1554 – Founding of the city of São Paulo in Brazil.
1565 – Battle at Talikota India: Deccan sultanate destroy Vijayanagar’s army and the last Hindu kingdom of Southern India.
1840 – American naval expedition under Charles Wilkes is first to identify Antarctica as a new continent.
1942 – Thailand, a Japanese puppet state, declares war on the Allies.
1949 – 1st Israeli election won by David Ben-Gurion’s Mapai party.
1971 – Military coup in Uganda under Major General Idi Amin.
2011 – Egyptian Revolution of 2011 begins with a series of street demonstrations, rallies, acts of civil disobedience, labor strikes and violent clashes in Cairo, Alexandria and other major cities.
2011 – UK announces it had a shock economic contraction of 0.5% in Q4 2010, due to severe winter weather and budget cuts implemented by the coalition government
2018 – Doomsday clock moved by 30 seconds to 2 minutes to midnight by Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, closest since 1950s
2019 – Longest-ever US government shutdown ends after 35 days when President Donald Trump agrees to three week of negotiations on border security by a House-Senate conference committee
2019 – Roger Stone, political lobbyist for Donald Trump is arrested as part of Mueller investigation for obstruction of justice, witness tampering and making false statements
2020 – Severe rainstorms cause landslides and floods in Brazil’s Minas Gerais state, killing at least 30
Film & TV: 1961 – 1st live, nationally televised presidential news conference with JFK.
Music: 1817 – Gioacchino Rossini’s opera “La Cenerentola” (Cinderella) premieres in Rome.
Sport: 1924 – 1st Winter Olympic Games open in Chamonix, France.
Births & Deaths:
1882 – British writer Virginia Woolf, who made an original contribution to the form of the novel and was one of the most-distinguished critics of her time, was born in London.
2017 – American actress Mary Tyler Moore, who helped redefine the portrayal of women on TV with her roles in the comedies The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961–66) and The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970–77), died in Greenwich, Connecticut.
