1917 – US ended diplomatic relations with Germany

1950 – Klaus Fuchs, a German-born British scientist who helped develop the atomic bomb, is arrested for passing atomic bomb information to the USSR

1953 – French oceanographer Jacques-Yves Cousteau published his most famous and lasting work, The Silent World

1959 – “The day the music died,” when musicians Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and J.P. “the Big Bopper” Richardson perished in a plane crash

1994 – US President Clinton ended the trade embargo on Vietnam

2012 - Mexico’s ‘super labs’ send meth pouring into US

1649 - King Charles I executed for treason

1920 – Japan’s Mazda founded

1933 - The Lone Ranger debuts on Detroit radio

1948 - Gandhi assassinated

2000 - Plane crashes off Ivory Coast

2012 - Use of US drones in Iraq provokes outrage in country

1837 - Michigan became the 26th state

1838 – Tennessee passes nation’s first prohibition law

1918 – Ukraine declares its independence

1972 - North Vietnam rejects U.S. peace proposal.

1979 – “The Dukes of Hazzard” premieres

2012 - Apple accused of ignoring labor abuses that can kill

1841 – China ceded Hong Kong to Britain

1942 – The Wannsee Conference between Nazi officials decides on a ‘final solution’ to the ‘Jewish problem’; the Holocaust ensues

1961 – JFK inaugurated, becoming the youngest and the first Catholic U.S. president; gives his infamous, “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country,” speech

1981 – 52 American hostages were released in Iran, ending the 444-day Iran Hostage Crisis

2011 – The American Lung Association gave Florida a failing grade for its efforts to prevent tobacco use and to get smokers to quit; the state continues to miss out on billions of federal grants

2012 – ‘Hatred is growing rapidly’: Afghan soldiers killing more of their US allies

1486 – Henry VII of England married Elizabeth of York, uniting the warring houses of Lancaster and York

1778 – English explorer Captain James Cook became the first European to discover the Hawaiian Islands

1800 – The Bank of France was created

1919 – The World War I peace conference opened in Versailles, France

2005 – The world’s largest commercial jet, an Airbus A380 that can carry 800 passengers, was unveiled in Toulouse, France

2012 – Wikipedia goes dark on piracy bill protest day

1569 – England’s first official lottery

1935 – Amelia Earhart flew from Hawaii to California

1942 – Japan declared war on the Netherlands

2008 – Sir Edmund Hillary, the first person to conquer Mount Everest, died at age 88

2010 – Miep Gies, who helped hide Anne Frank and her family from the Nazis for two years and saved the teenager’s diary, died in Amsterdam at age 100

2012 – Scotland to vote on severing UK ties

1861 – Florida seceded from the Union

1863 – London’s first underground railway opened

1946 – The United Nations first met in London

1971 – “Masterpiece Theatre” premiered on PBS

2003 – North Korea withdrew from a global treaty barring it from making nuclear weapons

2008 – World’s cheapest car, Tata Motors’ “Nano”, debuted in India

1412 – According to tradition, Joan of Arc was born in Domremy, France

1540 – King Henry VIII of England marries Anne of Cleves, wife number four

1838 – Samuel Morse’s telegraph system was demonstrated for the first time at the Speedwell Iron Works in Morristown, New Jersey

1994 – Figure skater Nancy Kerrigan is attacked after a practice session at Cobo Hall in Detroit

2001 – U.S. Congress certified Republican George W. Bush the winner of the close and bitterly contested 2000 presidential election

2008 – Disney-MGM Studios became Disney’s Hollywood Studios

871 – Battle of Reading; King Aethelred I of Wessex failed to repel an invading Danish army.

1785 – Author and philologist, Jacob Grimm, was born.

1974 – President Richard Nixon refused to hand over tape recordings and documents subpoenaed by the Senate Watergate Committee.

1996 – GM announced its electric car.

2004 – Afghans approved a new constitution.

2007 – Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., became the first female speaker of the House.

1521 – Martin Luther, a key figure in the Protestant Reformation, was excommunicated by Pope Leo X

1924 – King Tut’s sarcophagus was uncovered

1961 – U.S. severed diplomatic relations with Cuba

1987 – The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducted its first woman – Aretha Franklin

2004 – NASA’s Mars rover, Spirit, touched down on the red planet

2012 – Sanibel City Council proclaimed January 30th, 2012, as F.I.S.H. of Sanibel 30 ROCKS! Day