1793 – Jean-Pierre Blanchard made the first successful balloon flight in the U.S.

1788 – Connecticut became the 5th state to join the United States.

1799 – British Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger introduced income tax, at two shillings (10p) in the pound, to raise funds for the Napoleonic Wars.

1848 – The first commercial bank was established in San Francisco, CA.

1861 – The state of Mississippi seceded from the United States.

1894 – The New England Telephone and Telegraph Company put the first battery-operated switchboard into operation in Lexington, MA.

1902 – New York State introduced a bill to outlaw flirting in public.

1905 – In Russia, the civil disturbances known as the Revolution of 1905 forced Czar Nicholas II to grant some civil rights.

1929 – The Seeing Eye was incorporated in Nashville, TN. The company’s purpose was to train dogs to guide the blind.

1936 – The United States Army adopted the semi-automatic rifle.

1937 – The first issue of “Look” went on sale. Within a month, “Look” became a biweekly magazine.

1940 – Television was used for the first time to present a sales meeting to convention delegates in New York City.

1951 – The United Nations headquarters officially opened in New York City.

1961 – The play, “Rhinoceros,” opened on Broadway.

1969 – The supersonic aeroplane Concorde made its first trial flight, at Bristol.

1972 – The ocean liner Queen Elizabeth was destroyed by fire in Hong Kong harbor.

1972 – British miners went on strike for the first time since 1926.

1981 – Hockey Hall of Famer, Phil Esposito, announced that he would retire as a hockey player after the New York Rangers-Buffalo Sabres hockey game. The game ended in a tie. (NHL)

1984 – Clara Peller was first seen by TV viewers in the “Where’s the Beef?” commercial campaign for Wendy’s.

1986 – Kodak got out of the instant camera business after 10 years due to a loss in a court battle that claimed that Kodak copied Polaroid patents.

1991 – U.S. secretary of state Baker and Iraqi foreign minister Aziz met for 61/2 hours in Geneva, but failed to reach any agreement that would forestall war in the Persian Gulf.

1995 – Russian cosmonaut Valeri Poliakov, 51, completed his 366th day in outer space aboard the Mir space station, breaking the record for the longest continuous time spent in outer space.

1997 – Tamil rebels attacked a military base in Sri Lanka. 200 soldiers and 140 rebels were killed.

2000 – ABC-TV began airing “The Mole.”

2002 – The U.S. Justice Department announced that it was pursuing a criminal investigation of Enron Corp. The company had filed for bankruptcy on December 2, 2001.

2003 – Archaeologists announced that they had found five more chambers in the tomb of Qin Shihuang, China’s first emperor. The rooms were believed to cover about 750,000 square feet.

2006 – Matthew Broderick and Nathan Lane received stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in a dual ceremony.

2007 – Steve Jobs, Apple Inc.’s CEO, announced the first generation iPhone.

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1642 – Astronomer Galileo Galilei died in Arcetri, Italy.

1675 – The first corporation was chartered in the United States. The company was the New York Fishing Company.

1790 – In the United States, George Washington delivered the first State of the Union address.

1815 – The Battle of New Orleans began. The War of 1812 had officially ended on December 24, 1814, with the signing of the Treaty of Ghent. The news of the signing had not reached British troops in time to prevent their attack on New Orleans.

1838 – Alfred Vail demonstrated a telegraph code he had devised using dots and dashes as letters. The code was the predecessor to Samuel Morse’s code.

1853 – A bronze statue of Andrew Jackson on a horse was unveiled in Lafayette Park in Washington, DC. The statue was the work of Clark Mills.

1856 – Borax (hydrated sodium borate) was discovered by Dr. John Veatch.

1877 – Crazy Horse (Tashunca-uitco) and his warriors fought their final battle against the U.S. Cavalry in Montana.

1886 – The Severn Railway Tunnel, Britain’s longest, was opened.

1889 – The tabulating machine was patented by Dr. Herman Hollerith. His firm, Tabulating Machine Company, later became International Business Machines Corporation (IBM).

1894 – Fire caused serious damage at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, IL.

1900 – U.S. President McKinley placed Alaska under military rule.

1900 – In South Africa, General White turned back the Boers attack of Ladysmith.

1901 – The first tournament sanctioned by the American Bowling Congress was held in Chicago, IL.

1908 – A catastrophic train collision occurred in the smoke-filled Park Avenue Tunnel in New York City. Seventeen were killed and thirty-eight were injured. The accident caused a public outcry and increased demand for electric trains.

1916 – During World War I, the final withdrawal of Allied troops from Gallipoli took place.

1918 – U.S. President Woodrow Wilson announced his Fourteen Points as the basis for peace upon the end of World War I.

1921 – David Lloyd George became the first prime minister tenant at Chequers Court, Buckinghamshire.

1929 – William S. Paley appeared on CBS Radio for the first time to announce that CBS had become the largest regular chain of broadcasting chains in radio history.

1935 – The spectrophotometer was patented by A.C. Hardy.

1952 – Marie Wilson came to TV as “My Friend Irma”.

