Today In History – This Day In History Funny Events

Trajan was a Roman emperor from AD 98 to 117, remembered as the second of the Five Good Emperors of the Nerva–Antonine dynasty. He was a philanthropic ruler and a successful soldier-emperor who presided over one of the greatest military expansions in Roman history, during which, by the time of his death, the Roman Empire reached its maximum territorial extent. He was given the title of Optimus by the Roman Senate.

Trajan succeeded his adoptive father Nerva as Roman emperor; under his rule the Roman Empire would reach its maximum extent.

Stephen Lekapenos or Lecapenus was the second son of the Byzantine emperor Romanos I Lekapenos, and co-emperor from 924 to 945. With his younger brother Constantine, he deposed Romanos I in December 944, but they were overthrown and exiled a few weeks later by their brother in law, the legitimate emperor Constantine VII. Stephen lived out his life in exile on the island of Lesbos, where he died on Easter 963.

The co-emperors Stephen and Constantine are overthrown. Constantine VII becomes sole emperor of the Byzantine Empire.

The Song dynasty was an imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 960 to 1279. The dynasty was founded by Emperor Taizu of Song, who usurped the throne of the Later Zhou dynasty and went on to conquer the rest of the Ten Kingdoms, ending the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period. The Song often came into conflict with the contemporaneous Liao, Western Xia and Jin dynasties in northern China. After retreating to southern China following attacks by the Jin dynasty, the Song was eventually conquered by the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty.

Song dynasty General Yue Fei is executed.

Henry VI, a member of the Hohenstaufen dynasty, was King of Germany from 1169 and Holy Roman Emperor from 1191 until his death. From 1194 he was also King of Sicily as the husband and co-ruler of Queen Constance I.

Henry VI, the son and heir of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I, marries Constance of Sicily.

Dante Alighieri, widely known mononymously as Dante, was an Italian poet, writer, and philosopher. His Divine Comedy, originally called Comedìa and later christened Divina by Giovanni Boccaccio, is widely considered one of the most important poems of the Middle Ages and the greatest literary work in the Italian language.

Dante Alighieri is exiled from Florence.

Pope Clement VI, born Pierre Roger, was head of the Catholic Church from 7 May 1342 to his death, in December 1352. He was the fourth Avignon pope. Clement reigned during the first visitation of the Black Death (1348–1350), during which he granted remission of sins to all who died of the plague.

Pope Clement VI issues the papal bull Unigenitus to justify the power of the pope and the use of indulgences. Nearly 200 years later, Martin Luther would protest this.

The Holy See, also called the See of Rome, the Petrine See or the Apostolic See, is the central governing body of the Catholic Church and Vatican City. It encompasses the office of the pope as the bishop of the apostolic episcopal see of Rome, and serves as the spiritual and administrative authority of the worldwide Catholic Church and Vatican City. Under international law, the Holy See holds the status of a sovereign juridical entity.

The Vatican opens the seven-year trial of scholar Giordano Bruno.

The Gunpowder Plot of 1605, in earlier centuries often called the Gunpowder Treason Plot or the Jesuit Treason, was an unsuccessful attempted regicide against King James VI of Scotland and I of England by a group of English Catholics, led by Robert Catesby.

Gunpowder Plot: The trial of Guy Fawkes and other conspirators begins, ending with their execution on January 31.

Mustafa II was the sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1695 to 1703.

Mustafa II becomes the Ottoman sultan and Caliph of Islam in Istanbul on the death of Ahmed II. Mustafa rules until his abdication in 1703.

The American Revolutionary War, also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was the armed conflict that comprised the final eight years of the broader American Revolution, in which American Patriot forces organized as the Continental Army and commanded by George Washington defeated the British Army. The conflict was fought in North America, the Caribbean, and the Atlantic Ocean. The war's outcome seemed uncertain for most of the war, but Washington and the Continental Army's decisive victory in the Siege of Yorktown in 1781 led King George III and the Kingdom of Great Britain to negotiate an end to the war. In 1783, in the Treaty of Paris, the British monarchy acknowledged the independence of the Thirteen Colonies, leading to the establishment of the United States as an independent and sovereign nation.

American Revolutionary War: Henry Knox's "noble train of artillery" arrives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The University of Georgia is a public land-grant research university with its main campus in Athens, Georgia, United States. Chartered in 1785, it is the first state-chartered public university in the United States. It is the flagship school of the University System of Georgia.

The University of Georgia is founded, the first public university in the United States.

