo in June 1800, after which the Austrians withdrew from the peninsula once again. Another crushing French victory at Hohenlinden in Bavaria forced the Austrians to seek peace for a second time, leading to the Treaty of Lunéville in 1801. With Austria and Russia out of the war, Britain found itself increasingly isolated and agreed to the Treaty of Amiens with Napoleon's government in 1802, concluding the Revolutionary Wars. However, the lingering tensions proved too difficult to contain, and the Napoleonic Wars began over a year later with the formation of the Third Coalition, continuing the series of Coalition Wars.

Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).

1. ^ Collaborated with the anti-revolutionary Coalition
2. ^ ^{a b} Clodfelter 2017, p. 100-109.
3. ^ Lynn, John A. "Recalculating French Army Growth during the Grand Siecle, 1610–1715." French Historical Studies 18, no. 4 (1994): 881–906, p. 904. Only counting frontline army troops, not naval personnel, militiamen, or reserves; the National Guard alone was supposed to provide a reserve of 1,200,000 men in 1789.
4. ^ ^{a b c d e f} Clodfelter 2017, p. 100.
5. ^ ^{a b} Clodfelter 2017, p. 103.
6. ^ "French Revolutionary wars – Campaign of 1792 | Britannica". www.britannica.com. Retrieved 28 February 2023.
7. ^ Blanning 1996, pp. 78–79.
8. ^ Blanning 1996, pp. 245–255.

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2 February 1207 – Terra Mariana, eventually comprising present-day Latvia and Estonia, is established.

Terra Mariana

Vassal state of the Holy See

For an Estonian decoration, see Order of the Cross of Terra Mariana.

Terra Mariana (Medieval Latin for 'Land of Mary') was the formal name^[1] for Medieval Livonia or Old Livonia.^[b][4] It was formed in the aftermath of the Livonian Crusade, and its territories were composed of present-day Estonia and Latvia. It was established on 2 February 1207,^[5] as a principality of the Holy Roman Empire,^[6] and lost this status in 1215 when Pope Innocent III proclaimed it as directly subject to the Holy See.^[7]

The papal legate William of Modena divided Terra Mariana into feudal principalities: the Duchy of Estonia (dominum directum to the king of Denmark);^[8][9] the Archbishopric of Riga; the Bishopric of Courland; the Bishopric of Dorpat; the Bishopric of Ösel–Wiek; and territories under the military administration of the Livonian Brothers of the Sword. After the 1236 Battle of Saule, the surviving members of the Brothers merged in 1237 with the Teutonic Order of Prussia and became known as the Livonian Order. In 1346 the Livonian Order bought the Duchy of Estonia from Denmark.

Throughout the existence of medieval Livonia there was a constant struggle over supremacy, between the lands ruled by the Church, the Order, the secular German nobility, and the citizens of the Hanseatic towns of Riga and Reval. Following its defeat in the Battle of Grunwald in 1410, the Teutonic Order and the State of the Teutonic Order fell into decline, but the Livonian Order managed to maintain its independent existence.

In 1561, during the Livonian War, Terra Mariana ceased to exist.^[1] Its northern parts were ceded to the King of Sweden and formed into the Duchy of Estonia, its southern territories became part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania – and thus eventually of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth – as the Duchy of Livonia and the Duchy of Courland and Semigallia. The island of Saaremaa became part of Denmark. Since the beginning of the 20th century Terra Mariana (Estonian: Maarjamaa) has been used as a poetic name or sobriquet for Estonia. In 1995 the Order of the Cross of Terra Mariana, a state decoration, was instituted to honor the independence of Estonia.^[10] Terra Mariana (Latvian: Māras zeme) is also used as a poetic name for Latgale region.^[11]

Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).

