| *1832 | Mathematician and novelist Lewis Carroll was born in Daresbury, Cheshire, England. | |
| *1756 | Austrian composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who is widely recognized as one of the greatest composers in the history of Western music and who excelled at all the musical genres of his era, was born this day in 1756. | |
| 2003 | Altria Group, Inc. became the name of the parent company of Kraft Foods, Philip Morris USA, Philip Morris International and Philip Morris Capital Corporation. | |
| 2002 | A series of explosions occurred at a military dump in Lagos, Nigeria. More than 1,000 people were killed in the blast and in the attempt to escape. | |
| 1999 | The U.S. Senate blocked dismissal of the impeachment case against President Clinton and voted for new testimony from Monica Lewinsky and two other witnesses. | |
| 1998 | U.S. First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton appeared on NBC's "Today" show. She charged that the allegations against her husband were the work of a "vast right-wing conspiracy." | |
| 1997 | It was revealed that French national museums were holding nearly 2,000 works of art stolen from Jews by the Nazis during World War II. | |
| 1996 | Mahamane Ousmane, the first democratically elected president of Niger, was overthrown by a military coup. Colonel Ibrahim Bare Mainassara declared himself head of state. | |
| 1996 | Colonel Ibrahim Baré Maïnassara led a successful military coup in Niger against the democratically elected government of President Mahamane Ousmane. | |
| 1992 | Former world boxing champion Mike Tyson went on trial for allegedly raping an 18-year-old contestant in the 1991 Miss Black America Contest. | |
| 1985 | The Coca-Cola Company, of Atlanta, GA, announced a plan to sell its soft drinks in the Soviet Union. | |
| 1984 | Carl Lewis beat his own two-year-old record by 9-1/4 inches when he set a new indoor world record with a long-jump mark of 28 feet, 10-1/4 inches. | |
| 1984 | Wayne Gretzky set a National Hockey League (NHL) record for consecutive game scoring. He ended the streak at 51 games. | |
| 1981 | U.S. President Reagan greeted the 52 former American hostages released by Iran at the White House. | |
| 1977 | The Vatican reaffirmed the Roman Catholic Church's ban on female priests. | |
| 1973 | The Paris accord ending the Vietnam War, America's longest war, was signed this day in 1973, providing for an exchange of prisoners and for the unilateral withdrawal of U.S. forces from South Vietnam. | |
| 1967 | At Cape Kennedy, FL, astronauts Virgil I. "Gus" Grissom, Edward H. White and Roger B. Chaffee died in a flash fire during a test aboard their Apollo I spacecraft. | |
| 1967 | More than 60 nations signed the Outer Space Treaty which banned the orbiting of nuclear weapons and placing weapons on celestial bodies or space stations. | |
| 1957 | The "CBS Radio Workshop" was heard for the first time. | |
| 1951 | In the U.S., atomic testing in the Nevada desert began as an Air Force plane dropped a one-kiloton bomb on Frenchman Flats. | |
| 1948 | Wire Recording Corporation of America announced the first magnetic tape recorder. The ‘Wireway’ machine with a built-in oscillator sold for $149.50. | |
| 1945 | Soviet troops liberated the Nazi concentration camps Auschwitz and Birkenau in Poland. | |
| 1944 | The Soviet Red Army ousted German and Finnish forces from Leningrad (St. Petersburg), concluding an 872-day siege. | |
| 1943 | During World War II, the first all American air raid against Germany took place when about 50 bombers attacked Wilhlemshaven. | |
| 1931 | NBC radio debuted "Clara, Lu ’n’ Em" on its Blue network (later, ABC radio). | |
| 1927 | United Independent Broadcasters Inc. started a radio network with contracts with 16 stations. The company later became Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS). | |
| 1926 | John Baird, a Scottish inventor, demonstrated a pictorial transmission machine called television. | |
| 1900 | In China, foreign diplomats in Peking, fearing a revolt, demanded that the imperial government discipline the Boxer rebels. | |
| 1888 | The National Geographic Society was founded in Washington, DC. | |
| 1880 | American inventor Thomas Edison patented the incandescent lamp. | |
| 1870 | Kappa Alpha Theta, the first women’s sorority, was founded at Indiana Asbury University (now DePauw University) in Greencastle, IN. | |
| 1606 | The trial of Guy Fawkes and his fellow conspirators began. They were executed on January 31. | |
