475 – Byzantine Emperor Zeno is forced to flee his capital at Constantinople, and his general, Basiliscus gains control of the empire.
1788 – Connecticut becomes the fifth state to be admitted to the United States.
1793 – Jean-Pierre Blanchard becomes the first person to fly in a balloon in the United States.
1839 – The French Academy of Sciences announces the Daguerreotype photography process.
1957 – British Prime Minister Sir Anthony Eden resigns from office following his failure to retake the Suez Canal from Egyptian sovereignty.
1960 – President of Egypt Gamal Abdel Nasser opens construction on the Aswan Dam by detonating ten tons of dynamite to demolish twenty tons of granite on the east bank of the Nile.
2007 – Apple CEO Steve Jobs introduces the original iPhone at a Macworld keynote in San Francisco. Watch the video here as Steve Jobs introduces the iphone
2015 – The perpetrators of the Charlie Hebdo shooting in Paris two days earlier are both killed after a hostage situation. Elsewhere, a second hostage situation, related to the Charlie Hebdo shooting, occurs at a Jewish market, Hypercacher, in Vincennes.
Births
1870 – Joseph Strauss, American engineer, co-designed the Golden Gate Bridge (d. 1938)
1875 – Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, American sculptor and art collector, founded the Whitney Museum of American Art (d. 1942
1902 – Rudolf Bing, American impresario and businessman (d. 1997)
1908 – Simone de Beauvoir, French philosopher and author (d. 1986)
1913 – Richard Nixon, American commander, lawyer, and politician, 37th President of the United States (d. 1994)
Deaths
1324 – Marco Polo, Italian merchant and explorer (b. 1254)
1873 – Napoleon III, French politician, 1st President of France (b. 1808)
1939 – Johann Strauss III, violinist, composer, & conductor (b. 1866)