1. ^ ^{a b} "Terra Mariana". The Encyclopedia Americana. Americana Corp. 1967.
2. ^ Raun, Toivo U. (2002). "Medieval Livonia, 1200–1561". Estonia and the Estonians: Second Edition, Updated. Hoover Press. p. 15. ISBN 9780817928537.
3. ^ Miljan, Toivo (2015). Historical Dictionary of Estonia. Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 29–30. ISBN 9780810875135.
4. ^ (Low German: Oolt-Livland, Livonian: Jemā-Līvõmō, Estonian: Vana-Liivimaa, Latvian: Livonija)
5. ^ Bilmanis, Alfreds (1944). Latvian-Russian Relations: Documents. The Latvian legation.
6. ^ Herbermann, Charles George (1907). The Catholic Encyclopedia. Robert Appleton Company.
7. ^ Bilmanis, Alfreds (1945). The Church in Latvia. Drauga vēsts. 1215 proclaimed it the Terra Mariana, subject directly.
8. ^ Cite error: The named reference CH111 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
9. ^ Knut, Helle (2003). The Cambridge History of Scandinavia: Prehistory to 1520. Cambridge University Press. p. 269. ISBN 0-521-47299-7.
10. ^ The Order of the Cross of Terra Mariana. President of the Republic of Estonia, Estonian State Decorations. Retrieved 2011-01-22
11. ^ "Māras zeme | Tēzaurs". tezaurs.lv. Retrieved 2024-03-07.

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3 February 1830 – The London Protocol of 1830 establishes the full independence and sovereignty of Greece from the Ottoman Empire as the final result of the Greek War of Independence.

London Protocol (1830)

Agreement between the United Kingdom, France, and Russia

The London Protocol of 1830, also known as the Protocol of Independence (Greek: Πρωτόκολλο της Ανεξαρτησίας) in Greek historiography, was a treaty signed between France, Russia, and Great Britain on 3 February 1830. It was the first official international diplomatic act that recognized Greece as a fully sovereign and independent state, separate from the Ottoman Empire. The protocol afforded Greece the political, administrative, and commercial rights of an independent state, and defined the northern border of Greece from the mouth of the Achelous or Aspropotamos river to the mouth of the Spercheios river (Aspropotamos–Spercheios line). As a result of the Greek War of Independence, which had broken out in 1821, the autonomy of Greece in one form or another had been recognized already since 1826, and a provisional Greek government under Governor Ioannis Kapodistrias existed, but the conditions of the Greek autonomy, its political status, and the borders of the new Greek state, were being debated between the Great Powers, the Greeks, and the Ottoman government.

The London Protocol determined that the Greek state would be a monarchy, ruled by the "Ruler Sovereign of Greece". The signatories to the protocol initially selected Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha as monarch. After Leopold declined the offer of the Greek throne,^[1] a meeting of the powers at the London conference of 1832 named the 17-year-old Prince Otto of Bavaria as the King of Greece and designated the new state the Kingdom of Greece.

1. ^ Ιστορία του Ελληνικού Έθνους, p. 575.

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4 February 1794 – The French legislature abolishes slavery throughout all territories of the French First Republic.

Slavery

Ownership of people as property

"Slave" and "Slaves" redirect here. For other uses, see Slave (disambiguation).

"Slave master" redirects here. For other uses, see Slave Master (disambiguation).

"Slave labour" redirects here. For the Banksy artwork, see Slave Labour (mural).

Slavery is the ownership of a person as property, especially in regards to their labour.^[1] It is an economic phenomenon and its history resides in economic history.^[2] Slavery typically involves compulsory work, with the slave's location of work and residence dictated by the party that holds them in bondage. Enslavement is the placement of a person into slavery, and the person is called a slave or an enslaved person.

Many historical cases of enslavement occurred as a result of breaking the law, becoming indebted, suffering a military defeat, or exploitation for cheaper labor; other forms of slavery were instituted along demographic lines such as race or sex. Slaves would be kept in bondage for life, or for a fixed period of time after which they would be granted freedom.^[3] Although slavery is usually involuntary and involves coercion, there are also cases where people voluntarily enter into slavery to pay a debt or earn money due to poverty. In the course of human history, slavery was a typical feature of civilization,^[4] and existed in most societies throughout history,^[5][6] but it is now outlawed in all countries of the world, except as a punishment for a crime.^[7][8] In general there were two types of slavery throughout human history: domestic and productive.^[4]

