[CaptainCrunch]

Jan 3rd in history

1521 – Pope Leo X excommunicates Martin Luther in the papal bull Decet Romanum Pontificem.

1749 – Benning Wentworth issues the first of the New Hampshire Grants, leading to the establishment of Vermont.

1777 – American General George Washington defeats British General Lord Cornwallis at the Battle of Princeton.

1823 – Stephen F. Austin receives a grant of land in Texas from the government of Mexico.

1861 – American Civil War: Delaware votes not to secede from the United States.

1870 – Construction of the Brooklyn Bridge begins.

1888 – The James Lick telescope at the Lick Observatory, measuring 91 cm in diameter, is used for the first time. It was the largest refracting telescope in the world at the time.

1911 – A gun battle in the East End of London left two dead and sparked a political row over the involvement of then-Home Secretary Winston Churchill.

1919 – At the Paris Peace Conference, Emir Faisal I of Iraq signs an agreement with Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann on the development of a Jewish homeland in Palestine.

1925 – Benito Mussolini announces he is taking dictatorial powers over Italy.

1932 – Martial law is declared in Honduras to stop a revolt by banana workers fired by the United Fruit Company.

1938 – The March of Dimes is established as a foundation to combat infant polio by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

1944 – World War II: Top Ace Major Greg "Pappy" Boyington is shot down in his Vought F4U Corsair by Captain Masajiro Kawato flying a Mitsubishi A6M Zero.

1945 – World War II: Admiral Chester W. Nimitz is placed in command of all U.S. Naval forces in preparation for planned assaults against Iwo Jima and Okinawa in Japan.

1947 – Proceedings of the U.S. Congress are televised for the first time.

1957 – The Hamilton Watch Company introduces the first electric watch.

1959 – Alaska is admitted as the 49th U.S. state.

1961 – The United States severs diplomatic relations with Cuba over the latter's nationalization of American assets.

1961 – The SL-1 nuclear reactor is destroyed by a steam explosion in the only reactor incident in the United States to cause immediate fatalities.

1962 – Pope John XXIII excommunicates Fidel Castro.

1977 – Apple Computer is incorporated.

1990 – Manuel Noriega, former leader of Panama, surrenders to American forces.

1993 – In Moscow, Russia, George Bush and Boris Yeltsin sign the second Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START).

1994 – More than seven million people from the former apartheid Homelands receive South African citizenship.

1999 – The Mars Polar Lander is launched by NASA.

2000 – Final daily edition of the Peanuts comic strip.

2009 – The first block of the blockchain of the decentralized payment system Bitcoin, called the Genesis block, was established by the creator of the system, Satoshi Nakamoto.