Today, January 3

1521 – Pope Leo X excommunicates Martin Luther in the papal bull Decet Romanum Pontificem.

1749 – New Hampshire Colonial Governor Benning Wentworth issues the first of the New Hampshire Grants, leading to the establishment of Vermont.

1777 – The Colonial Army under General Washington defeats General Cornwallis’ rearguard under Colonel Charles Mawhood at the Battle of Princeton, New Jersey

1861 – Delaware votes not to secede from the United States

1870 – Construction work begins on the Brooklyn Bridge

1947 – Proceedings of Congress are televised for the first time.

1957 – The Hamilton Watch Company introduces the first electric watch.

1959 – Alaska enters the Union as the 49th state

1961 – The SL-1 nuclear reactor at the National Reactor Testing Station,   west of Idaho Falls, Idaho, is destroyed by a steam explosion, killing all 3 of the operating technicians on duty, the only reactor incident in the U.S. to cause immediate fatalities.

1990 – Under siege in his estancia in Panama City, Manuel Noriega, former leader of Panama, surrenders to American forces

1992 – CommutAir Flight 4281, a Beechcraft 1900,  crashes on approach to Adirondack Regional Airport, in Saranac Lake, New York, killing 1 passenger and the co-pilot of the 4 people aboard.

1993 – In Moscow, President Bush and Boris Yeltsin sign the second Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty

1999 – The Mars Polar Lander is launched by NASA.

2009 – The first block of Bitcoin is established by the creator of the system, Satoshi Nakamoto.

2020 – Iranian General Qasem Soleimani is killed by an American airstrike near Baghdad International Airport