The United States Congress is the legislative branch of the federal government of the United States. It is a bicameral legislature, including a lower body, the U.S. House of Representatives, and an upper body, the U.S. Senate. They both meet in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C.

The U.S. Congress approves Indian Territory (in what is present-day Oklahoma), clearing the way for forced relocation of the Eastern Indians on the "Trail of Tears".

The Boshin War , sometimes known as the Japanese Revolution or Japanese Civil War, was a civil war in Japan fought from 1868 to 1869 between forces of the ruling Tokugawa shogunate and a coalition seeking to seize political power in the name of the Imperial Court.

Boshin War: The Battle of Toba-Fushimi between forces of the Tokugawa shogunate and pro-Imperial factions begins, which will end in defeat for the shogunate, and is a pivotal point in the Meiji Restoration.

The Republic of Ezo was a short-lived separatist state established in 1869 on the island of Ezo, now Hokkaido, by a part of the former military of the Tokugawa shogunate at the end of the Bakumatsu period in Japan. It was the first government to attempt to institute democracy in Japan, though voting was allowed only to the samurai caste. The Republic of Ezo existed for five months before being annexed by the newly established Empire of Japan.

Boshin War: Tokugawa rebels establish the Ezo Republic in Hokkaidō.

Thomas Alva Edison was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices in fields such as electric power generation, sound recording, and motion pictures. These inventions, which include the phonograph, the motion picture camera, and early versions of the electric light bulb, have had a widespread impact on the modern industrialized world. He was one of the first inventors to apply the principles of organized science and teamwork to the process of invention, working with many researchers and employees. He established the first industrial research laboratory.

Thomas Edison receives the patent on the incandescent lamp.

Abdulaziz bin Abdul Rahman Al Saud, known in the Western world as Ibn Saud, was a Najdi statesman and tribal leader who became the founder and first king of Saudi Arabia, reigning from 23 September 1932 until his death in 1953. He had ruled parts of the kingdom since 1902, having previously been Emir, Sultan, King of Nejd, and King of Hejaz.

Ibn Saud takes the title of King of Nejd.

The Lockheed P-38 Lightning is an American single-seat, twin-engined fighter aircraft that was used during World War II. Developed for the United States Army Air Corps (USAAC) by the Lockheed Corporation, the P-38 incorporated a distinctive twin-boom design with a central nacelle containing the cockpit and armament. Along with its use as a general fighter, the P-38 was used in various aerial combat roles, including as a highly effective fighter-bomber, a night fighter, and a long-range escort fighter when equipped with drop tanks. The P-38 was also used as a bomber-pathfinder, guiding streams of medium and heavy bombers, or even other P-38s equipped with bombs, to their targets. Some 1,200 Lightnings, about 1 of every 9, were assigned to aerial reconnaissance, with cameras replacing weapons to become the F-4 or F-5 model; in this role it was one of the most prolific recon airplanes in the war. Although it was not designated a heavy fighter or a bomber destroyer by the USAAC, the P-38 filled those roles and more; unlike German heavy fighters crewed by two or three airmen, the P-38, with its lone pilot, was nimble enough to compete with single-engined fighters.

First flight of the Lockheed P-38 Lightning.

World War II or the Second World War was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all of the world's countries participated, with many nations mobilising their resources in pursuit of total war. Tanks and aircraft played major roles, enabling the strategic bombing of cities and delivery of the first and only nuclear weapons ever used in war. World War II is the deadliest conflict in history, causing the death of over 60 million people. Millions died in genocides, including the Holocaust, and by massacres, starvation, and disease. After the Allied victory, Germany, Austria, Japan, and Korea were occupied, and German and Japanese leaders were put on trial for war crimes.

World War II: The Eighth Air Force sorties ninety-one B-17s and B-24s to attack the U-boat construction yards at Wilhelmshaven, Germany. This was the first American bombing attack on Germany.

The siege of Leningrad was a military blockade undertaken by the Axis powers against the city of Leningrad in the Soviet Union on the Eastern Front of World War II from 1941 to 1944. Leningrad, the country's second largest city, was besieged by Germany and Finland for 872 days, but never captured. The siege was the most destructive in history and possibly the most deadly, causing an estimated 1.5 million deaths, from a prewar population of 3.2 million. It was not classified as a war crime at the time, but since then, some historians have classified it as a genocide due to the intentional destruction of the city and the systematic starvation of its civilian population.

World War II: The 900-day Siege of Leningrad is lifted.

