Five years after his election ended the Kalmar Union with Denmark, Gustav I was crowned in Uppsala Cathedral. He went on to build a strong hereditary monarchy and introduce the Lutheran Reformation.
Empress Elizabeth signed the decree founding Moscow University, proposed by Ivan Shuvalov and Mikhail Lomonosov (12 January Old Style). Russia's oldest university now bears Lomonosov's name.
The society, later the Royal Aeronautical Society, was founded in London to study flight decades before the first aeroplane. It is the oldest aeronautical society in the world.
First long-distance radio message sent from the Eiffel Tower
A transmitter on the Eiffel Tower sent a wireless message over a record distance. The tower's value for military radio helped secure its future after its original 20-year permit.
Hattie Caraway becomes the first woman elected to the US Senate
Appointed to succeed her late husband, Hattie Caraway of Arkansas won a special election to keep the seat. She went on to win two full terms and served until 1945.
Soviet forces burst out of their bridgeheads in Poland and advanced some 500 km in under three weeks. By early February they stood on the Oder, about 70 km from Berlin.
Biafra announces its surrender, ending the Nigerian Civil War
Biafra's acting leader Philip Effiong announced the end of the secessionist state's resistance. Between half a million and two million people had died, many from famine caused by the blockade.
A magnitude 7.0 earthquake hit near Port-au-Prince, destroying much of the capital. Estimates of the dead range from about 100,000 to over 300,000, and more than a million people were left homeless.
Dates as the sources give them: in the Julian calendar before 1582, and in some countries for longer (Britain until 1752, Russia until 1918). Only people whose day of birth or death the records agree on are listed.
