THUNDER BAY – HISTORY – January 3 in history, it was on this day in 1945 that Admiral Chester W. Nimitz was placed in command of all U.S. Naval forces in preparation for planned assaults against Iwo Jima and Okinawa in Japan.
In the United States, it was on January 3, 1777 that General George Washington defeated British General Cornwallis in the Battle of Princeton.
For fans of the Iphone, Imac, Macbook, and Apple TV it was on this day that Apple first incorporated.
- 1431 – Joan of Arc is defeated by Bishop Pierre Cauchon.
- 1521 – Pope Leo X excommunicates Martin Luther in the papal bull Decet Romanum Pontificem.
- 1653 – By the Coonan Cross Oath, the Eastern Church in India cuts itself off from colonial Portuguese tutelage.
- 1749 – Benning Wentworth issues the first of the New Hampshire Grants, leading to the establishment of Vermont.
- 1749 – The first issue of Berlingske, Denmark’s oldest continually operating newspaper, is published.
- 1777 – American General George Washington defeats British General Lord Cornwallis at the Battle of Princeton.
- 1815 – Austria, the United Kingdom, and France form a secret defensive alliance against Prussia and Russia.
- 1823 – Stephen F. Austin receives a grant of land in Texas from the government of Mexico.
- 1848 – Joseph Jenkins Roberts is sworn in as the first president of the independent African Liberia.
- 1861 – American Civil War: Delaware votes not to secede from the United States.
- 1868 – Meiji Restoration in Japan: The Tokugawa shogunate is abolished; agents of Satsuma and Chōshū seize power.
- 1870 – Construction of the Brooklyn Bridge begins.
- 1885 – Sino-French War: Beginning of the Battle of Núi Bop
- 1888 – The refracting telescope at the Lick Observatory, measuring 91 cm in diameter, is used for the first time. It was the largest telescope in the world at the time.
- 1911 – A magnitude 7.7 earthquake destroys the city of Almaty in Russian Turkestan.
- 1919 – At the Paris Peace Conference, Emir Faisal I of Iraq signs an agreement with Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann on the development of a Jewish homeland in Palestine and an Arab nation in a large part of the Middle East.
- 1925 – Benito Mussolini announces he is taking dictatorial powers over Italy.
- 1932 – Martial law is declared in Honduras to stop a revolt by banana workers fired by the United Fruit Company.
- 1933 – Minnie D. Craig becomes the first female elected as Speaker of the North Dakota House of Representatives, the first female to hold a Speaker position anywhere in the United States.
- 1938 – The March of Dimes is established by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
- 1944 – World War II: Top Ace Major Greg “Pappy” Boyington is shot down in his Vought F4U Corsair by Captain Masajiro Kawato flying a Mitsubishi A6M Zero.
- 1945 – World War II: Admiral Chester W. Nimitz is placed in command of all U.S. Naval forces in preparation for planned assaults against Iwo Jima and Okinawa in Japan.
- 1946 – Popular Canadian American jockey George Woolf dies in a freak accident during a race; the annual George Woolf Memorial Jockey Award is created to honor him.
- 1947 – Proceedings of the U.S. Congress are televised for the first time.
- 1949 – The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, the central bank of the Philippines, is established.
- 1953 – Frances P. Bolton and her son, Oliver from Ohio, become the first mother and son to serve simultaneously in the U.S. Congress.
- 1956 – A fire damages the top part of the Eiffel Tower.
- 1957 – The Hamilton Watch Company introduces the first electric watch.
- 1958 – The West Indies Federation is formed.
- 1959 – Alaska is admitted as the 49th U.S. state.
- 1959 – Separatists in the Maldives declare the establishment of the United Suvadive Republic.
- 1961 – The United States severs diplomatic relations with Cuba over the latter’s nationalization of American assets.
- 1961 – A core explosion and meltdown at the SL-1, a government-run reactor near Idaho Falls, Idaho, kills three workers.
- 1961 – In Finland’s worst civilian aviation accident an Aero Flight 311 crashes near Kvevlax, resulting in the deaths of all 25 people aboard.
- 1962 – Pope John XXIII excommunicates Fidel Castro.
- 1976 – The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights comes into effect.
- 1977 – Apple Computer is incorporated.
- 1990 – Former leader of Panama Manuel Noriega surrenders to American forces.
- 1993 – In Moscow, Russia, George Bush and Boris Yeltsin sign the second Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START).
- 1994 – More than seven million people from the former apartheid Homelands, receive South African citizenship.
- 1996 – The Motorola StarTAC, the first flip phone and one of the first mobile phones to gain widespread consumer adoption, goes on sale.
- 1997 – China announces it will spend US$27.7 billion to fight erosion and pollution in the Yangtze and Yellow River valleys.
- 1999 – The Mars Polar Lander is launched.
- 1999 – Israel detains, and later expels, 14 members of Concerned Christians.
- 2000 – The last original weekday Peanuts comic strip is published.
- 2002 – Israeli forces seize the Palestinian freighter Karine A in the Red Sea, finding 50 tons of weapons.
- 2004 – Flash Airlines Flight 604 crashes into the Red Sea, resulting in 148 deaths, making it the deadliest aviation accident in Egyptian history.
- 2009 – The first block of the blockchain of the decentralized payment system Bitcoin, called the Genesis block, was established by the creator of the system, Satoshi Nakamoto.
