Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/January 1

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This is a list of selected January 1 anniversaries that appear in the "On this day" section of the Main Page. To suggest a new item, in most cases, you can be bold and edit this page. Please read the selected anniversaries guidelines before making your edit. However, if your addition might be controversial or on a day that is or will soon be on the Main Page, please post your suggestion on the talk page instead.

Please note that the events listed on the Main Page are chosen based more on relative article quality and to maintain a mix of topics, not based solely on how important or significant their subjects are. Only four to five events are posted at a time and thus not everything that is "most important and significant" can be listed. In addition, an event is generally not posted this year if it is also the subject of the scheduled featured article or picture of the day.

To report an error when this appears on the Main Page, see Main Page errors. Please remember that this list defers to the supporting articles, so it is best to achieve consensus and make any necessary changes there first.

← December 31	January 2 →

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Images

Use only ONE image at a time

Giuseppe Piazzi
St. Patrick's Cross
The original Union Flag in 1606
"Am I not a man and a brother", emblem used by abolitionists
Lachlan Macquarie
Fulgencio Batista
Che Guevara and Fidel Castro
Satellite photo of Bouvet Island
Clock depicting the Unix billennium, 2001
Ceres
Ellis Island

Ineligible

Blurb	Reason
New Year's Day (Gregorian calendar);	refimprove section
Independence Day in Brunei (1984), Haiti (1804), Samoa (1962), and Sudan (1956)	Brunei: refimprove section, Haiti: needs expansion; Samoa: lots of CN tags in one section (Economy); Sudan: missing information
45 BC – The Roman Republic adopted the Julian calendar.	refimprove section
1810 – Lachlan Macquarie became Governor of New South Wales, eventually playing a major role in the shaping of the social, economic and architectural development of the colony in Australia.	refimprove sections
1890 – The Rose Parade in Pasadena, California, was first held, eventually becoming an annual event that is currently watched on television by millions in more than 200 countries and territories.	refimprove section; blurb could be rewritten to feature Rose Bowl Game, but that article is also ineligible
1901 – The British colonies of New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria, and Western Australia federated as the Commonwealth of Australia.	refimprove
1948 – British Railways came into existence when the "Big Four" railway companies were nationalised.	unreferenced section
1959 – Cuban president Fulgencio Batista fled to the Dominican Republic as forces under Fidel Castro took control of Havana, marking the end of the Cuban Revolution.	multiple issues
1970 – Although not defined as such until later, the Unix epoch took place at 00:00:00 UTC, forming the basis of much of computer timekeeping.	Several, including disputed section and several citation needed tags (5)
1983 – The ARPANET changed its core networking protocols from NCP to TCP/IP, marking the beginning of the Internet as we know it today.	globalize
1994 – The revolutionary leftist Zapatista Army of National Liberation initiated twelve days of armed conflict in the Mexican state of Chiapas.	expansion
1995 – The World Trade Organization, the international organization designed to supervise and liberalize international trade, came into being, replacing the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade.	appears on April 15
Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati \|d\|1937	unreferenced section

Eligible

1068 – Having been pardoned by Eudokia Makrembolitissa, the regent of the Byzantine Empire, for attempting to usurp the throne, Romanos IV Diogenes married her to become Byzantine emperor.
1739 – Bouvet Island in the South Atlantic Ocean, the most remote island in the world, was discovered by French explorer Jean-Baptiste Charles Bouvet de Lozier.
1773 – The hymn "Amazing Grace" was probably first used in a prayer meeting in Olney, England, without the music familiar to modern listeners.
1785 – The Times began publication in London as The Daily Universal Register.
1800 – Quasi-War: An American convoy of four merchant vessels escorted by a schooner was attacked by a squadron of armed barges manned by Haitians.
1801 – Italian astronomer Giuseppe Piazzi discovered the dwarf planet Ceres, naming it after the Roman goddess of agriculture and of motherly love.
1801 – Pursuant to the Acts of Union 1800, Great Britain and Ireland merged to become the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
1808 – As a result of the lobbying efforts by the abolitionist movement>!== (emblem pictured)-->, the importation of slaves into the United States was officially banned, although slavery itself was not yet abolished.
1818 – Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, a novel by the British author Mary Shelley, was first published anonymously in London.
1892 – The immigration station on Ellis Island in New York Harbor opened, and would process almost 12 million immigrants to the United States over the course of its existence.
1914 – The St. Petersburg–Tampa Airboat Line in the U.S. state of Florida became the first scheduled airline using a winged aircraft.
1928 – Joseph Stalin's personal secretary, Boris Bazhanov, crossed the Iranian border and defected from the Soviet Union.
1945 – World War II: In retaliation for the massacre of captured Americans by Waffen SS soldiers, U.S. Army personnel killed an estimated 80 Wehrmacht prisoners near Chenogne, Belgium.
1957 – The revised Thai criminal code came into force, strengthening the law on lèse-majesté in Thailand to include insult, and treating it as a crime against national security.
2007 – Adam Air Flight 574 crashed into the sea off Polewali, Indonesia, killing all 102 people on board, when the pilots inadvertently disconnected the autopilot.
2009 – A nightclub fire in Bangkok, Thailand, killed 66 patrons celebrating the New Year.
2010 – A suicide bomber killed 105 spectators at a volleyball game in the Lakki Marwat District of Pakistan.
2011 – A suicide bombing took place outside a Coptic Orthodox church in Alexandria, Egypt, following a New Year service, killing 23 people.
Born/died this day: | Henry of Marcy |d|1189| Lorenzo de' Medici |b|1449| Betsy Ross |b|1752| Marie-Louise Lachapelle |b|1769| Eugène-Anatole Demarçay |b|1852| Wilhelm Canaris |b|1887| J. D. Salinger |b|1919| Gary Johnson |b|1953| Vidya Balan |b|1979| Betty Archdale |d|2000| Shirley Chisholm |d|2005| Lhasa de Sela |d|2010

Notes

MV Senopati Nusantara appears on December 30, so Adam Air Flight 574 should not appear soon after.

January 1: Public Domain Day; Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God (Roman Rite Catholicism)

Arrokoth

417 – Galla Placidia was forced by her brother Honorius into marriage with his magister militum, Constantius III.
1776 – American Revolutionary War: The town of Norfolk, Virginia, was burned and destroyed by the combined actions of British and Whig forces.
1945 – Second World War: The Luftwaffe launched Operation Bodenplatte in an attempt to cripple Allied air forces in the Low Countries.
1965 – The People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan, which later helped the country become a republic, was founded.
2019 – The NASA space probe New Horizons flew by the trans-Neptunian object Arrokoth (pictured), making it the farthest object visited by a spacecraft.

Maria Edgeworth (b. 1768)
Alfred Ely Beach (d. 1896)
Nay Win Maung (d. 2012)

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