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98 - Trajan becomes Roman Emperor after the death of Nerva.

672 - St. Vitalian ends his reign as Catholic Pope.

847 - Sergius II ends his reign as Catholic Pope.

1142 - Wrongful execution of noted Song Dynasty General Yue Fei.

1186 - Henry VI, the son and heir of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I, weds Constance of Sicily.

1343 - Pope Clement VI issues the Bull Unigenitus.

1593 - Vatican opens 7 year trial against scholar Giordano Bruno.

1606 - Gunpowder Plot: The trial of Guy Fawkes and other conspirators begins, and ending in their execution on January 31.

1695 - Mustafa II becomes the Ottoman sultan in Istanbul on the death of Ahmed II. Mustafa rules until his death in 1703.

1785 - The University of Georgia is founded.

1825 - U.S. Congress approves Indian Territory (in what is present-day Oklahoma), clearing the way for forced relocation of the Eastern Indians on the "Trail of Tears."

1870 - The first college sorority, Kappa Alpha Theta, is formed at DePauw University.

1880 - Thomas Edison files a patent for his electric incandescent lamp.

1888 - In Washington, D.C., the National Geographic Society is founded.

1900 - Boxer Rebellion: Foreign diplomats in Peking, China demand that the Boxer rebels be disciplined.

1909 - The Young Left is founded in Norway.

1915 - United States Marines occupy Haiti.

1926 - John Logie Baird demonstrates the first television broadcast.

1939 - United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt approves the sale of U.S. war planes to France.

1941 - World War II: Fighting at Derna, Libya, begins. Following the capture of Tobruk, two brigades of the 6th Australian Division under Major General Iven Mackay pursue the Italians westwards and encounters an Italian rear guard at Derna.

1943 - World War II: Fifty bombers mount the first entirely American air raid against Germany, targeting Wilhelmshaven.

1944 - World War II: The two-year Siege of Leningrad is lifted.

1945 - World War II: The Red Army arrives at Auschwitz and Birkenau in Poland and find the Nazi concentration camp.

1951 - Nuclear testing at the Nevada Test Site begins with a one-kiloton bomb dropped on Frenchman Flats.

1967 - Project Apollo: Apollo 1 - Astronauts Gus Grissom, Edward White and Roger Chaffee are killed in a fire during a test of the spacecraft at the Kennedy Space Center.

1967 - More than sixty nations sign the Outer Space Treaty banning nuclear weapons in space.

1969 - The present-day Hetch Hetchy Moccasin Powerhouse, rated at 100,000KVA was completed and placed in operation.

1973 - Paris Peace Accords officially end the Vietnam War, Colonel William Nolde falls, becoming the conflict's last recorded American combat casualty.

1983 - World's longest subaqueous tunnel (53.90 km) opens in Japan connecting the islands of Honshu and Hokkaido.

1984 - Carl Lewis beats his own indoor world jumping record by 9¼ inches (23.5 centimeters) with a 28-foot, 10¼-inch (8.795-meter) jump.

1996 - Colonel Ibrahim Baré Maïnassara deposes the first democratically elected president of Niger, Mahamane Ousmane, in a military coup.

1996 - Germany observes its 1st Holocaust Remembrance Day.

1997 - It is revealed that French museums have nearly 2,000 pieces of art that were stolen by Nazis.

1998 - American First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton appears on The Today Show, calling the attacks against her husband part of a vast right-wing conspiracy.

2001 - Ten members of the Oklahoma State University men's basketball team and support staff die in a plane crash in Colorado.

2002 - Several explosions at a military dump in Lagos, Nigeria, kill more than 1,000.