The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, often referred by its shortened name as the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Republic and, from 1922, the Soviet Union. The army was established in January 1918 by a decree of the Council of People's Commissars to oppose the military forces of the new nation's adversaries during the Russian Civil War, especially the various groups collectively known as the White Army. In February 1946, the Red Army was renamed the "Soviet Army". Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union it was split between the post-Soviet states, with its bulk becoming the Russian Ground Forces, commonly considered to be the successor of the Soviet Army.

World War II: The Red Army liberates the remaining inmates of Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Nuclear weapons tests are experiments carried out to determine the performance of nuclear weapons and the effects of their explosion. Over 2,000 nuclear weapons tests have been carried out since 1945. Nuclear testing is a sensitive political issue. Governments have often performed tests to signal strength. Because of their destruction and fallout, testing has seen opposition by civilians as well as governments, with international bans having been agreed on. Thousands of tests have been performed, with most in the second half of the 20th century.

Nuclear testing at the Nevada Test Site begins with Operation Ranger.

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

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

An astronaut is a person trained, equipped, and deployed by a human spaceflight program to serve as a commander or crew member of a spacecraft. Although generally reserved for professional space travelers, the term is sometimes applied to anyone who travels into space, including scientists, politicians, journalists, and space tourists. In the United States, it is a designated term used by three agencies: NASA, the FAA, and the military. The term is also used for people who are trained to fly in a spacecraft after passing certain training courses, regardless of their experience of space travel.

Astronauts Gus Grissom, Edward White and Roger Chaffee are killed in a fire during a test of their Apollo 1 spacecraft at the Kennedy Space Center, Florida.

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), also known as the Soviet Union, was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until its dissolution in 1991. During its existence, it was the largest country by area, extending across eleven time zones and sharing borders with twelve countries, and the third-most populous country. A diverse multinational state, it was organized as a federal union of national republics, the largest and most populous being the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. In practice, its government and economy were highly centralized. As a one-party state governed by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), it was the flagship communist state. Its capital and largest city was Moscow.

United States, United Kingdom, and Soviet Union sign the Outer Space Treaty in Washington, D.C., banning deployment of nuclear weapons in space, and limiting use of the Moon and other celestial bodies to peaceful purposes.

The Paris Peace Accords, officially the Agreement on ending the war and restoring peace in Viet-Nam, was a peace agreement signed on 27 January 1973 to establish peace in Vietnam and end the Vietnam War. It included a main treaty and accompanying annexes. It was scheduled to take effect at 8:00 AM Saigon time the following day. The agreement was signed by the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, the Republic of Vietnam, the Provisional Revolutionary Government (PRG), and the United States. The PRG represented the Viet Cong, a South Vietnamese opposition movement de facto controlled by the North. US ground forces had begun to withdraw from Vietnam in 1969, and had suffered from deteriorating morale during the withdrawal. By the beginning of 1972 those that remained had very little involvement in combat. The last American infantry battalions withdrew in August 1972. Most air and naval forces, and most advisers, also were gone from South Vietnam by that time, though air and naval forces not based in South Vietnam were still playing a large role in the war. The Paris Agreement removed the remaining US forces, and direct US military intervention ended. Fighting between the three remaining powers did not stop on 28 January, even for an hour. The agreement was not formally designated a treaty, and President Nixon did not ask the US Senate to ratify it.

The Paris Peace Accords officially end the Vietnam War. Colonel William Nolde is killed in action becoming the conflict's last recorded American combat casualty.

The Iran hostage crisis began on November 4, 1979, when 66 Americans, including diplomats and other civilian personnel, were taken hostage at the Embassy of the United States in Tehran, with 52 of them being held until January 20, 1981. The incident occurred after the Muslim Student Followers of the Imam's Line stormed and occupied the building in the months following the Iranian Revolution. With support from Ruhollah Khomeini, who had led the Iranian Revolution and would eventually establish the present-day Islamic Republic of Iran, the hostage-takers demanded that the United States extradite Iranian king Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, who had been granted asylum by the Carter administration for cancer treatment. Notable among the assailants were Hossein Dehghan, Mohammad Ali Jafari, and Mohammad Bagheri. The hostage crisis contributed to a dramatic decline in Iran–United States relations. After 444 days, it came to an end with the signing of the Algiers Accords between the Iranian and American governments; Iran's king had died in Cairo, Egypt, on July 27, 1980.

Through cooperation between the U.S. and Canadian governments, six American diplomats secretly escape hostilities in Iran in the culmination of the Canadian Caper.

