History of 9th January

475 - Byzantine Emperor Zeno is forced to flee his capital at Constantinople.
1296 - Earl Floris V signs accord with French king
1317 - Phillips V, the Tall, crowned king of France
1349 - 700 Jews of Basel Switzerland, burned alive in their houses
1428 - Pope Martinus V declares Jacoba van Beierens marriage invalid
1431 - Judges' investigations for the trial of Joan of Arc begin in Rouen, France, the seat of the English occupation government.
1464 - 1st meeting of States-General of Netherlands
1493 - 1st sight of manatees (by Christopher Columbus)
1522 - Adriaan F Boeyens elected only Dutch pope (Adrian VI)
1558 - Geneva becomes independent from Berne canton, Switzerland
1570 - Tsar Ivan the terrible kills 1000-2000 residents of Novgorod
1718 - France declares war on Spain
1760 - Afghans defeat Marathas in battle of Barari Ghat
1768 - Philip Astley stages the first modern circus in London.
1788 - Connecticut becomes 5th state
1792 - Russia & Turkey sign Peace of Jassy
1793 - 1st hot-air balloon flight in the US lifts off in Phila
1793 - Dutch Prince Willem V establishes 2 brigades Drive Artillery
1793 - Jean Pierre Blanchard makes 1st balloon flight in North America
1799 - Income Tax introduced in UK
1799 - British Prime Minister William Pitt introduces income tax to raise funds for the war against Napoleon.
1806 - Admiral Horatio Lord Nelson receives a state funeral and is interred in St Paul's Cathedral.
1811 - 1st Women's Golf Tournament held
1812 - Swedish Pomerania (Germany) seized by Napoleon
1834 - HMS Beagle/Charles Darwin arrives in Port San Julian, Patagonia
1839 - Daguerrotype photo process announced at French Academy of Science
1839 - Thomas Henderson measures 1st stellar parallax (Alpha Centauri)
1847 - 1st SF newspaper published (California Star)
1848 - 1st commercial bank in SF established
1848 - People's uprising in Palermo Sicily
1854 - Astor Library opens in NYC
1855 - Clipper Guiding Star disappears in Atlantic, 480 dies
1857 - 7.9 earthquake shakes Fort Tejon Calif
1858 - Anson Jones, the last President of the Republic of Texas, commits suicide.
1861 - 1st hostile act of Civil War; Star of West fired on, Sumter, SC
1861 - Mississippi becomes 2nd state to secede
1863 - -Jan 11th] Battle of Arkansas Post, AK (Ft Hindman)
1866 - Fisk University establishes
1878 - Umberto I becomes King of Italy.
1879 - Cheyenne prisoners led by Dull Knife revolt at Ft Robinson
1879 - Kirland Warbler discovered on Andros Island in Bahamas
1880 - 6' (1.8 meters) of snow falls in Seattle in 5 days
1880 - The Great Gale of 1880 devastates parts of Oregon and Washington with high wind and heavy snow.
1894 - "Edison Kinetoscopic Record of a Sneeze" released in movie theaters
1894 - Georges Feydeau's "Un à la Patte," premieres in Paris
1894 - New England Telephone and Telegraph installs the first battery-operated telephone switchboard in Lexington, Massachusetts.
1901 - NSW (918) defeat S Australia (157 & 156) by innings & 605
1903 - 2 NYers buy Baltimore baseball franchise for $18,000 & moved it to NY
1903 - Baseball's National & American Leagues make peace
1903 - Wind Cave National Park, SD established
1903 - Frank Farrell & Bill Devery purchase AL Balt franchise for $18,000 & move it to NYC (Yankees)
1905 - Bloody Sunday-demonstrators fired on by tsarist troops (1/22 NS)
1908 - Frans Schollaert succeeds De Trooz as premier of Belgium
1908 - Muir Woods National Monument, Calif established
1909 - Ernest Shackleton reaches 88°23' south
1912 - US marines invade Honduras
1915 - Exposition (now Civic) Auditorium dedicated, SF
1916 - The Ottoman Empire prevails in the Battle of Çanakkale, as the last British troops are evacuated.
1917 - World War I: the Battle of Rafa occurs near the Egyptian border with Palestine.