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1443 - Albert, Duke of Saxony (d. 1500)

1546 - Joachim Friedrich, Elector of Brandenburg (d. 1608)

1585 - Hendrick Avercamp, Dutch painter (d. 1634)

1603 - Harbottle Grimston, English politician (d. 1685)

1621 - Thomas Willis, English physician (d. 1675)

1662 - Richard Bentley, English classical scholar (d. 1742)

1687 - Balthasar Neumann, German architect (d. 1753)

1701 - Johann Nikolaus von Hontheim, German historian (d. 1790)

1720 - Samuel Foote, English dramatist (d. 1777)

1741 - Hester Thrale, Welsh diarist (d. 1821)

1756 - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Austrian composer (d. 1791)

1805 - Samuel Palmer, English artist (d. 1881)

1806 - Juan Crisóstomo Arriaga, Spanish composer (d. 1826)

1814 - Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, French architect (d. 1879)

1823 - Edouard Lalo, French composer (d. 1892)

1826 - Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin, Russian writer (d. 1889)

1826 - Richard Taylor, American Confederate general (d. 1879)

1832 - Lewis Carroll, English author (d. 1898)

1836 - Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, Austrian writer (d. 1895)

1841 - Arkhip Kuindzhi, Russian painter (d. 1910)

1848 - Togo Heihachiro, Japanese admiral (d. 1934)

1850 - Samuel Gompers, American labor leader (d. 1924)

1850 - Edward J. Smith, English captain of the Titanic (d. 1912)

1859 - Emperor Wilhelm II of Germany (d. 1941)

1885 - Jerome Kern, American composer (d. 1945)

1885 - Eduard Künneke, German composer (d. 1953)

1885 - Harry Ruby, American musician (d. 1974)

1891 - Ilya Ehrenburg, Russian writer (d. 1967)

1893 - Soong Ching-ling, Chinese wife of Sun Yat-sen (d. 1981)

1900 - Hyman Rickover, American admiral (d. 1986)

1901 - Art Rooney, American football team owner (d. 1988)

1903 - John Carew Eccles, Australian neuropsychologist, Nobel Prize Laureate (d. 1997)

1905 - Howard McNear, American actor (d. 1969)

1908 - Oran "Hot Lips" Page, American musician (d. 1954)

1918 - Skitch Henderson, English bandleader (d. 2005)

1918 - Elmore James, American blues musician (d. 1963)

1919 - Ross Bagdasarian, American musician (d. 1972)

1920 - Helmut Zacharias, German violinist (d. 2002)

1921 - Donna Reed, American actress (d. 1986)

1924 - Sabu, Indian actor (d. 1963)

1926 - Fritz Spiegl, Austrian journalist (d. 2003)

1929 - Gastón Suárez, Bolivian novelist (d. 1984)

1930 - Bobby Blue Bland, American singer

1931 - Mordecai Richler, Canadian author (d. 2001)

1932 - Boris Shakhlin, Soviet gymnast

1936 - Troy Donahue, American actor (d. 2001)

1936 - Samuel C. C. Ting, American physicist, Nobel Prize Laureate

1937 - John Ogdon, English pianist (d. 1989)

1940 - James Cromwell, American actor

1944 - Mairéad Corrigan, Irish activist, Nobel Prize Laureate

1944 - Nick Mason, English musician (Pink Floyd)

1945 - Harold Cardinal, Cree political leader (d. 2005)

1946 - Nedra Talley, American singer (Ronettes)

1950 - Amos Grunebaum, Israeli-born physician

1954 - Peter Laird, American comic-book artist

1954 - Joko Ninomiya, Japanese martial artist

1955 - John Glover Roberts, Jr., 17th Chief Justice of the United States

1955 - Alexander Stuart, British author

1956 - Mimi Rogers, American actress

1957 - Janick Gers, English musician (Iron Maiden)

1957 - Frank Miller, American author

1958 - Kadri Mälk, Estonian artist and jewelry designer

1959 - Keith Olbermann, American sportscaster

1959 - Cris Collinsworth, American football player

1961 - Margo Timmins, Canadian singer (Cowboy Junkies)

1961 - Gillian Gilbert, British musician (New Order)

1964 - Bridget Fonda, American actress

1965 - Alan Cumming, Scottish actor

1967 - Bobby Deol, Indian actor

1968 - Mike Patton, American singer (Faith No More)

1968 - Tricky, English rapper

1969 - Cornelius, musician, singer and producer (Flipper's Guitar)

1969 - Michael Kulas, Canadian singer/songwriter from (James (band))

