jan28_history.md

• 1077 – Walk to Canossa: The excommunication of Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor is lifted.
• 1393 – King Charles VI of France is nearly killed when several dancers' costumes catch fire during a masquerade ball.
• 1521 – The Diet of Worms begins, lasting until May 25.
• 1547 – Henry VIII dies. His nine-year-old son, Edward VI becomes King, and the first Protestant ruler of England.
• 1573 – Articles of the Warsaw Confederation are signed, sanctioning freedom of religion in Poland.
• 1624 – Sir Thomas Warner founds the first British colony in the Caribbean, on the island of Saint Kitts.
• 1701 – The Chinese storm Dartsedo.
• 1724 – The Russian Academy of Sciences is founded in St. Petersburg by Peter the Great, and implemented by Senate decree. It is called the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences until 1917.
• 1754 – Horace Walpole coins the word serendipity in a letter to Horace Mann.
• 1760 – Pownal, Vermont is created by Benning Wentworth as one of the New Hampshire Grants.
• 1813 – Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice is first published in the United Kingdom.
• 1820 – A Russian expedition led by Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen and Mikhail Petrovich Lazarev discovers the Antarctic continent, approaching the Antarctic coast.
• 1821 – Alexander Island is first discovered by Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen.
• 1846 – The Battle of Aliwal, India, is won by British troops commanded by Sir Harry Smith.
• 1851 – Northwestern University becomes the first chartered university in Illinois.
• 1855 – A locomotive on the Panama Canal Railway, runs from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean for the first time.
• 1871 – Franco-Prussian War: the Siege of Paris ends in French defeat and an armistice.
• 1878 – Yale Daily News becomes the first daily college newspaper in the United States.
• 1887 – In a snowstorm at Fort Keogh, Montana, the world's largest snowflakes are reported, 15 inches (38 cm) wide and 8 inches (20 cm) thick.
• 1896 – Walter Arnold of East Peckham, Kent becomes the first person to be convicted of speeding. He was fined 1 shilling, plus costs, for speeding at 8 mph (13 km/h), thus exceeding the contemporary speed limit of 2 mph (3.2 km/h).
• 1902 – The Carnegie Institution of Washington is founded in Washington, D.C. with a $10 million gift from Andrew Carnegie.
• 1908 – Members of the Portuguese Republican Party fail in their attempted coup d'état against the administrative dictatorship of Prime Minister João Franco.
• 1909 – United States troops leave Cuba with the exception of Guantanamo Bay Naval Base after being there since the Spanish–American War.
• 1915 – An act of the U.S. Congress creates the United States Coast Guard as a branch of the United States Armed Forces.
• 1917 – Municipally-owned streetcars take to the streets of San Francisco.
• 1918 – Finnish Civil War: Rebels seize control of the capital, Helsinki, and members of the Senate of Finland go underground.
• 1922 – Knickerbocker Storm, Washington D.C.'s biggest snowfall, causes the city's greatest loss of life when the roof of the Knickerbocker Theatre collapses.
• 1932 – Japanese forces attack Shanghai.
• 1933 – The name Pakistan is coined by Choudhry Rahmat Ali Khan and is accepted by the Indian Muslims who then thereby adopted it further for the Pakistan Movement seeking independence.
• 1934 – The first ski tow in the United States begins operation in Vermont.
• 1935 – Iceland becomes the first Western country to legalize therapeutic abortion.
• 1938 – The World Land Speed Record on a public road is broken by Rudolf Caracciola in the Mercedes-Benz W195 at a speed of 432.7 kilometres per hour (268.9 mph).
• 1941 – Franco-Thai War: Final air battle of the conflict. A Japanese-mediated armistice goes into effect later in the day.
• 1945 – World War II: Supplies begin to reach the Republic of China over the newly reopened Burma Road.
• 1956 – Elvis Presley makes his first US television appearance
• 1958 – The Lego company patents the design of its Lego bricks, still compatible with bricks produced today.
• 1958 – The last episode of the British radio comedy programme The Goon Show is broadcast.
• 1960 – The National Football League announced expansion teams for Dallas to start in the 1960 NFL season and Minneapolis-St. Paul for 1961 NFL season.
• 1964 – An unarmed USAF T-39 Sabreliner on a training mission is shot down over Erfurt, East Germany, by a Soviet MiG-19.
• 1965 – The current design of the Flag of Canada is chosen by an act of Parliament.
• 1977 – The first day of the Great Lakes Blizzard of 1977 which dumps 10 feet (3.0 m) of snow in one-day in Upstate New York, with Buffalo, Syracuse, Watertown, and surrounding areas most affected.
• 1979 – CBS News Sunday Morning debuts with original host and cocreator Charles Kuralt.
• 1979 – Pope John Paul II starts his first pastoral visit to Mexico.
• 1980 – USCGC Blackthorn collides with the tanker Capricorn while leaving Tampa, Florida and capsizes killing 23 Coast Guard crewmembers.
• 1981 – Ronald Reagan lifts remaining domestic petroleum price and allocation controls in the United States helping to end the 1979 energy crisis and begin the 1980s oil glut.
• 1982 – US Army general James L. Dozier is rescued by Italian anti-terrorism forces from captivity by the Red Brigades.
• 1984 – Tropical Storm Domoina makes landfall in southern Mozambique, eventually causing 214 deaths and some of the most severe flooding so far recorded in the region.
• 1985 – Supergroup USA for Africa (United Support of Artists for Africa) records the hit single We Are the World, to help raise funds for Ethiopian famine relief.
• 1986 – Space Shuttle program: STS-51-L mission – Space Shuttle Challenger explodes after liftoff killing all seven astronauts on board.
• 1988 – In R. v. Morgentaler the Supreme Court of Canada strikes down all anti-abortion laws, effectively allowing abortions in Canada in all 9 months of pregnancy.
• 2002 – TAME Flight 120, a Boeing 727-100 crashes in the Andes mountains in southern Colombia killing 92.
• 2006 – The roof of one of the buildings at the Katowice International Fair in Chorzów/Katowice, Poland, collapses due to the weight of snow, killing 65 and injuring more than 170 others.
• 2010 – Five murderers of President Sheikh Mujibur Rahman of Bangladesh are hanged.