On This Day

This Day in History

1. 2018A group of Taliban gunmen assaulted the Hotel Inter-Continental Kabul in Afghanistan and took hostages, triggering a 12-hour battle that resulted in the deaths of at least 21 people.
2. 2018A team of four or five gunmen launched an attack on The Inter-Continental Hotel in Kabul, Afghanistan, starting a 12-hour battle that killed 40 people and wounded many others.
3. 2018As part of the Syrian civil war, the Turkish government announced the start of the Afrin offensive and commenced shelling Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) positions inside the Afrin Region.
4. 2009Thousands of people demonstrated outside the Icelandic parliament in Reykjavík amid a national financial crisis.
5. 2009Barack Obama was inaugurated in Washington, D.C., becoming the first African-American president of the United States.
6. 2009A protest movement in Iceland reached its peak with the commencement of the 2009 Icelandic financial crisis protests.
7. 1990The Soviet Red Army carried out a violent crackdown against pro-independence Azeri demonstrators in Baku, Azerbaijan SSR.
8. 1969East Pakistani police shot and killed Bengali student activist Amanullah Asaduzzaman, an occurrence that ultimately sparked the Bangladesh Liberation War.
9. 1968The Houston Cougars defeated the UCLA Bruins in the "Game of the Century," snapping UCLA's 47-game winning streak and helping turn college basketball into a televised American sports commodity.
10. 1945During World War II, Germany initiated a nearly two-month operation to evacuate at least 1.8 million people from East Prussia ahead of the advancing Soviet Red Army.
11. 1942Reinhard Heydrich and additional senior Nazi figures convened at the Wannsee Conference near Berlin to plan the execution of the "Final Solution to the Jewish Question" during the Holocaust.
12. 1843Honório Hermeto Carneiro Leão, Marquis of Paraná, assumed office as the de facto first prime minister of the Empire of Brazil.
13. 1726J. S. Bach directed the premiere performance of his cantata Meine Seufzer, meine Tränen on the second Sunday after Epiphany.
14. 1356Edward Balliol, the son of former Scottish monarch John Balliol, surrendered his claim to the throne of Scotland to receive an English pension.
15. 1265Simon de Montfort convened local representatives at the Palace of Westminster for a parliament today recognized as the predecessor to the English House of Commons.
16. 1156According to legendary accounts, Lalli killed Bishop Henry of Finland using an axe while on the frozen ice of Lake Köyliönjärvi in Köyliö.