This Day in History: January 2nd

Here are the fifty historical events that took place on January 2nd, listed in ascending order:

1. 1492: Muhammad XII, the last Moorish King of Granada, surrenders his city to the Catholic Monarchs Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile, effectively ending the Reconquista.
2. 1496: Leonardo da Vinci unsuccessfully tests a flying machine.
3. 1583: The Netherlands adopted the Gregorian calendar.
4. 1622: Papal Chancery adopted January 1st as the beginning of the year.
5. 1651: Charles II was crowned king of Scotland.
6. 1673: Regular mail delivery began between New York and Boston.
7. 1700: Russia replaced the Zemsky Sobor with the Table of Ranks.
8. 1724: Tumult of Thorn: Religious unrest led to the execution of nine Protestant citizens and the mayor of Thorn (Toruń) by Polish authorities.
9. 1735: Paul Revere, American patriot and silversmith, was born.
10. 1745: Anthony Wayne, the American general and statesman, was born.
11. 1752: The British Empire and its American colonies adopted the Gregorian calendar, skipping 11 days.
12. 1757: France and Austria signed a treaty of alliance against Great Britain.
13. 1781: Fourth Anglo-Dutch War: Great Britain declared war on the Dutch Republic.
14. 1788: Georgia becomes the fourth state to ratify the United States Constitution.
15. 1791: Big Bottom massacre in Ohio, marking the first battle of the Northwest Indian War.
16. 1795: The Treaty of Basel was signed between France and Prussia, ending the War of the First Coalition.
17. 1797: Albany became the capital of New York state.
18. 1799: Income tax was introduced in the United Kingdom.
19. 1800: John Adams delivers his Midnight Appointments, announcing a list of midnight appointments to 58 federal judgeships, disrupting Thomas Jefferson’s plans to reshape the judiciary.
20. 1801: The legislative union of the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Ireland was completed to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
21. 1806: William Pitt the Younger resigns as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
22. 1818: The British Institution of Civil Engineers is founded.
23. 1818: Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus” is published anonymously in London.
24. 1820: The first physical fitness book, “Medical Gymnastics,” is published by Pehr Henrik Ling in Stockholm, Sweden.
25. 1822: The Greek Constitution of 1822 was adopted by the First National Assembly at Epidaurus.
26. 1832: John C. Calhoun becomes the first Vice President of the United States to resign, stepping down over political differences with President Andrew Jackson.
27. 1839: The first photo of the Moon is taken by French photographer Louis Daguerre.
28. 1842: United States Navy officer and explorer Charles Wilkes discovers the Shackleton Ice Shelf in Antarctica.
29. 1843: Joseph Jenkins Roberts is sworn in as the first President of Liberia.
30. 1845: Texas was admitted as the 28th U.S. state.
31. 1846: Iowa was admitted as the 29th U.S. state.
32. 1847: The world’s first “modern” indoor public swimming pool opened in London.
33. 1848: Arthur St. Clair, American general and politician, died.
34. 1851: The American chess magazine “Chess Monthly” began publication.
35. 1860: The discovery of the planet Vulcan is announced at a meeting of the French Academy of Sciences in Paris.
36. 1863: The Emancipation Proclamation, issued by President Abraham Lincoln during the American Civil War, came into effect.
37. 1865: General William T. Sherman issues Special Field Order No. 15, outlining the redistribution of confiscated land to freedmen in the South.
38. 1865: James Clerk Maxwell presents his paper “A Dynamical Theory of the Electromagnetic Field” to the Royal Society in London, leading to the development of Maxwell’s equations.
39. 1873: Japan adopted the Gregorian calendar.
40. 1874: Gustave Whitehead, German-American aviation pioneer, was born.
41. 1879: E. M. Forster, English author, was born.
42. 1880: Ferdinand de Lesseps began French construction of the Panama Canal.
43. 1881: The world’s first electric tramway started in Lichterfelder, near Berlin, Germany.
44. 1882: John D. Rockefeller unifies his various businesses into the Standard Oil conglomerate.
45. 1885: General William T. Sherman retires from the U.S. Army.
46. 1892: Ellis Island in New York Harbor opened as a U.S. immigration depot.
47. 1895: J. Edgar Hoover, first Director of the FBI, was born.
48. 1898: New York City annexed the Bronx.
49. 1900: Xavier Cugat, Spanish-American bandleader, was born.
50. 1905: Russo-Japanese War: The Russian garrison surrenders at Port Arthur,

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