4th January 1642: Charles I of England attempts to arrest the Five Members of Parliament, prompting the English Civil War
Charles I himself entered the House of Commons chamber – an act that was a huge violation of Parliamentary privilege – and sat in the Speaker’s chair to demand the Five Members be handed over to ...
4 Jan 0s
3rd January 1868: Meiji Restoration begins in Japan when loyalists seize control of the Kyoto Imperial Palace
Supporters of imperial restoration occupied key positions in Kyoto on 3 January 1868 and announced the abolition of the Tokugawa ...
3 Jan 0s
2nd January 1980: Jimmy Carter instigates the end of détente after the USSR invades Afghanistan
In response to Soviet military intervention in Afghanistan, Jimmy Carter brought the period of détente to an ...
2 Jan 0s
1st January 1942: Declaration by the United Nations agreed and signed by the four major Allied nations during the Second World War
The original signatories – United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, the USSR’s Ambassador to the US Maxim Litvinov, and Chinese Minister of Foreign Affa...
1 Jan 0s
31st December 1853: New Year’s Eve dinner takes place inside a model of an Iguanodon at the Crystal Palace Park in south London
The dinner was widely reported and helped generate public interest in the Crystal Palace Park's life-sized models of extinct animals, which opened to visitors the following ...
31 Dec 20250s
30th December 1922: Foundation of the USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics)
In 1922 the USSR consisted of just four Soviet republics – the Russian SFSR, Ukrainian SSR, Byelorussian SSR and Transcaucasian ...
30 Dec 20250s
29th December 1890: Lakota Sioux massacred at Wounded Knee
More than 150 Native Americans from the Lakota tribe were killed by U.S. soldiers in the Wounded Knee ...
29 Dec 20250s
28th December 1537: Francis I of France establishes the first legal deposit for books under the Ordonnance de Montpellier
The Ordonnance de Montpellier required printers and booksellers to deposit a copy of every book published in the kingdom with the royal ...
28 Dec 20250s