In chattel slavery, the slave is legally rendered the personal property (chattel) of the slave owner. In economics, the term de facto slavery describes the conditions of unfree labour and forced labour that most slaves endure.^[9] In 2019, approximately 40 million people, of whom 26% were children, were still enslaved throughout the world despite slavery being illegal. In the modern world, more than 50% of slaves provide forced labour, usually in the factories and sweatshops of the private sector of a country's economy.^[10] In industrialised countries, human trafficking is a modern variety of slavery; in non-industrialised countries, people in debt bondage are common,^[9] others include captive domestic servants, people in forced marriages, and child soldiers.^[11]

1. ^ Allain, Jean (2012). "The Legal Definition of Slavery into the Twenty-First Century". In Allain, Jean (ed.). The Legal Understanding of Slavery: From the Historical to the Contemporary. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 199–219. ISBN 978-0-19-164535-8.
2. ^ Harper, Kyle (2015). Slavery in the Late Roman World, AD 275-425. Cambridge University Press. p. 11. ISBN 9781107640818. Slavery is an economic phenomenon, and a history of slavery must be situated within the economic history of the ancient world.
3. ^ Baker-Kimmons, Leslie C. (2008). "Slavery". In Schaefer, Richard T. (ed.). Encyclopedia of Race, Ethnicity, and Society. Vol. 3. SAGE Publishing. p. 1234. ISBN 9781412926942.
4. ^ ^{a b} Cite error: The named reference ebhellie was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
5. ^ Pargas, Damian (2023). "Introduction: Historicizing and Spatializing Global Slavery". The Palgrave Handbook of Global Slavery throughout History. Palgrave MacMillan. ISBN 978-3031132629.
6. ^ Engerman, Stanley; Paquette, Robert; Drescher, Seymour, eds. (2001). Slavery (Oxford Reader) (Reprinted ed.). Oxford University Press. p. 1. ISBN 9780192893024. By the end of the twentieth century, slavery was no longer legally or morally acceptable anywhere in the world. Only two centuries ago, slavery was still among the most ubiquitous institutions in human societies, and had existed in most times and places throughout history.
7. ^ Bales 2004, p. 4.
8. ^ White, Shelley K.; White, Jonathan M.; Korgen, Kathleen Odell (2014). Sociologists in Action on Inequalities: Race, Class, Gender, and Sexuality. SAGE Publishing. p. 43. ISBN 978-1-4833-1147-0.
9. ^ ^{a b} "Slavery in the 21st century". Newint.org. Archived from the original on May 27, 2010. Retrieved August 29, 2010.
10. ^ Hodal, Kate (May 31, 2016). "One in 200 people is a slave. Why?". The Guardian. Archived from the original on April 30, 2019.
11. ^ "Religion & Ethics – Modern slavery: Modern forms of slavery". BBC. January 30, 2007. Archived from the original on January 6, 2014. Retrieved June 16, 2009.

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4 February 1794 – The French legislature abolishes slavery throughout all territories of the French First Republic.

Slavery

Ownership of people as property

"Slave" and "Slaves" redirect here. For other uses, see Slave (disambiguation).

"Slave master" redirects here. For other uses, see Slave Master (disambiguation).

"Slave labour" redirects here. For the Banksy artwork, see Slave Labour (mural).

Slavery is the ownership of a person as property, especially in regards to their labour.^[1] It is an economic phenomenon and its history resides in economic history.^[2] Slavery typically involves compulsory work, with the slave's location of work and residence dictated by the party that holds them in bondage. Enslavement is the placement of a person into slavery, and the person is called a slave or an enslaved person.

Many historical cases of enslavement occurred as a result of breaking the law, becoming indebted, suffering a military defeat, or exploitation for cheaper labor; other forms of slavery were instituted along demographic lines such as race or sex. Slaves would be kept in bondage for life, or for a fixed period of time after which they would be granted freedom.^[3] Although slavery is usually involuntary and involves coercion, there are also cases where people voluntarily enter into slavery to pay a debt or earn money due to poverty. In the course of human history, slavery was a typical feature of civilization,^[4] and existed in most societies throughout history,^[5][6] but it is now outlawed in all countries of the world, except as a punishment for a crime.^[7][8] In general there were two types of slavery throughout human history: domestic and productive.^[4]

