1773 – Captain James Cook becomes 1st to cross Antarctic Circle (66° 33′ S)
1873 – A group of Modoc warriors defeats the United States Army in the First Battle of the Stronghold, a part of the Modoc War
1912 – Captain Robert Scott’s expedition arrives at the South Pole, one month after Roald Amundsen
1946 – United Nations Security Council holds its 1st meeting
1961 – Eisenhower allegedly orders assassination of Congo’s Patrice Lumumba
1966 – Martin Luther King Jr. opens campaign in Chicago
1973 – City of Amsterdam decides to support Hanoi
1980 – A Provisional Irish Republican Army bomb prematurely detonates on a passenger train near Belfast, killing three and injuring five (including the bombers)
1987 – US President Reagan signs secret order permitting covert sale of arms to Iran
1991 – Operation Desert Storm begins, with US-led coalition forces bombing Iraq, during the Gulf War
1996 – Iraq agrees to talks concerning a UN plan to allow for the Iraqi sale of $1 billion of oil; proceeds from the sale would be used for humanitarian purposes
2007 – Doomsday Clock set to five minutes to midnight in response to North Korea’s 1st nuclear test
2013 – 33 people are killed by a series of bombs across Iraq
2014 – 21 people are killed in a suicide bombing in a restaurant in Kabul, Afghanistan
2016 – Fourth Democratic presidential candidates debate: Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders clash over healthcare and gun control in Charleston, South Carolina
2017 – US President Barack Obama commutes WikiLeaks discloser Chelsea Manning’s prison sentence from 35 to 7 years
2017 – Search for missing aircraft MH370 over the Indian Ocean is called off
2019 – Car bomb in Bogota, Colombia, outside the National Police Academy kills at least 8 and injures 41
2019 – China executes Cai Dongjia, the country’s “godfather of crystal meth” from Boshe, Guangdong
2019 – Indian spiritual leader Ram Rahim Singh and two aides sentenced to life in prison for murdering journalist who exposed sexual abuse at the sect
Film & TV:
1984 – Supreme Court rules (5-4) that private use of home VCRs to tape TV programs for later viewing does not violate federal copyright laws
Music:
1976 – “I Write the Songs” by Barry Manilow hits #1
1978 – After a tumultuous final tour The Sex Pistols break up as a band, which is announced the following day
Sport:
1916 – Rodman Wanamaker organises a lunch to discuss forming a golfers association (later the PGA) at the Taplow Club, Martinique Hotel, New York City
1970 – Sporting News names Willie Mays as Player of the Decade for the 1960s
