January 3 in History

The American Civil War was a civil war in the United States between the Union and the Confederacy, which was formed in 1861 by states that had seceded from the Union to preserve slavery in the United States, which they saw as threatened because of the election of Abraham Lincoln and the growing abolitionist movement in the North. The war lasted a little over four years, ending with Union victory, the dissolution of the Confederacy and the abolition of slavery, freeing four million African Americans.

The Brooklyn Bridge is a cable-stayed suspension bridge in New York City, spanning the East River between the boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn. Opened on May 24, 1883, the Brooklyn Bridge was the first fixed crossing of the East River. It was also the longest suspension bridge in the world when opened, with a main span of 1,595.5 feet (486.3 m) and a deck 127 ft (38.7 m) above mean high water. The span was originally called the New York and Brooklyn Bridge or the East River Bridge but was officially renamed the Brooklyn Bridge in 1915.

The Sino-French or Franco-Chinese War, also known as the Tonkin War, was a limited conflict fought from August 1884 to April 1885 between the French Third Republic and the Qing dynasty for influence in Vietnam. There was no declaration of war.

The siege of Sidney Street of January 1911, also known as the Battle of Stepney, was a gunfight in the East End of London between a combined police and army force and two Latvian revolutionaries. The siege was the culmination of a series of events that began in December 1910, with an attempted jewellery robbery at Houndsditch in the City of London by a gang of Latvian immigrants which resulted in the murder of three policemen, the wounding of two others, and the death of George Gardstein, a key member of the Latvian gang.

The First Balkan War lasted from October 1912 to May 1913 and involved actions of the Balkan League against the Ottoman Empire. The Balkan states' combined armies overcame the initially numerically inferior and strategically disadvantaged Ottoman armies, achieving rapid success.

Minnie Craig was an American legislator, notable as the first female speaker of a state House of Representatives in the United States.

Canadian Americans are American citizens whose ancestry is wholly or partly Canadian, American Canadian origin, or citizens of either country who hold dual citizenship. Today, many Canadian Americans and American Canadians hold both US and Canadian citizenship.

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas is the government-owned central bank of the Philippines. It was established on January 3, 1949, and then re-established on July 3, 1993, pursuant to the provision of Republic Act 7653 or the New Central Bank Act of 1993 as amended by Republic Act 11211 or the New Central Bank Act of 2019.

The Eiffel Tower is a lattice tower on the Champ de Mars in Paris, France. It is named after the engineer Gustave Eiffel, whose company designed and built the tower from 1887 to 1889.

The West Indies Federation, also known as the West Indies, the Federation of the West Indies or the West Indian Federation, was a short-lived political union that existed from 3 January 1958 to 31 May 1962. Various islands in the Caribbean that were part of the British Empire, including Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, Jamaica, and those on the Leeward and Windward Islands, came together to form the Federation, with its capital in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago. The expressed intention of the Federation was to create a political unit that would become independent from Britain as a single state – possibly similar to Australia, Canada, or Rhodesia and Nyasaland. Before that could happen, the Federation collapsed due to internal political conflicts over how it would be governed or function viably. The formation of a West Indian Federation was encouraged by the United Kingdom, but also requested by pan-Caribbean nationalists.

The Cold War was a period of international geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc. It began in the aftermath of the Second World War and ended with the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. The term cold war is used because there was no direct fighting between the two superpowers, though each supported opposing sides in regional conflicts known as proxy wars. In addition to the struggle for ideological and economic influence and an arms race in both conventional and nuclear weapons, the Cold War was expressed through technological rivalries such as the Space Race, espionage, propaganda campaigns, embargoes, and sports diplomacy.

Baixa de Cassanje, also called Baixa de Kassanje is a non-sovereign kingdom in Angola. Kambamba Kulaxingo was its king until his death in 2006. Presently, Dianhenga Aspirante Mjinji Kulaxingo serves as the king.

Pope John XXIII was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of Vatican City from 28 October 1958 until his death on 3 June 1963.

Apple Inc. is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, in Silicon Valley, and known for consumer electronics, software and online services. Founded in 1976 as Apple Computer Company by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne, the company was incorporated by Jobs and Wozniak as Apple Computer, Inc. the following year. It was renamed "Apple Inc." in 2007 as the company expanded its focus from computers to consumer electronics. Apple is one of the Big Tech companies.

The United States invasion of Panama began in mid-December 1989 during the presidency of George H. W. Bush. The purpose of the invasion was to depose the de facto ruler of Panama, General Manuel Noriega, who was wanted by U.S. authorities for racketeering and drug trafficking. The operation, codenamed Operation Just Cause, concluded in late January 1990 with the surrender of Noriega. The Panama Defense Forces (PDF) were dissolved, and president-elect Guillermo Endara was sworn into office.

George Herbert Walker Bush was the 41st president of the United States, serving from 1989 to 1993. He was Ronald Reagan's vice president from 1981 to 1989. He was the father of George W. Bush, the 43rd president of the United States.

The Mars Polar Lander, also known as the Mars Surveyor '98 Lander, was a 290-kilogram uncrewed spacecraft lander launched by NASA on January 3, 1999, to study the soil and climate of Planum Australe, a region near the south pole on Mars. It formed part of the Mars Surveyor '98 mission. On December 3, 1999, however, after the descent phase was expected to be complete, the lander failed to reestablish communication with Earth. A post-mortem analysis determined the most likely cause of the mishap was premature termination of the engine firing prior to the lander touching the surface, causing it to strike the planet at a high velocity.

Flash Airlines Flight 604 was a charter flight from Sharm El Sheikh International Airport in Egypt to Charles de Gaulle International Airport in Paris, France, with a stop-over at Cairo International Airport, provided by Egyptian private charter company Flash Airlines. On 3 January 2004, the Boeing 737-300 that was operating the route crashed into the Red Sea shortly after takeoff from Sharm El Sheikh, killing all 135 passengers, most of whom were French tourists, and all thirteen crew members. The findings of the crash investigation were controversial, with accident investigators from the different countries involved unable to agree on the cause of the accident.

Boko Haram, officially known as Jama'at Ahl al-Sunna li al-Da'wa wa al-Jihad and sometimes referred to as its state name Daular Musulunci, is a self-proclaimed jihadist militant group based in northeastern Nigeria and also active in Chad, Niger, northern Cameroon, and Mali. In 2016, the group split, resulting in the emergence of a hostile faction known as the Islamic State's West Africa Province.

Qasem Soleimani was an Iranian military officer who served in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). From 1998 until his assassination by the United States in 2020, he was the commander of the Quds Force, an IRGC division primarily responsible for extraterritorial and clandestine military operations, and played a key role in the Syrian civil war through securing Russian intervention. He was described as "the single most powerful operative in the Middle East" and a "genius of asymmetric warfare". Former Mossad director Yossi Cohen said Soleimani's strategies had "personally tightened a noose around Israel's neck".

On 3 January 2024, a commemorative ceremony marking the assassination of Qasem Soleimani at his grave in eastern Kerman, Iran, was attacked by two bomb explosions. The attacks killed at least 95 people, and injured 284 others. The Iranian government declared the bombings a terrorist attack, the deadliest such incident in the country since the Cinema Rex attack of 1978. On the following day, the Islamic State, a Sunni extremist group, claimed responsibility for the attack in the Shia dominated country. According to Reuters, the United States Intelligence Community concluded that the attack was perpetrated by the Afghanistan branch of the Islamic State, Islamic State – Khorasan Province.