January 10 - Events

Events

• 49 BC – Julius Caesar crosses the Rubicon, signaling the start of civil war.
• 69 – Lucius Calpurnius Piso Licinianus is appointed by Galba to deputy Roman Emperor.
• 236 – Pope Fabian succeeds Anterus as the twentieth pope of Rome.
• 1072 – Robert Guiscard conquers Palermo.
• 1475 – Stephen III of Moldavia defeats the Ottoman Empire at the Battle of Vaslui.
• 1645 – Archbishop William Laud is beheaded at the Tower of London.
• 1776 – Thomas Paine publishes Common Sense.
• 1806 – Dutch settlers in Cape Town surrender to the British.
• 1810 – Napoleon divorces his first wife Joséphine.
• 1861 – American Civil War: Florida secedes from the Union.
• 1863 – The London Underground, the world's oldest underground railway, opens between London Paddington station and Farringdon station.
• 1870 – John D. Rockefeller incorporates Standard Oil.
• 1901 – The first great Texas oil gusher is discovered at Spindletop in Beaumont, Texas.
• 1916 – Erzerum Offensive during World War I, Russian victory over Ottoman Empire.
• 1920 – The Treaty of Versailles takes effect, officially ending World War I.
• 1922 – Arthur Griffith is elected President of the Irish Free State.
• 1923 – Lithuania seizes and annexes Memel.
• 1941 – World War II: The Greek army captures Kleisoura.
• 1946 – The first General Assembly of the United Nations opens in London. Fifty-one nations are represented.
• 1946 – The United States Army Signal Corps successfully conducts Project Diana, bouncing radio waves off the moon and receiving the reflected signals.
• 1962 – Apollo Project: NASA announces plans to build the C-5 rocket booster. It became better known as the Saturn V moon rocket, which launched every Apollo moon mission.
• 1972 – Sheikh Mujibur Rahman returns to the newly independent Bangladesh as president after spending over nine months in prison inPakistan.
• 1981 – Salvadoran Civil War: The FMLN launches its first major offensive, gaining control of most of Morazán and Chalatenangodepartments
• 1984 – The United States and the Vatican establish full diplomatic relations after 117 years.
• 1990 – Time Warner is formed from the merger of Time Inc. and Warner Communications Inc.
• 1999 – Sanjeev Nanda kills three policemen in New Delhi with his car, an act for which he was later acquitted, resulting in a sharp drop in public confidence in the Indian legal system.
• 2001 – A large piece of the chalk cliff at Beachy Head collapses into the sea.
• 2003 – Illinois Governor George Ryan commutes the death sentences of 167 prisoners on Illinois' death row based on the Jon Burgescandal.
• 2005 – A mudslide occurs in La Conchita, California, killing 10 people, injuring many more and closing U.S. Route 101, the main coastal corridor between San Francisco and Los Angeles, for 10 days.