ON THIS DAY

1600 The British East India Company is chartered.

1759 Arthur Guinness signs a 9 000year lease at £45 per annum and starts brewing Guinness.

1775 American Revolutionary War: British forces repulse an attack by Continental Army General Richard Montgomery during Battle of Quebec.

1790 Efimeris, the oldest Greek newspaper of which issues have survived till today, is published for the first time. 1862 American Civil War: Abraham Lincoln signs an act that admits West Virginia to the Union, thus dividing Virginia in two.

1878 Karl Benz, working in Mannheim, Germany, filed for a patent on his first reliable two-stroke gas engine, and he was granted the patent in 1879.

1879 Thomas Edison demonstrates incandescent lighting to the public for the first time, in Menlo Park, New Jersey. 1907 The first New Year’s Eve celebration is held in Times Square (then known as Longacre Square) in Manhattan.

1944 World War II: Hungary declares war on Nazi Germany.

1951 Cold War: The Marshall Plan expires after distributing more than $13.3 billion in foreign aid to rebuild Western Europe. 1955 General Motors becomes the first US corporation to make more than $1 billion in a year.

1963 The Central African Federation officially collapses, subsequently becoming Zambia, Malawi and Rhodesia. 1965 Jean-Bédel Bokassa, leader of the Central African Republic army, and his military officers begins a coup d’état against the government of President David Dacko.

1968 The first flight of the Tupolev Tu-144, the first civilian supersonic transport in the world.

1983 In Nigeria, a coup d’état led by Major-General Muhammadu Buhari ends the Second Nigerian Republic.

1986 Arson at the Dupont Plaza Hotel in San Juan, Puerto Rico, kills 97 people and injures 140.

1991 All official Soviet Union institutions have ceased operations by this date five days after the Soviet Union is officially dissolved.

1999 The first president of Russia, Boris Yeltsin, resigns from office, leaving Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as the acting president and successor.

2009 Both a blue moon and a lunar eclipse occur.