Events, Births and Deaths Happening on this Date
Saturday, January 10, 2026
Today is the 10th day of 2026. There are 355 days left in this year.
Notable Events
1776
English political writer Thomas Paine publishes Common Sense. It denounces monarchy and proclaims that "the cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind."
1861
Florida Convention delegates in Tallahassee vote to secede from the Union.
1863
London's Metropolitan, the world's first underground passenger railway, opened to the public.
1870
John D. Rockefeller incorporated Standard Oil.
1901
The Texas oil boom started in Beaumont.
1920
The League of Nations was established as the Covenant of the League of Nations/Treaty of Versailles went into effect and had its first meeting in Geneva.
1922
Arthur Griffith, the founder of Sinn Féin and one of the architects of the 1921 peace treaty with Britain, was elected president of the newly established Irish Free State.
1923
Four years after the end of World War I, President Warren G. Harding ordered U.S. occupation troops stationed in Germany to return home.
1928
The Soviet Union ordered the exile of Leon Trotsky.
1946
The first General Assembly of the United Nations convened at Westminster Central Hall in London.
1947
The musical fantasy ''Finian's Rainbow,'' with music by Burton Lane and lyrics by E.Y. Harburg, opened on Broadway.
1949
Vinyl records were launched by RCA (45 rpm) and Columbia (33.3 rpm).
1954
Thirty-five people are missing, feared dead, after a BOAC Comet jet airliner crashes into the Mediterranean.
1957
Harold Macmillan became prime minister of Britain, following the resignation of Anthony Eden.
1960
Marty Robbins holds the record for the longest playing number-one song in history, "El Paso," at five minutes, 19 seconds.
1967
Edward W. Brooke, R-Mass., the first black elected to the U.S. Senate by popular vote, took his seat.
1971
"Masterpiece Theatre" premiered on PBS with host Alistair Cooke introducing a drama series, "The First Churchills."
1978
The Soviet Union launched two cosmonauts aboard a Soyuz capsule for a rendezvous with the Salyut VI space laboratory.
1984
The United States and the Vatican established full diplomatic relations for the first time in more than a century.
1990
Chinese Premier Li Peng lifted Beijing's 7-month-old martial law and said that by crushing pro-democracy protests the army had saved China from ''the abyss of misery.''
1994
In Manassas, Va., Lorena Bobbitt went on trial, charged with malicious wounding of her husband, John. She was acquitted by reason of temporary insanity.
1996
King Hussein of Jordan makes his first public visit to Israel's largest city as relations between the two countries warm.
2000
America Online agreed to buy Time-Warner for $162 billion, making it the largest-ever corporate merger.
2001
American Airlines agreed to buy Trans World Airlines and, in a separate transaction, revealed plans to acquire 20% of US Airways.
Notable Births
1864
George Washington Carver, American chemist, agronomist.
1904
Ray Bolger, actor.
1938
Willie (Lee) McCovey, professional baseball player.
1939
Sal Mineo, actor.
Notable Deaths
1917
William "Buffalo Bill" Cody, American army scout and showman, dies at age 70.
1971
Coco (Gabrielle) Chanel, French fashion designer.
2025
Legendary soul singer Sam Moore died from complications while recovering from a surgery. Moore was best known as one-half of the R&B group Sam & Dave.