1922 - KQV-AM in Pittsburgh PA begins radio transmissions
1922 - Rotterdam metal strike ends
1923 - Juan de la Cierva makes 1st autogiro (helicopter) flight, Spain
1925 - German Postal Minister A Hofle resigns due to corruption
1927 - Dmitri Shostakovitch' Octet opus 11, premieres in Moscow
1927 - Fire in Laurier Palace cinema in Montreal, 78 children died
1928 - Eugene O'Neill's "Marco Millions," premieres in NYC
1929 - BG DeSylva & Lew Brown's musical "Follow Thru," premieres in NYC
1929 - KDB-AM in Santa Barbara CA begins radio transmissions
1930 - Boston Bruins wins then NHL record 14th straight game
1933 - Amsterdam confectionery worker go on strike against wage reduction
1936 - Noel Coward's "Astonished Heart," premieres in London
1936 - Semi-automatic rifles adopted by US army
1937 - Italian regime bans marriages between Italians & Abyssinians
1937 - Maxwell Anderson's "High Tor" premieres in NYC
1940 - 2 German officers make emergency landing in Belgium
1940 - J Thurber & E Nugent's "Male Animal," premieres in NYC
1941 - 6,000 Jews exterminated in pogrom in Bucharest Romania
1941 - Maiden flight by Canada's Avro Lancaster military plane
1942 - Joe Louis KOs Buddy Baer in 1 for heavyweight boxing title
1942 - US Joint Chiefs of Staff created
1943 - Japanese govt in Java limits sale & use of motorcars
1945 - US soldiers led by Gen Douglas MacArthur invades Philippines
1946 - "Would-Be Gentleman" opens at Booth Theater NYC for 77 performances
1947 - "Street Scene" opens at Adelphi Theater NYC for 148 performances
1947 - Roger Sessions' 2nd Symphony, premieres in SF
1947 - Elizabeth "Betty" Short, the Black Dahlia, is last seen alive.
1948 - Walter Piston's 3rd Symphony in E, premieres in Boston
1951 - Life After Tomorrow, 1st film to receive an "X" rating, premieres
1951 - Washington Capitals NBA club folds
1952 - Belgian Pholien govt resigns
1952 - Karel Sys wins European heavyweight boxing title
1952 - Marines give notice that they will recall Ted Williams to active duty
1953 - Bevo Francis, Rio Grande College, scores 116 pts in basketball game
1953 - Korean ferryboat "Chang Tyong-Ho" sank off Pusan killing 249
1954 - -87°F (-66°C), Northice Station, Greenland (Greenland record)
1954 - Bert Olmstead, Mont Canadiens, ties NHL record of 8 points in game
1954 - Bollingen Prize for poetry awarded to Louise Bogan & Leonie Adams
1956 - Abigail Van Buren's "Dear Abby" column 1st appears in newspapers
1956 - Samir el-Rifai forms govt in Jordan
1957 - British premier Anthony Eden resigns

1957 - Checheno-Ingush ASSR reformed in RSFSR
1957 - Dutch Newspaper Society expels communist daily paper "Truth"
1957 - Kalmyk Autonomous Region reformed in RSFSR
1957 - Karachayevo-Cherkess Autonomous Region reestablished in RSFSR
1958 - In basketball Oscar Robertson (Cin) scores 56, Seton Hall team 54
1959 - "Rawhide" with Clint Eastwood premieres on CBS TV
1959 - Dam across Tera River collapses after heavy winter rains, 135 die
1959 - Pat O'Connor beats Dick Hutton in St Louis, to become NWA champ
1960 - Building of Aswan dam in Egypt, begins
1961 - Twins agree on $500,000 payment to AA for Minn/St Paul territory
1962 - Mister M (Dr X) beats Verne Gagne in Minn, to become NWA champ
1962 - NFL prohibits grabbing of face masks
1962 - US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
1963 - Mao Tse-tung writes his poem "Reply to Comrade Kuo Mo-jo"
1964 - Anti-US rioting broke out in Panama Canal Zone
1965 - "Beatles' '65" album goes #1 & stays #1 for 9 weeks
1966 - Polish govt denies exit visa to Cardinal Wyszynski revisionism
1967 - Georgia legislature seats Rep Julian Bond
1967 - NFL New Orleans' franchise takes name "Saints"
1968 - 1st ABA All-Star Game: East 126 beats West 120 at Indiana
1968 - Surveyor 7 space probe soft lands on Moon
1969 - 1st trial flight of Concorde
1969 - Concorde jetliner's 1st test flight (Bristol England)
1970 - Constitution of Singapore enacted
1971 - "Lovely Ladies, Kind Gentlemen" closes at Majestic NYC after 19 perf
1972 - Billionaire Howard Hughes says Clifford Irving's bio is a fake
1972 - Marlene Hagge wins LPGA Burdine's Golf Invitational
1972 - Passenger ship Queen Elizabeth destroyed by fire
1973 - Luna 21 launched, to Moon
