On January 3
On January 3, the Human Saga records one pivotal event: The Meiji Restoration (1868).
On this day
On 3 January 1868 a coalition of reformist samurai from the Satsuma and Chōshū domains, together with court nobles, proclaimed the restoration of direct rule by the young Emperor Meiji (Mutsuhito), ending more than two and a half centuries…
Also this week in history (Dec 31 – Jan 6)
On 1 January 1804, at Gonaïves, Jean-Jacques Dessalines proclaimed the independence of the former French colony of Saint-Domingue, restoring the indigenous Taíno name Haiti.
The American Civil War (1861–1865) was fought between the United States and eleven Southern states that seceded to form the Confederacy, primarily over slavery and its expansion.
On 1 January 1959, dictator Fulgencio Batista fled Cuba as the guerrilla insurgency of Fidel Castro's 26th of July Movement, with commanders including Ernesto 'Che' Guevara and Camilo Cienfuegos, completed a campaign begun with the failed…
On 1 January 1962 Western Samoa became the first Pacific island country to achieve full political independence in the twentieth century, ending more than four decades of New Zealand administration that had begun under a League of Nations…
The Prague Spring was a period of political liberalisation in Czechoslovakia that began on 5 January 1968 when the reformist Alexander Dubček became First Secretary of the Communist Party.
On 1 January 1994 the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) entered into force, creating a trilateral free-trade bloc among Canada, Mexico and the United States with a combined population of more than 360 million.
The World Trade Organization came into being on 1 January 1995, established by the Marrakesh Agreement signed in April 1994 at the conclusion of the Uruguay Round, the eighth and most ambitious round of multilateral trade negotiations…
On 1 January 1999 the euro was launched as the single currency of an initial group of European Union member states, beginning life as an electronic and accounting currency used for bank transfers, financial markets and exchange-rate…
The Third Anglo-Burmese War (November 1885) completed the British conquest of Burma.