02 January History
- 1492 - Catholic forces under King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella take the town of Granada, the last Muslim kingdom in Spain.
- 1758 - The French begin bombardment of Madras, India.
- 1839 - Photography pioneer Louis Daguerre takes the first photograph of the moon.
- 1861 - The USS Brooklyn is readied at Norfolk to aid Fort Sumter.
- 1863 - In the second day of hard fighting at Stone's River, near Murfreesboro, Tenn., Union troops defeat the Confederates.
- 1903 - President Theodore Roosevelt closes a post office in Indianola, Mississippi, for refusing to hire a Black postmistress.
- 1904 - U.S. Marines are sent to Santo Domingo to aid the government against rebel forces.
- 1905 - After a six-month siege, Russians surrender Port Arthur to the Japanese.
- 1918 - Russian Bolsheviks threaten to re-enter the war unless Germany returns occupied territory.
- 1932 - Japanese forces in Manchuria set up a puppet government known as Manchukuo.
- 1936 - In Berlin, Nazi officials claim that their treatment of Jews is not the business of the League of Nations.
- 1942 - In the Philippines, the city of Manila and the U.S. Naval base at Cavite fall to Japanese forces.
- 1943 - The Allies capture Buna in New Guinea.
- 1963 - In Vietnam, the Viet Cong down five U.S. helicopters in the Mekong Delta. 30 Americans are reported dead.
- 1966 - American G.I.s move into the Mekong Delta for the first time.
- 1973 - The United States admits the accidental bombing of a Hanoi hospital.
- 1980 - President Jimmy Carter asks the U.S. Senate to delay the arms treaty ratification in response to Soviet action in Afghanistan.
02 January Birthdays
- 1861 - Helen Herron Taft, First Lady to President William Howard Taft.
- 1866 - Gilbert Murray, Australian-born scholar, chairman of the League of Nations, (1923-1928).
- 1920 - Isaac Asimov, American writer of over 300 books including Foundation and I, Robot.