1975 - 600 employees of Royal Canadian Mint go on strike
1975 - Australia beat England by 171 runs in 4th Test to regain Ashes
1976 - Bryan Trottier failed in 4th Islander penalty shot
1976 - CW McCall CB song "Convoy" hit #1 on the country music charts
1976 - Ringo releases "Oh My My" in UK
1977 - "Porgy & Bess" closes at Uris Theater NYC after 122 performances
1977 - Superbowl XI: Oakland Raiders beat Minn Vikings, 32-14 in Pasadena Superbowl MVP: Fred Biletnikoff, Oakland, WR
1978 - Commonwealth of Northern Marianas established
1979 - Bollingen Prize for poetry awarded to WS Merwin
1979 - High-school player Daryl Moreau makes 126th consecutive free throws
1979 - K-Mart pulls Steve Martin's "Let's Get Small" for being in "bad taste"
1979 - Supreme Court strikes down (6-3) PA law requiring doctors performing an abortion to try to preserve lives of potentially viable fetuses
1980 - 63 beheaded in Mecca, Saudi Arabia
1981 - Francisco Balsamao elected pres of Portugal
1982 - 5.9 earthquake in New England & Canada; 1st since 1855
1982 - Steve D'Innocenzo scores 3 hockey goals in 12 sec in Mass HS game
1983 - British PM Margaret Thatcher visits Falkland Islands
1984 - "TV's Bloopers & Practical Jokes" premieres on NBC TV (Whoops)
1984 - Braves pitcher Pascual Perez is arrested for cocaine possession
1984 - EAA moves operations to Oshkosh
1984 - John Lennon releases "Nobody Told Me"
1985 - Flames set NHL record 264th regular season game without being shut-out
1986 - NY Islanders greatest shutout margin (9-0) vs Pittsburgh Penguins
1986 - After losing a patent battle with Polaroid, Kodak must give up its instant camera business.
1987 - Chinese/Vietnamese border fights, 1500 killed
1987 - New Nicaraguan constitution takes effect
1987 - Sir Rudolph Bing (of NY Met Opera) marries Lady Carroll Douglass
1988 - August Wilson's "Piano Lesson," premieres in Boston
1988 - English earl of St Andrews marries Sylvana Tomaselli
1988 - US male Figure Skating championship won by Brian Boitano
1989 - "Pat Sajak Show" premieres on CBS
1989 - Johnny Bench & Carl Yastrzemski elected to Baseball Hall of Fame
1990 - 64th US manned space mission STS 32 (Columbia 10) launches into orbit
1990 - Boston Celtics worst ever (6 pts in 2nd vs NJ Nets) & lose 87-78
1990 - Jim Palmer & Joe Morgan elected to Baseball Hall of Fame
1990 - Supreme Court strikes down Dallas' ordinance imposing strict zoning on sexually oriented businesses
1991 - Baker & Aziz meet in Geneva; talks fail to defuse gulf crisis
1991 - Baseball officially bans Pete Rose from being elected to Hall of Fame
1991 - Dean Smith of NC is 6th to win 700 career coaching basketball games
1993 - Franziska van Almsick swims world record 100 m free style (53.33)
1994 - 14th United Negro College Fund raises $11,000,000
1994 - Gunda Niemann skates world record (167.282 pts)
1994 - Rintje Ritsma skates world record (156.201 points)
1995 - Ecuador & Peru involve in boundary fight
1995 - Worker accidentally cuts electrial wires at Newark Airport
1996 - First episode of "Third Rock from the Sun" screened on NBC
1997 - Heart attacks sends Frank Sinatra back to hospital
1998 - Anatoly Karpov defeats Viswanathan Anand to retain chess title
1998 - Anatoly Solovyov & Pavel Vinogradov spacewalk record 3 hrs 8 mins
1998 - Boston Red Sox Mo Vaughn pleads not guilty to drunken driving
1998 - Decapitated head of Danish Little Mermaid is returned
1998 - Hockey News selects Wayne Gretzky best NHL player ever
2001 - ABC-TV deputs "The Mole" for the first time
2001 - Shenzhou 2, an unmanned Chinese spacecraft, is launched.
2001 - Apple announced iTunes at the Macworld Expo in San Francisco, for organizing and playing digital music and videos. Now widely used by Windows and Mac users.
2002 - Michael Jackson receives the Artist of the Century award at the American music awards
2005 - The signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, commonly known as the Naivasha Agreement between the Government of Sudan and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement rebel group in Naivasha, Kenya.
2005 - Elections are held to replace Yasser Arafat as head of the Palestine Liberation Organization. He is succeeded by Rawhi Fattouh.
2007 - Apple Inc CEO, Steve Jobs announces the iPhone.