This is a list of selected January 2 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. Before doing so, please review the selected anniversaries guidelines. If your suggestion is potentially controversial or relates to a day currently or soon to appear on the Main Page, post it on the talk page instead.
Please note:
- Events listed on the Main Page are selected based on article quality and to provide a diverse range of topics, rather than solely on the importance or significance of the events.
- Only four or five events are featured each day; therefore, not all important or significant events can be included.
- An event is generally excluded if it is already the subject of the scheduled featured article or picture of the day.
To report an error in content currently on the Main Page, see Wikipedia:Main Page/Errors. If a listed event is inaccurate, please first seek consensus and update the corresponding article before making changes here.
Staging area
Images
Use only ONE image at a time
"The Capitulation of Granada"
Luna 1
Fritz Joubert Duquesne
US Attorney General Alexander Mitchell Palmer
Ineligible
| Blurb | Reason |
|---|---|
| 533 – Mercurius became Pope John II, the first pope to adopt a regnal name upon elevation to the papacy. | stubby |
| 1492 – The Reconquista ended when the forces of Queen Isabella I of Castile and King Ferdinand II of Aragon defeated the armies of Abu 'abd-Allah Muhammad XII of Granada, the last of the Moorish rulers. | unreferenced section, needs more footnotes |
| 1860 – French mathematician Urbain Le Verrier announced the "discovery" of the planet Vulcan at a meeting at the French Academy of Sciences in Paris. | Tagged with {{refimprove}} |
| 1905 – Russo-Japanese War: The Siege of Port Arthur ended when the Russian fleet surrendered to Japanese forces at Port Arthur, a deep-water port and Russian naval base in present-day Lüshunkou, China. | refimprove |
| 1942 – In the largest espionage case in American history, over 30 members of a Nazi spy ring were convicted following an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. | refimprove |
| 1959 – The Soviet spacecraft Luna 1, the first spacecraft to reach the vicinity of the Moon, was launched by the Vostok rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome near Tyuratam, Kazakh SSR. | Tagged with {{missing citations}} |
Eligible
- 366 – The Alemanni, an alliance of west Germanic tribes, crossed the frozen Rhine in large numbers to invade the Roman Empire.
- 1920 – Under the leadership of U.S. Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer, Department of Justice agents launched a series of raids against radical leftists and anarchists across 30 cities in 23 states.
- 1941 – Second World War: Llandaff Cathedral in Cardiff, Wales, was severely damaged by German bombing during the Cardiff Blitz.
- 1944 – World War II: The United States and Australia successfully landed 13,000 troops on Papua New Guinea in an attempt to cut off a Japanese retreat.
- 1971 – At Ibrox Park in Glasgow, Scotland, 66 people were killed in a stampede during an Old Firm football match.
- 1976 – The Gale of January 1976 began, which resulted in coastal flooding around the southern North Sea coasts, leading to at least 82 deaths and US$1.3 billion in damage.
- 1991 – Sharon Pratt Dixon was sworn in as mayor of Washington, D.C., thus becoming the first African American woman to lead a major American city.
Notes
- Washington's crossing of the Delaware/Battle of Trenton appears on December 25 and Battle of Princeton appears on January 3, so Battle of Assunpink Creek should not appear if either of the two are used
January 2: Perihelion of the Earth (04:38 UTC, 2013); Feast Day of Gregory of Nazianzus (Roman Catholic Church)
- 1777 – American Revolutionary War: American forces under the command of George Washington repulsed a British attack at the Battle of the Assunpink Creek near Trenton, New Jersey.
- 1949 – Luis Muñoz Marín (pictured) became the first democratically elected Governor of Puerto Rico.
- 1963 – Vietnam War: The Viet Cong won its first major victory in the Battle of Ap Bac.
- 1981 – English serial killer Peter Sutcliffe, the "Yorkshire Ripper", was arrested in Sheffield, ending one of the largest police investigations in British history.
- 2004 – The Stardust space probe flew by the comet Wild 2 and collected particle samples from its coma, which were later returned to Earth.
- 2006 – An explosion at a coal mine in Sago, West Virginia, US, trapped 13 miners for nearly two days, leaving only one survivor.