Events on January 9 47
Year 475
Byzantine Emperor Zeno is forced to flee his capital at Constantinople, and his general, Basiliscus gains control of the empire.
Year 681
Twelfth Council of Toledo: King Erwig of the Visigoths initiates a council in which he implements diverse measures against the Jews in Spain.
Year 1127
Jin-Song Wars: Invading Jurchen soldiers from the Jin dynasty besiege and sack Bianjing (Kaifeng), the capital of the Song dynasty of China, and abduct Emperor Qinzong of Song and others, ending the Northern Song dynasty.
Year 1150
Wanyan Liang and other court officials murder Emperor Xizong of Jin. Wanyan Liang succeeds him as emperor.
Year 1349
The Jewish population of Basel, believed by the residents to be the cause of the ongoing Black Death, is rounded up and incinerated.
Year 1431
Judges' investigations for the trial of Joan of Arc begin in Rouen, France, the seat of the English occupation government.
Year 1793
Jean-Pierre Blanchard becomes the first person to fly in a balloon in the United States.
Year 1799
British Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger introduces an income tax of two shillings to the pound to raise funds for Great Britain's war effort in the Napoleonic Wars.
Year 1806
Admiral Horatio Lord Nelson receives a state funeral and is interred in St Paul's Cathedral.
Year 1822
The Portuguese prince Pedro I of Brazil decides to stay in Brazil against the orders of the Portuguese King João VI, beginning the Brazilian independence process.
Year 1857
The 7.9 Mw Fort Tejon earthquake shakes Central and Southern California with a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX (Violent).
Year 1861
American Civil War: "Star of the West" incident occurs near Charleston, South Carolina.
Year 1861
Mississippi becomes the second state to secede from the Union before the outbreak of the American Civil War.
Year 1894
New England Telephone and Telegraph installs the first battery-operated telephone switchboard in Lexington, Massachusetts.
Year 1903
Hallam Tennyson, 2nd Baron Tennyson, son of the poet Alfred Tennyson, becomes the second Governor-General of Australia.
Year 1909
Ernest Shackleton, leading the Nimrod Expedition to the South Pole, plants the British flag 97 nautical miles (180 km; 112 mi) from the South Pole, the farthest anyone had ever reached at that time.
Year 1914
Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity Inc., the first historically black intercollegiate Greek-letter fraternity to be officially recognized at Howard University, is founded.
Year 1916
World War I: The Battle of Gallipoli concludes with an Ottoman Empire victory when the last Allied forces are evacuated from the peninsula.
Year 1917
World War I: The Battle of Rafa is fought near the Egyptian border with Palestine.
Year 1921
Greco-Turkish War: The First Battle of İnönü, the first battle of the war, begins near Eskişehir in Anatolia.
Year 1923
Lithuanian residents of the Memel Territory rebel against the League of Nations' decision to leave the area as a mandated region under French control.
Year 1927
A fire at the Laurier Palace movie theatre in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, kills 78 children.
Year 1945
World War II: The Sixth United States Army begins the invasion of Lingayen Gulf.
Year 1957
British Prime Minister Sir Anthony Eden resigns from office following his failure to retake the Suez Canal from Egyptian sovereignty.
Year 1960
President of Egypt Gamal Abdel Nasser opens construction on the Aswan Dam by detonating ten tons of dynamite to demolish twenty tons of granite on the east bank of the Nile.
Year 1964
Martyrs' Day: Several Panamanian youths try to raise the Panamanian flag in the U.S.-controlled Panama Canal Zone, leading to fighting between U.S. military and Panamanian civilians.
Year 1965
The Mirzapur Cadet College formally opens for academic activities in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh).
Year 1991
Representatives from the United States and Iraq meet at the Geneva Peace Conference to try to find a peaceful resolution to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.
Year 1992
The Assembly of the Serb People in Bosnia and Herzegovina proclaims the creation of Republika Srpska, a new state within Yugoslavia.
Year 1996
First Chechen War: Chechen separatists launch a raid against the helicopter airfield and later a civilian hospital in the city of Kizlyar in the neighboring Dagestan, which turns into a massive hostage crisis involving thousands of civilians.
Year 2004
An inflatable boat carrying illegal Albanian emigrants stalls near the Karaburun Peninsula en route to Brindisi, Italy; exposure to the elements kills 28.
Year 2005
Mahmoud Abbas wins the election to succeed Yasser Arafat as President of the Palestinian National Authority, replacing interim president Rawhi Fattouh.
Year 2005
The Sudan People's Liberation Movement and the Government of Sudan sign the Comprehensive Peace Agreement to end the Second Sudanese Civil War.
Year 2007
Apple CEO Steve Jobs introduces the original iPhone at a Macworld keynote in San Francisco.
Year 2011
Iran Air Flight 277 crashes near Orumiyeh in the northeast of the country, killing 77 people.
Year 2014
An explosion at a Mitsubishi Materials chemical plant in Yokkaichi, Japan, kills at least five people and injures 17 others.
Year 2015
The perpetrators of the Charlie Hebdo shooting in Paris two days earlier are both killed after a hostage situation; a a second hostage situation, related to the Charlie Hebdo shooting, occurs at a Jewish market in Vincennes.