This day in history : 15th January, 2009.

January 15 is the 15th day of the year.

Events from past:

588 BC - Nebuchadrezzar II of Babylon lays siege to Jerusalem under Zedekiah’s reign. The siege lasts until July 23, 586 BC.

69 - Otho seizes power in Rome, proclaiming himself Emperor of Rome, but only rules for three months before committing suicide.

1559 - Elizabeth I crowned queen of England in Westminster Abbey, London.

1582 - Russia cedes Livonia and Estonia to Poland.

1759 - The British Museum opens.

1777 - American Revolutionary War: New Connecticut (present day Vermont) declares its independence.

1782 - Superintendent of Finance Robert Morris goes before the U.S. Congress to recommend establishment of a national mint and decimal coinage.

1822 - Greek War of Independence: Demetrius Ypsilanti is elected president of the legislative assembly.

1844 - University of Notre Dame receives its charter from the state of Indiana.

1865 - American Civil War - Fort Fisher North Carolina falls to the Union, thus cutting off the last major seaport of the Confederacy.

1870 - A political cartoon for the first time symbolizes the United States Democratic Party with a donkey ("A Live Jackass Kicking a Dead Lion" by Thomas Nast for Harper’s Weekly).

1889 - The Coca-Cola Company, then known as the Pemberton Medicine Company, is originally incorporated in Atlanta, Georgia.

1892 - James Naismith publishes the rules for basketball.

1908 - The Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority becomes the first Greek-letter organization founded and established by African-American college women.

1919 - Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, two of the most prominent socialists in Germany, are tortured and murdered by the Freikorps.

1936 - The first building to be completely covered in glass is completed in Toledo, Ohio (the building was for the Owens-Illinois Glass Company).

1943 - World War II: The Soviet counter-offensive at Voronezh begins.

1943 - The world’s largest office building, The Pentagon, is dedicated in Arlington, Virginia.

1947 - The brutalized corpse of Elizabeth Short ("The Black Dahlia") is found in Leimert Park, Los Angeles, California.

1949 - Chinese Civil War: The Chinese Communist Party forces took over Tianjin from the Nationalist Government.

1951 - Ilse Koch, The "Bitch of Buchenwald", wife of the commandant of the Buchenwald concentration camp, is sentenced to life imprisonment by a court in West Germany.

1966 - The government of Abubakar Tafawa Balewa in Nigeria is overthrown in a military coup d’état1967 - The first Super Bowl is played in Los Angeles, California.

1969 - The Soviet Union launches Soyuz 5.

1970 - After a 32-month fight for independence from Nigeria, Biafra surrenders.

1970 - Muammar al-Qaddafi is proclaimed premier of Libya.

1973 - Vietnam War: Citing progress in peace negotiations, President Richard Nixon announces the suspension of offensive action in North Vietnam.

1976 - Gerald Ford’s would-be assassin, Sara Jane Moore, is sentenced to life in prison.

1977 - The Kälvesta air disaster kills 22 people, the worst air crash in Sweden’s history.

1986 - The Living Seas opens at EPCOT Center in Walt Disney World, Florida.

1990 - AT&T’s long distance telephone network suffers a cascade switching failure.

1991 - The United Nations deadline for the withdrawal of Iraqi forces from occupied Kuwait expires, preparing the way for the start of Operation Desert Storm.

1992 - The international community recognizes the independence of Slovenia and Croatia from the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

1993 - Salvatore Riina, the Mafia boss known as ‘The Beast’, is arrested in Sicily after three decades as a fugitive

1999 - The Racak incident: 45 Albanians in the Kosovo village of Racak are killed by Yugoslav security forces.

2001 - Wikipedia, a free Wiki content encyclopedia, goes online.

2005 - An intense solar flare blasts X-rays across the solar system.

2005 - ESA’s SMART-1 lunar orbiter discovers elements such as calcium, aluminum, silicon, iron, and other surface elements on the moon.

2007 - Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti, former Iraqi intelligence chief and half-brother of Saddam Hussein, and Awad Hamed al-Bandar, former chief judge of the Revolutionary Court, are executed by hanging in Iraq. 

Famous people born on 15 th Jan

Tom Burke, Martin Luther King, Jr., Mary Pierce, Neil Nitin Mukesh, Fred Davis

Famous people who died on 15th Jan

Brad Renfro, Dan Lee, Ruth Warrick, Elizabeth Janeway, Les Baxter, Harilal Upadhyay, Ray Bolger

- SAMPURN