1970 - Mark Trojanowski, American musician (Sister Hazel)

1971 - Fann Wong, Singapore entertainer (Shanghai Knights)

1972 - Keith Wood, Irish rugby player

1974 - Chaminda Vaas, Sri Lankan cricketer

1976 - Clint Ford, American voice actor

1976 - Ahn Jung-Hwan, Korean football player

1979 - Daniel Vettori, New Zealand cricketer

1979 - Rosamund Pike, British actress

1980 - Marat Safin, Russian tennis player

1981 - Alicia Molik, Australian tennis player

1987 - Lily Donaldson, British model

1988 - Kerlon Moura Souza, Brazilian footballer

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98 - Nerva, Roman Emperor (b. 35)

1490 - Ashikaga Yoshimasa, Japanese shogun (b. 1435)

1629 - Hieronymus Praetorius, German composer (b. 1560)

1638 - Gonzalo de Céspedes y Meneses, Spanish novelist

1731 - Bartolomeo Cristofori, Italian maker of musical instruments (b. 1655)

1740 - Louis Henri, Duc de Bourbon, Prime Minister of France (b. 1692)

1814 - Johann Gottlieb Fichte, German philosopher (b. 1762)

1816 - Samuel Hood, 1st Viscount Hood, British admiral (b. 1724)

1851 - John James Audubon, French-American naturalist, ornithologist, and painter (b. 1789)

1857 - Dorothea Lieven, Russian noblewoman (b. 1785)

1860 - János Bolyai, Hungarian mathematician (b. 1802)

1880 - Edward Middleton Barry, English architect (b. 1830)

1901 - Giuseppe Verdi, Italian composer (b. 1813)

1910 - Thomas Crapper, English inventor (b. 1836)

1919 - Endre Ady, Hungarian poet (b. 1877)

1921 - Maurice Vincent Buckley, Australian winner of the Victoria Cross (b. 1891)

1940 - Isaac Babel, Ukrainian writer (b. 1894)

1956 - Erich Kleiber, Argentine conductor (b. 1890)

1967 - Crew of Apollo 1:

Roger Chaffee (b. 1935)

Virgil "Gus" Grissom (b. 1926)

Edward White (b. 1930)

1970 - Rita Angus, New Zealand painter (b. 1908)

1971 - Jacobo Arbenz, President of Guatemala (b. 1913)

1972 - Mahalia Jackson, American singer (b. 1911)

1972] - Richard Courant, German-American mathematician (b. 1888)

1973 - William Nolde, last American combat casualty of Vietnam War (b. 1929)

1975 - Bill Walsh, American producer and writer (b. 1913)

1983 - Louis de Funès, French actor (b. 1914)

1986 - Lilli Palmer, German-born actress (b. 1914)

1988 - Massa Makan Diabaté, Malian author (b. 1938)

1989 - Thomas Sopwith, British aviation pioneer (b. 1888)

1992 - Allan Jones, American actor and singer (b. 1908)

1993 - André the Giant, professional wrestler and actor (b. 1946)

1994 - Claude Akins, American actor (b. 1918)

1996 - Ralph Yarborough, American politician (b. 1903)

2000 - Friedrich Gulda, Austrian pianist (b. 1930)

2003 - Henryk Jabłoński, President of communist People's Republic of Poland (b. 1909)

2004 - Jack Paar, American television show host (b. 1918)

2004 - Salvador Laurel, 9th Vice President of the Philippines (b.1928)

2006 - Johannes Rau, 8th Bundespräsident (President of Germany) (b. 1931)

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UN — International Holocaust Memorial Day

United Kingdom — Holocaust Memorial Day.

Germany — Gedenktag für die Opfer des Nationalsozialismus (Commemoration Day for the Victims of National Socialism).

Poland — Dzień Pamięci Ofiar Nazizmu (Memorial Day for the Victims of Nazism).

Italy — (Memorial Day).

Catholicism — Catholic Schools Week.

Serbia — St. Sava Day.

Denmark — Auschwitzdag (Auschwitz Day; commemoration day for the victims of the Holocaust and other genocide).