In chattel slavery, the slave is legally rendered the personal property (chattel) of the slave owner. In economics, the term de facto slavery describes the conditions of unfree labour and forced labour that most slaves endure.^[9] In 2019, approximately 40 million people, of whom 26% were children, were still enslaved throughout the world despite slavery being illegal. In the modern world, more than 50% of slaves provide forced labour, usually in the factories and sweatshops of the private sector of a country's economy.^[10] In industrialised countries, human trafficking is a modern variety of slavery; in non-industrialised countries, people in debt bondage are common,^[9] others include captive domestic servants, people in forced marriages, and child soldiers.^[11]

1. ^ Allain, Jean (2012). "The Legal Definition of Slavery into the Twenty-First Century". In Allain, Jean (ed.). The Legal Understanding of Slavery: From the Historical to the Contemporary. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 199–219. ISBN 978-0-19-164535-8.
2. ^ Harper, Kyle (2015). Slavery in the Late Roman World, AD 275-425. Cambridge University Press. p. 11. ISBN 9781107640818. Slavery is an economic phenomenon, and a history of slavery must be situated within the economic history of the ancient world.
3. ^ Baker-Kimmons, Leslie C. (2008). "Slavery". In Schaefer, Richard T. (ed.). Encyclopedia of Race, Ethnicity, and Society. Vol. 3. SAGE Publishing. p. 1234. ISBN 9781412926942.
4. ^ ^{a b} Cite error: The named reference ebhellie was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
5. ^ Pargas, Damian (2023). "Introduction: Historicizing and Spatializing Global Slavery". The Palgrave Handbook of Global Slavery throughout History. Palgrave MacMillan. ISBN 978-3031132629.
6. ^ Engerman, Stanley; Paquette, Robert; Drescher, Seymour, eds. (2001). Slavery (Oxford Reader) (Reprinted ed.). Oxford University Press. p. 1. ISBN 9780192893024. By the end of the twentieth century, slavery was no longer legally or morally acceptable anywhere in the world. Only two centuries ago, slavery was still among the most ubiquitous institutions in human societies, and had existed in most times and places throughout history.
7. ^ Bales 2004, p. 4.
8. ^ White, Shelley K.; White, Jonathan M.; Korgen, Kathleen Odell (2014). Sociologists in Action on Inequalities: Race, Class, Gender, and Sexuality. SAGE Publishing. p. 43. ISBN 978-1-4833-1147-0.
9. ^ ^{a b} "Slavery in the 21st century". Newint.org. Archived from the original on May 27, 2010. Retrieved August 29, 2010.
10. ^ Hodal, Kate (May 31, 2016). "One in 200 people is a slave. Why?". The Guardian. Archived from the original on April 30, 2019.
11. ^ "Religion & Ethics – Modern slavery: Modern forms of slavery". BBC. January 30, 2007. Archived from the original on January 6, 2014. Retrieved June 16, 2009.

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5 February 1869 – The largest alluvial gold nugget in history, called the "Welcome Stranger", is found in Moliagul, Victoria, Australia.

Welcome Stranger

Gold nugget found in Victoria, Australia

Not to be confused with Welcome Nugget.

This article is about a gold nugget discovered in Australia. For other uses, see Welcome Stranger (disambiguation).

The Welcome Stranger was the largest alluvial gold nugget ever discovered. It was unearthed by Cornish miners John Deason and Richard Oates on 5 February 1869 in Moliagul, 9 miles (14 km) north-west of Dunolly in Victoria, Australia.^[2]

1. ^ "The "Welcome Stranger" (picture)". State Library of Victoria search. Retrieved 19 March 2015.
2. ^ O'Shea, Johnny (5 February 2019). "Welcome Stranger: World's Largest Gold Nugget Remembered". BBC News. Retrieved 14 November 2023.

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6 February 337 – Election of pope Julius I.

Pope Julius I

Head of the Catholic Church from 337 to 352

For the 2nd century martyr, see Julius of Rome.

Pope Julius I was the bishop of Rome from 6 February 337 to his death on 12 April 352. He was appealed to by Athanasius when the latter was deposed from his position as patriarch by Arian bishops, Julius then supported Athanasius and condemned his deposition as unjust. He was notable for asserting the authority of the pope over the Arian Eastern bishops, as well as being attributed with the setting of December 25 as the official birthdate of Jesus.