1955 – After 130 home basketball wins, Georgia Tech defeated Kentucky 59-58. It was the first Kentucky loss at home since January 2, 1943.

1957 – Jackie Robinson announced his retirement from major league baseball in an article that appeared in “LOOK” magazine.

1958 – Bobby Fisher, at the age of 14, won the United States Chess Championship for the first time.

1959 – Charles De Gaulle was inaugurated as president of France’s Fifth Republic.

1960 – The NCAA met in New York and voted against reviving the unlimited substitution rule for college football.

1964 – U.S. President Lyndon Johnson declared a “War on Poverty.”

1961 – Robert Goulet made his national TV debut this night on “The Ed Sullivan Show” on CBS.

1962 – Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa was exhibited in America for the first time at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. The next day the exhibit opened to the public.

1973 – Secret peace talks between the United States and North Vietnam resumed near Paris, France.

1973 – The trial opened in Washington, of seven men accused of bugging Democratic Party headquarters in the Watergate apartment complex in Washington, DC.

1975 – Ella Grasso became the governor of Connecticut. She was the first woman to become a governor of a state without a husband preceding her in the governor’s chair.

1982 – American Telephone & Telegraph (AT&T) settled the Justice Department’s antitrust lawsuit against it by agreeing to divest itself of the 22 Bell System companies.

1982 – The U.S. Justice Department withdrew an antitrust suit against IBM.

1987 – The Dow Jones industrial average closed over the 2000 mark for the first time at 2,002.25.

1992 – U.S. President George H.W. Bush collapsed during a state dinner in Tokyo. White House officials said Bush was suffering from stomach flu.

1993 – Bosnian President Izetbegovic visited the U.S. to plead his government’s case for Western military aid and intervention to halt Serbian aggression.

1994 – Tonya Harding won the ladies’ U.S. Figure Skating Championship in Detroit, MI, a day after Nancy Kerrigan dropped out because of a clubbing attack that injured her right knee. The U.S. Figure Skating Association later took the title from Harding because of her involvement in the attack.

1997 – Mister Rogers received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

1998 – Ramzi Yousef was sentenced to life in prison for his role of mastermind behind the World Trade Center bombing in New York.

1998 – Scientists announced that they had discovered that galaxies were accelerating and moving apart and at faster speeds.

1999 – The top two executives of Salt Lake City’s Olympic Organizing Committee resigned amid disclosures that civic boosters had given cash to members of the International Olympic Committee.

1999 – British Prime Minister Tony Blair concluded a three-day visit to South Africa.

2005 – The rate for U.S. First Class mail was raised to 39¢.

2009 – In Egypt, archeologists entered a 4,300 year old pyramid and discovered the mummy of Queen Sesheshet.

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On the evening of January 7, 1955, the curtain at the Metropolitan Opera in New York rises to reveal Marian Anderson, the first African American to perform with the Met. By then, Anderson was in the twilight of a career that was equal parts acclaimed and hamstrung by racism. …read more

Source: history.com

1327		King Edward II of England is deposed.
1558		The French, under the Duke of Guise, finally take the port of Calais from the English.
1785		Frenchman Jean-Pierre Blanchard and American Dr. John Jeffries make the first crossing of the English Channel in a hydrogen balloon.
1807		Responding to Napoleon Bonaparte‘s attempted blockade of the British Isles, the British blockade Continental Europe.
1865		Cheyenne and Sioux warriors attack Julesburg, Colo., in retaliation for the Sand Creek Massacre.
1901		New York stock exchange trading exceeds two million shares for the first time in history.
1902		Imperial Court of China returns to Peking. The Empress Dowager resumes her reign.
1918		The Germans move 75,000 troops from the Eastern Front to the Western Front.
1934		Six thousand pastors in Berlin defy the Nazis insisting that they will not be silenced.
1944		The U.S. Air Force announces the production of the first jet-fighter, Bell P-59 Airacomet.
1945		U.S. air ace Major Thomas B. McGuire, Jr. is killed in the Pacific.
1952		French forces in Indochina launch Operation Violette in an effort to push Viet Minh forces away from the town of Ba Vi.
1955		Marian Anderson becomes the first African American to sing at the Metropolitan Opera House.
1975		Vietnamese troops take Phuoc Binh in new full-scale offensive.
1979		Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge are overthrown when Vietnamese troops seize the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh.
1980		US President Jimmy Carter signs legislation providing $1.5 billion in loans to salvage Chrysler Corporation.
1985		Vietnam seizes the Khmer National Liberation Front headquarters near the Thai border.
1985		Japan launches its first interplanetary spacecraft, Sakigake, the first deep space probe launched by any nation other than the US or the USSR.
1989		Prince Akihito is sworn in as Emperor of Japan, following the death of his father, Hirohito.
1990		Safety concerns over structural problems force the Leaning Tower of Pisa to be closed to the public.
1993		The Bosnian Army carries out a surprise attack on the village of Kravica in Srebrenica during the Bosnian War.
1999		The impeachment trial of US President Bill Clinton opens in the US Senate.

Source: history.net