On January 24:
41 Gaius Caesar (Caligula), known for his eccentricity and cruel despotism, was assassinated by his disgruntled Praetorian Guards. Claudius succeeded his nephew.
76 – Hadrian, Roman Emperor, was born (d. 138).
1670 William Congreve, English playwright, was born (d. 1729).
1679 – King Charles II disbanded Parliament.
1742 – Charles VII Albert became Holy Roman Emperor.
1848 – California Gold Rush: James W. Marshall found gold at Sutter’s Mill near Sacramento.
1857 The University of Calcutta was formally founded as the first full-fledged university in south Asia.
1859 Political union of Moldavia and Wallachia; Alexandru Ioan Cuza was elected as ruler.
1862 Bucharest proclaimed capital of Romania.
1864 Marguerite Durand, French feminist leader, was born (d. 1936).
1865 General Cameron left Wanganui with 1200 Imperial troops to invade southern Taranaki.
1916 – In Brushaber v. Union Pacific Railroad, the Supreme Court of the United States declared the federal income tax constitutional.
1924 –Petrograd, formerly Saint Petersburg, was renamed Leningrad.
1928 Desmond Morris, British anthropologist, was born.
1930 – Bernard Matthews, British poultry industry figure , was born (d. 2010).
1941 Neil Diamond, American singer, was born.
1952 Vincent Massey was sworn in as the first Canadian-born Governor-General of Canada.
1957 Adrian Edmondson, English comedian, was born.
1961 – 1961 Goldsboro B-52 crash: A bomber carrying two H-bombs broke up in mid-air over North Carolina. One weapon nearly detonated.
1972 Japanese Sgt. Shoichi Yokoi was found hiding in a Guam jungle, where he had been since the end of World War II.
1977 Massacre of Atocha in Madrid, during the Spanish transition to democracy.
The original 1984 Mac OS desktop featured a radically new graphical user interface. Users communicated with the computer not through abstract lines of code but rather using a metaphorical desktop. that included items that the user was already familiar with.1986 Voyager 2 passed within 81,500 km (50,680 miles) of Uranus.
2003 The United States Department of Homeland Security officially began operation.
Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia.