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7 February 1863 – HMS Orpheus sinks off the coast of Auckland, New Zealand, killing 189.

HMS Orpheus (1860)

British naval corvette (sank 1863)

For other ships with the same name, see HMS Orpheus.

HMS Orpheus was a Jason-class Royal Navy corvette that served as the flagship of the Australian squadron. Orpheus sank off the west coast of Auckland, New Zealand, on 7 February 1863: 189 crew out of the ship's complement of 259 died in the disaster, making it the worst maritime tragedy to occur in New Zealand waters.^[2]

1. ^ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k} Winfield (2004), p.210.
2. ^ Otago Witness (7 March 1863), p7.

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8 February 1885 – The first Japanese immigrants arrive in Hawaii

Japanese in Hawaii

Ethnic group

The Japanese in Hawaii (simply Japanese Hawaiians or "Local Japanese", rarely Kepanī) are the second largest ethnic group in Hawaii. At their height in 1920, they constituted 43% of Hawaii's population.^[2] They now number about 16.7% of the islands' population, according to the 2000 U.S. census. The U.S. Census categorizes mixed-race individuals separately, so the proportion of people with some Japanese ancestry is likely much larger.^[3]

1. ^ U.S. Census Bureau: QT-P8: Race Reporting for the Asian Population by Selected Categories: 2010
2. ^ Thernstrom, Stephan; Orlov, Ann; Handlin, Oscar, eds. (1980). "Japanese". Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups. Harvard University Press. p. 562. ISBN 978-0-674-37512-3. OCLC 1038430174.
3. ^ US Census 2000: [1] Archived 2020-02-12 at archive.today.

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9 February 1900 – The Davis Cup competition is established.

Davis Cup

Men's tennis international team competition

For the album by Walter Davis Jr., see Davis Cup (album). For a list of individual Davis Cups by year, see List of Davis Cup champions.

The Davis Cup is the premier international team event in men's tennis. It is organised by the International Tennis Federation (ITF) and contested annually between teams from over 150 competing countries, making it the world's largest annual team sporting competition.^[1] It is described by the organisers as the "World Cup of Tennis" and the winners are referred to as the world champions.^[2] The competition began in 1900 as a challenge between Great Britain and the United States. Initially titled the International Lawn Tennis Challenge, it soon became known metonymically after the trophy donated by Dwight F. Davis; the name was officially changed after Davis' death in 1945. By 2023, 155 nations entered teams into the competition.^[3]

The most successful country over the history of the competition is the United States (winning 32 titles and finishing as runners-up 29 times). The most recent champions are Italy, who beat Spain to win their fourth title (and third consecutive one) in 2025.

The women's equivalent of the Davis Cup is the Billie Jean King Cup, formerly known as the Federation Cup (1963–1995) and Fed Cup (1995–2020). Australia, Italy, Russia, the Czech Republic and the United States are the only countries to have won both Davis Cup and Federation/Fed/Billie Jean King Cup titles in the same year.

The Davis Cup allowed only amateurs and national registered professional players (from 1968) to compete until 1973, five years after the start of the Open Era.^[4]

1. ^ "Davis Cup History". ITF. Retrieved 4 February 2024.
2. ^ "Andy Murray wins Davis Cup for Great Britain". BBC Sport. 23 November 2015. Archived from the original on 28 November 2018. Retrieved 13 February 2018.
3. ^ "Davis Cup Format". daviscup.com. Archived from the original on 5 January 2016. Retrieved 20 January 2016. In 2023, 155 nations entered Davis Cup by Rakuten
4. ^ "40 Years Ago: Look Out, Cleveland". tennis.com. Archived from the original on 31 October 2020. Retrieved 5 December 2019.

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10 February 1306 – In front of the high altar of Greyfriars Church in Dumfries, Robert the Bruce murders John Comyn, sparking the revolution in the Wars of Scottish Independence.

Robert the Bruce

King of Scotland from 1306 to 1329

"Robert Bruce" redirects here. For other uses, see Robert Bruce (disambiguation).