The Seikan Tunnel is a 53.85-kilometre (33.5-mile) dual-gauge railway tunnel in Japan, with a 23.3-kilometre (14.5-mile) segment running beneath the seabed of the Tsugaru Strait, which separates Aomori Prefecture on Honshu, Japan's main island, from the northern island of Hokkaido. The tunnel's track level lies approximately 100 metres (330 ft) below the seabed and 240 metres (790 ft) below sea level. Following several decades of planning and construction, the tunnel opened on 13 March 1988.

The pilot shaft of the Seikan Tunnel, the world's longest sub-aqueous tunnel (53.85 km) between the Japanese islands of Honshū and Hokkaidō, breaks through.

The 1996 Nigerien coup d'état was a military coup d'état which occurred on 27 January 1996 in Niamey, Niger. It ousted Niger's first democratically elected president, Mahamane Ousmane after nearly three years in power and installed General Ibrahim Baré Maïnassara as head of state. Prime Minister Hama Amadou was arrested in the coup and several soldiers and presidential guards were killed in the fighting.

In a military coup Colonel Ibrahim Baré Maïnassara deposes the first democratically elected president of Niger, Mahamane Ousmane.

The International Holocaust Remembrance Day, or the International Day in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust, is an international memorial day on 27 January that commemorates the victims of the Holocaust, which resulted in the genocide of one-third of the Jewish people along with countless numbers of individuals of other minority groups, by Nazi Germany between 1933 and 1945: an attempt to implement its "Final Solution" to the Jewish question. The choice of January 27 for the annual commemoration aligns with the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp by the Red Army in 1945.

Germany first observes International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

The Lagos armoury explosion was the accidental detonation of a large stock of high explosives at a military storage facility in the city of Lagos, Nigeria, on 27 January 2002. The fires created by the debris from this explosion burnt down a large section of Northern Lagos, and created a panic that spread to other areas. As people fled the flames, many stumbled into a concealed canal and drowned. The explosion and its aftermath are believed to have killed at least 1,100 people and displaced over 20,000, with many thousands injured or homeless. The government of Nigeria launched an enquiry, which blamed the Nigerian Army for failing to properly maintain the base, or to decommission it when instructed to do so in 2001.

An explosion at a military storage facility in Lagos, Nigeria kills at least 1,100 people and displaces over 20,000 others.

The National Recording Registry is a list of sound recordings that "are culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant, and inform or reflect life in the United States." The registry was established by the National Recording Preservation Act of 2000, which created the National Recording Preservation Board, whose members are appointed by the Librarian of Congress. The recordings preserved in the United States National Recording Registry form a registry of recordings selected yearly by the National Recording Preservation Board for preservation in the Library of Congress.

The first selections for the National Recording Registry are announced by the Library of Congress.

The 2009 Honduran constitutional crisis was a political crisis in Honduras over plans by President Manuel Zelaya to hold a popular referendum to either rewrite the Constitution of Honduras or write a new one.

The 2009 Honduran constitutional crisis ends when Porfirio Lobo Sosa becomes the new President of Honduras.

The Arab Spring was a series of pro-democracy anti-government protests, uprisings, and armed rebellions that spread across much of the Arab world in the early 2010s. It began in Tunisia in response to the death of Mohamed Bouazizi by self-immolation. From Tunisia, the protests initially spread to five other countries: Libya, Egypt, Yemen, Syria and Bahrain. The rulers deposed include: Zine El Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia, Muammar Gaddafi of Libya, and Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, all in 2011; and Ali Abdullah Saleh of Yemen in 2012. Major uprisings and social violence occurred, including riots, civil wars, or insurgencies. Sustained street demonstrations took place in Morocco, Iraq, Algeria, Lebanon, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman and Sudan. Minor protests took place in Djibouti, Mauritania, Palestine, Saudi Arabia and the Western Sahara. A major slogan of the demonstrators in the Arab world is ash-shaʻb yurīd isqāṭ an-niẓām!.

Arab Spring: The Yemeni Revolution begins as over 16,000 protestors demonstrate in Sana'a.

On 27 January 2013, 242 people were killed and at least 630 others injured in a fire in the Kiss nightclub in Santa Maria, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. The fire started between 2:00 and 2:30 a.m. (BRST) after a pyrotechnic ignited acoustic foam on the club's ceiling. As the electricity failed, clubgoers were unable to find the building's only exit. It is the second deadliest fire in Brazilian history, surpassed only by the Niterói circus fire of 1961.

Two hundred forty-two people die in a nightclub fire in the Brazilian city of Santa Maria, Rio Grande do Sul.