303 – Roman emperor Diocletian orders the destruction of the Christian church in Nicomedia, beginning eight years of Diocletianic Persecution.
532 – Byzantine emperor Justinian I orders the building of a new Orthodox Christian basilica in Constantinople – the Hagia Sophia.
1813 – The first U.S. raw cotton-to-cloth mill was founded in Waltham, MA.
1861 – President-elect Abraham Lincoln arrives secretly in Washington, D.C., after the thwarting of an alleged assassination plot in Baltimore, Maryland.
1886 – Charles Martin Hall produced the first samples of man-made aluminum, after several years of intensive work. He was assisted in this project by his older sister Julia Brainerd Hall.
1898 – In France, Emile Zola was imprisoned for his letter, “J’accuse,” which accused the government of anti-Semitism and wrongly jailing Alfred Dreyfus.
1905 – Chicago attorney Paul Harris and three other businessmen meet for lunch to form the Rotary Club, the world’s first service club.
1941 – Plutonium is first produced and isolated by Dr. Glenn T. Seaborg.
1945 – World War II: The capital of the Philippines, Manila, is liberated by combined Filipino and American forces.
1947 – The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) is founded.
1954 – The first mass inoculation of children against polio with the Salk vaccine begins in Pittsburgh.
1955 – First meeting of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO).
1991 – Gulf War: Ground troops cross the Saudi Arabian border and enter Iraq, thus beginning the ground phase of the war.
2010 – Unknown criminals pour more than 2.5 million liters of diesel oil and other hydrocarbons into the river Lambro, in northern Italy, sparking an environmental disaster.
2012 – A series of attacks across Iraq leave at least 83 killed and more than 250 injured