Robert I (11 July 1274 – 7 June 1329), popularly known as Robert the Bruce (Scottish Gaelic: Raibeart am Brusach), was King of Scots from 1306 until his death in 1329.^[1] Robert led Scotland during the First War of Scottish Independence against England. He fought successfully during his reign to restore Scotland to an independent kingdom and is regarded in Scotland as a national hero. Robert was a fourth-great-grandson of King David I, and his grandfather, Robert de Brus, 5th Lord of Annandale, was one of the claimants to the Scottish throne during the "Great Cause".^[1]

As Earl of Carrick, Robert the Bruce supported his family's claim to the Scottish throne and took part in William Wallace's campaign against Edward I of England. Appointed in 1298 as a Guardian of Scotland alongside his chief rival for the throne, John Comyn of Badenoch, and William Lamberton, Bishop of St Andrews, Robert resigned in 1300 because of his quarrels with Comyn and the apparently imminent restoration of John Balliol to the Scottish throne. After submitting to Edward I in 1302 and returning to "the king's peace", Robert inherited his family's claim to the Scottish throne upon his father's death.

Bruce's involvement in John Comyn's murder in February 1306 led to his excommunication by Pope Clement V (although he received absolution from Robert Wishart, Bishop of Glasgow). Bruce moved quickly to seize the throne and was crowned king of Scots on 25 March 1306. Edward I's forces defeated Robert in the Battle of Methven, forcing him to flee into hiding, before re-emerging in 1307 to defeat an English army at Loudoun Hill and wage a highly successful guerrilla war against the English.

Robert I defeated his other opponents, destroying their strongholds and devastating their lands, and in 1309 held his first parliament. A series of military victories between 1310 and 1314 won him control of much of Scotland, and at the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314, Robert defeated a much larger English army under Edward II of England, confirming the re-establishment of an independent Scottish kingdom. The battle marked a significant turning point, with Robert's armies now free to launch devastating raids throughout northern England, while he also expanded the war against England by sending armies to invade Ireland, and appealed to the Irish to rise against Edward II's rule.

Despite Bannockburn and the capture of the final English stronghold at Berwick in 1318, Edward II refused to renounce his claim to the overlordship of Scotland. In 1320, the Scottish nobility submitted the Declaration of Arbroath to Pope John XXII, declaring Robert as their rightful monarch and asserting Scotland's status as an independent kingdom. In 1324, the Pope recognised Robert I as king of an independent Scotland, and in 1326, the Franco-Scottish alliance was renewed in the Treaty of Corbeil. In 1327, the English deposed Edward II in favour of his son, Edward III, and peace was concluded between Scotland and England with the Treaty of Edinburgh–Northampton in 1328, by which Edward III renounced all claims to sovereignty over Scotland.

Robert I died in June 1329 and was succeeded by his son, David II. Robert's body is buried in Dunfermline Abbey, while his heart was interred in Melrose Abbey, and his internal organs were embalmed and placed in St Serf's Church, Dumbarton.

1. ^ ^{a b c d e f g h} Cite error: The named reference Weir was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
2. ^ "St_Serf's_Church,_Dumbarton".

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11 February 1963 — The Beatles recorded their first album Please Please Me

Please Please Me

1963 studio album by the Beatles

This article is about the album. For the song, see Please Please Me (song). For other uses, see Please Please Me (disambiguation).

Please Please Me is the debut studio album by English rock band the Beatles. Produced by George Martin, it was released in the United Kingdom on EMI's Parlophone label on 22 March 1963. The album's 14 tracks include cover songs and original material written by the partnership of band members John Lennon and Paul McCartney.

The Beatles had signed with EMI in May 1962 and been assigned to the Parlophone label run by Martin. They released their debut single "Love Me Do" in October, which surprised Martin by reaching number 17 on what would become the official UK singles chart. Impressed, Martin suggested they record a live album and helped arrange their next single, "Please Please Me", which topped the NME singles chart. Finding the Cavern Club, the band's venue in their native Liverpool, unsuitable for recording, Martin switched to a simple studio album. The Beatles recorded Please Please Me in one day at EMI Studios on 11 February 1963, with Martin adding overdubs to "Misery" and "Baby It's You" nine days later. Three of the four songs from their two previously released singles were added to the album, with a new version of "Love Me Do" recorded for the album.

