[CaptainCrunch]

Jan 9

475 – Byzantine Emperor Zeno is forced to flee his capital at Constantinople, and his general, Basiliscus gains control of the empire.

1150 – Wanyan Liang and other court officials murder Emperor Xizong of Jin. Wanyan Liang succeeds him as emperor.

1349 – The Jewish population of Basel, believed by the residents to be the cause of the ongoing Black Death, is rounded up and incinerated.

1431 – Judges' investigations for the trial of Joan of Arc begin in Rouen.

1788 – Connecticut becomes the fifth state to ratify the Constitution.

1793 – Jean-Pierre Blanchard becomes the first person to fly in a balloon in the United States.

1806 – Admiral Horatio Lord Nelson receives a state funeral and is interred in St Paul's Cathedral.

1858 – Anson Jones, the last President of the Republic of Texas, commits suicide.

1861 – American Civil War: "Star of the West" incident occurs near Charleston, South Carolina.

1861 – Mississippi becomes the second state to secede from the Union before the outbreak of the American Civil War.

1894 – New England Telephone and Telegraph installs the first battery-operated telephone switchboard in Lexington, Massachusetts.

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.

1914 – Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity Inc., the first historically black [NHLVIDEO]intercollegiate Greek-letter fraternity to be officially recognized at Howard University, is founded.

1916 – World War I: The Battle of Gallipoli concludes with an Ottoman Empire victory when the last Allied forces are evacuated from the peninsula.

1918 – Battle of Bear Valley: The last battle of the American Indian Wars.

1923 – Juan de la Cierva makes the first autogyro flight.

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.

1941 – World War II: First flight of the Avro Lancaster.

1945 – World War II: The Sixth United States Army begins the invasion of Lingayen Gulf.

1957 – British Prime Minister Sir Anthony Eden resigns from office following his failure to retake the Suez Canal from Egyptian sovereignty.

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.

1992 – The Assembly of the Serb People in Bosnia and Herzegovina proclaims the creation of Republika Srpska, a new state within Yugoslavia.

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.

2005 – Mahmoud Abbas wins the election to succeed Yasser Arafat as President of the Palestinian National Authority, replacing interim president Rawhi Fattouh.

2007 – Apple CEO Steve Jobs introduces the original iPhone at a Macworld keynote in San Francisco.

2015 – The perpetrators of the Charlie Hebdo shooting in Paris two days earlier are both killed after a hostage situation; a second hostage situation, related to the Charlie Hebdo shooting, occurs at a Jewish market in Vincennes.