Events on January 19 51
Year 379
Emperor Gratian elevates Flavius Theodosius at Sirmium to Augustus, and gives him authority over all the eastern provinces of the Roman Empire.
Year 649
Conquest of Kucha: The forces of Kucha surrender after a forty-day siege led by Tang dynasty general Ashina She'er, establishing Tang control over the northern Tarim Basin in Xinjiang.
Year 1419
Hundred Years' War: Rouen surrenders to Henry V of England, completing his reconquest of Normandy.
Year 1520
Sten Sture the Younger, the Regent of Sweden, is mortally wounded at the Battle of Bogesund.
Year 1607
San Agustin Church in Manila is officially completed; it is the oldest church still standing in the Philippines.
Year 1795
The Batavian Republic is proclaimed in the Netherlands, bringing to an end the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands.
Year 1812
Peninsular War: After a ten-day siege, Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, orders British soldiers of the Light and third divisions to storm Ciudad Rodrigo.
Year 1817
An army of 5,423 soldiers, led by General José de San Martín, crosses the Andes from Argentina to liberate Chile and then Peru.
Year 1829
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Faust: The First Part of the Tragedy receives its premiere performance.
Year 1861
American Civil War: Georgia joins South Carolina, Florida, Mississippi, and Alabama in declaring secession from the United States.
Year 1862
American Civil War: Battle of Mill Springs: The Confederacy suffers its first significant defeat in the conflict.
Year 1871
Franco-Prussian War: In the Siege of Paris, Prussia wins the Battle of St. Quentin. Meanwhile, the French attempt to break the siege in the Battle of Buzenval will end unsuccessfully the following day.
Year 1883
The first electric lighting system employing overhead wires, built by Thomas Edison, begins service at Roselle, New Jersey.
Year 1915
World War I: German zeppelins bomb the towns of Great Yarmouth and King's Lynn in the United Kingdom killing at least 20 people, in the first major aerial bombardment of a civilian target.
Year 1917
Seventy-three people are killed and 400 injured in an explosion in a munitions plant in London.
Year 1937
Howard Hughes sets a new air record by flying from Los Angeles to New York City in 7 hours, 28 minutes, 25 seconds.
Year 1940
You Nazty Spy!, the very first Hollywood film of any kind to satirize Adolf Hitler and the Nazis premieres, starring The Three Stooges, with Moe Howard as the character "Moe Hailstone" satirizing Hitler.
Year 1941
World War II: The Greek Triton (Y-5) sinks the Italian submarine Neghelli in Otranto.
Year 1945
World War II: Soviet forces liberate the Łódź Ghetto. Of more than 200,000 inhabitants in 1940, less than 900 had survived the Nazi occupation.
Year 1946
General Douglas MacArthur establishes the International Military Tribunal for the Far East in Tokyo to try Japanese war criminals.
Year 1953
Almost 72% of all television sets in the United States are tuned into I Love Lucy to watch Lucy give birth.
Year 1969
Student Jan Palach dies after setting himself on fire three days earlier in Prague's Wenceslas Square to protest about the invasion of Czechoslovakia by the Soviet Union in 1968. His funeral turns into another major protest.
Year 1974
China gain control over all the Paracel Islands after a military engagement between the naval forces of the People's Republic of China and Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam)
Year 1978
The last Volkswagen Beetle made in Germany leaves VW's plant in Emden. Beetle production in Latin America continues until 2003.
Year 1981
Iran hostage crisis: United States and Iranian officials sign an agreement to release 52 American hostages after 14 months of captivity.
Year 1983
The Apple Lisa, the first commercial personal computer from Apple Inc. to have a graphical user interface and a computer mouse, is announced.
Year 1986
The first IBM PC computer virus is released into the wild. A boot sector virus dubbed (c)Brain, it was created by the Farooq Alvi Brothers in Lahore, Pakistan, reportedly to deter unauthorized copying of the software they had written.
Year 1995
After being struck by lightning the crew of Bristow Flight 56C are forced to ditch. All 18 aboard are later rescued.
Year 1996
The barge North Cape oil spill occurs as an engine fire forces the tugboat Scandia ashore on Moonstone Beach in South Kingstown, Rhode Island.
Year 1997
Yasser Arafat returns to Hebron after more than 30 years and joins celebrations over the handover of the last Israeli-controlled West Bank city.
Year 1999
British Aerospace agrees to acquire the defence subsidiary of the General Electric Company plc, forming BAE Systems in November 1999.
Year 2007
Turkish-Armenian Journalist Hrant Dink is assassinated in front of his newspaper's Istanbul office by 17-year-old Turkish ultra-nationalist Ogün Samast.
Year 2014
A bomb attack on an army convoy in the city of Bannu kills at least 26 soldiers and injures 38 others.