The album was well-received in Britain, where it remained in the Top 10 for over a year, a record for a debut album that stood for half a century. The presence of several songs written by band members Lennon–McCartney (credited as "McCartney–Lennon" at the time) was unusual and marked the emergence of a "self-contained rock band". On the other hand, the album was not released in the US, where the band sold poorly for most of 1963; after the stateside emergence of Beatlemania, Vee-Jay Records released a mild abridgment of the album as Introducing... The Beatles in early 1964, while EMI's American label Capitol Records divided the material from Please Please Me across multiple albums. Other countries also received different versions of the album, which continued until 1987, when the entirety of the Beatles catalogue was brought to CD and internationally standardised to the UK albums. Please Please Me remains critically acclaimed; it was voted 39th on Rolling Stone's list of the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time" in 2012, and number 622 in the third edition of Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums in 2000.

1. ^ Lewisohn 1988, p. 20.
2. ^ "Pop/Rock " British Invasion " Merseybeat". AllMusic. Archived from the original on 28 July 2013. Retrieved 19 September 2013.
3. ^ Carlin, Peter Ames (3 November 2009). Paul McCartney: A Life. Simon & Schuster. p. 82. ISBN 978-1-4165-6209-2.
4. ^ Cite error: The named reference sputnikmusic was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

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12 February 1974 – Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1970, is exiled from the Soviet Union.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Soviet-Russian author and dissident (1918–2008)

Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn^{[a][b] ⓘ} (11 December 1918 – 3 August 2008)^[6][7] was a Soviet and Russian author and dissident who helped to raise global awareness of political repression in the Soviet Union, especially the Gulag prison system. He was awarded the 1970 Nobel Prize in Literature "for the ethical force with which he has pursued the indispensable traditions of Russian literature".^[8] His nonfiction work The Gulag Archipelago "amounted to a head-on challenge to the Soviet state" and sold tens of millions of copies.^[9]

Solzhenitsyn was born into a family that defied the Soviet anti-religious campaign in the 1920s and remained devout members of the Russian Orthodox Church. At a young age he became an atheist and embraced Marxism–Leninism. While serving as a captain in the Red Army during World War II, Solzhenitsyn was arrested by SMERSH and sentenced to eight years in the Gulag and then internal exile for criticizing Joseph Stalin in private correspondence with another field officer.^[10][11] As a result of his experience in prison and the camps, he gradually became a philosophically minded Eastern Orthodox Christian.

During the Khrushchev Thaw, Solzhenitsyn was released and exonerated. He started writing novels about his experiences and repression in the Soviet Union. In 1962, he published his first novel, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich—an account of Stalinist repressions—with approval from Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev. His last work to be published in the Soviet Union was Matryona's Place in 1963. After Khrushchev lost power, Soviet authorities unsuccessfully tried to discourage Solzhenitsyn from writing. His novels published in other countries included Cancer Ward in 1966, In the First Circle in 1968, August 1914 in 1971 and The Gulag Archipelago in 1973. The last novel outraged authorities and, in 1974, he was stripped of his Soviet citizenship and flown to West Germany.^[12] He soon moved to Switzerland and then, in 1976, to Vermont in the United States with his family. During his tour of the United States, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn visited St. Nicholas Old Believer Orthodox Church in Millville, New Jersey in December 1976, and spoke to a congregation of 50 people in the Russian language about pride in religion and religious activities which was restricted in the Soviet Union. He continued to write and his Soviet citizenship was restored in 1990. He returned to Russia four years later and remained there until his death in 2008.

1. ^ "Solzhenitsyn Flies Home, Vowing Moral Involvement ...". The New York Times. 27 May 1994. Retrieved 29 May 2014.
2. ^ "Solzhenitsyn, Alexander". Lexico UK English Dictionary. Oxford University Press. Archived from the original on 11 April 2022.
3. ^ ^{a b} "Solzhenitsyn". Collins English Dictionary. HarperCollins. Retrieved 27 August 2019.
4. ^ ^{a b} "Solzhenitsyn, Alexander". Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English. Longman. Retrieved 27 August 2019.
5. ^ "Solzhenitsyn". The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (5th ed.). HarperCollins. Retrieved 27 August 2019.
6. ^ "The Nobel Prize in Literature 1970". NobelPrize.org.
7. ^ Christopher Hitchens (4 August 2008). "Alexander Solzhenitsyn, 1918–2008". Slate Magazine.
8. ^ "Nobel Prize in Literature 1970". Nobel Foundation. Retrieved 17 October 2008.
9. ^ Scammell, Michael (11 December 2018). "The Writer Who Destroyed an Empire". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 1 January 2022. In 1973, still in the Soviet Union, he sent abroad his literary and polemical masterpiece, 'The Gulag Archipelago.' The nonfiction account exposed the enormous crimes that had led to the wholesale incarceration and slaughter of millions of innocent victims, demonstrating that its dimensions were on a par with the Holocaust. Solzhenitsyn's gesture amounted to a head-on challenge to the Soviet state, calling its very legitimacy into question and demanding revolutionary change.
10. ^ "Timeline". Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Center. Retrieved 12 January 2026.
11. ^ Angela Brintlinger (December 2018). "Alexander Solzhenitsyn". Origins: Current Events in Historical Perspective.
12. ^ "How I helped Alexandr Solzhenitsyn smuggle his Nobel Lecture from the USSR". Nobel Foundation. Retrieved 5 October 2023.

Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).

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13 February 1542 – Catherine Howard, the fifth wife of Henry VIII of England, is executed for adultery.

Catherine Howard

Queen of England from 1540 to 1541

For other people named Catherine Howard, see Catherine Howard (disambiguation).

Catherine Howard^[b] (c. 1523 – 13 February 1542) was Queen of England from July 1540 until November 1541 as the fifth wife of King Henry VIII. She was the daughter of Lord Edmund Howard and Joyce Culpeper, a first cousin to Anne Boleyn (the second wife of Henry VIII), and the niece of Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk. Thomas Howard was a prominent politician at Henry's court. He secured her a place in the household of Henry's fourth wife, Anne of Cleves, where Howard caught the King's interest. She married him on 28 July 1540 at Oatlands Palace in Surrey, just 19 days after the annulment of his marriage to Anne. Henry was 49, and it is widely accepted that Catherine was about 17 at the time of her marriage to him.

Catherine was stripped of her title as queen in November 1541 and beheaded three months later on the grounds of treason for committing adultery with her distant cousin, Thomas Culpeper.
Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).

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14 February 1349 – Strasbourg massacre: Several thousand Jews are burned to death by mobs while the remaining Jews are forcibly removed from Strasbourg after being accused of causing the Black Death

Strasbourg massacre

1349 public execution of Jews in Strasbourg, France

The Strasbourg massacre occurred on 14 February 1349, when the entire Jewish community of 2,000 Jews were publicly burnt to death as part of the Black Death persecutions.^[1][2]

Starting in the spring of 1348, pogroms against Jews had occurred in European cities, starting in Toulon. By November of that year, they spread via Savoy to German-speaking territories. In January 1349, burnings of Jews took place in Basel and Freiburg, and on 14 February the Jewish community in Strasbourg was destroyed.

This event was heavily linked to a revolt by the guilds five days previously, the consequences of which were the displacement of the master tradesmen, a reduction of the power of the patrician bourgeoisie, who had until then been ruling almost exclusively, and an increase in the power of the groups that were involved in the revolt. The aristocratic families of Zorn and Müllenheim, which had been displaced from the council and their offices in 1332, recovered most of their power. The guilds, which until then had no means of political participation, could occupy the most important position in the city, that of the Ammeister (equivalent to mayor). The revolt had occurred because a large part of the population, on the one hand, believed the power of the master tradesmen was too great, particularly that of the then-Ammeister Peter Schwarber. On the other hand, there was a desire to put an end to the policy of protecting Jews under Peter Schwarber.

1. ^ Wallace, Albin (4 August 2023). The Effects of The Black Death in England: Magna Mortalitas. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. p. 37. ISBN 978-1-5275-2834-5. Retrieved 13 June 2025.
2. ^ Gottfried, Robert S. (11 May 2010). Black Death. Simon and Schuster. pp. 73–74. ISBN 978-1-4391-1846-7.

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