1930 - In New York, construction began on the Empire State Building. Excavation at the site began on January 22. 

1941 - The National Gallery of Art was officially opened by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt in Washington, DC. 

1942 - Douglas MacArthur became the Supreme Commander of the Allied forces in the Southwestern Pacific. 

1944 - During World War II, the U.S. bombed Vienna. 

1950 - Scientists at the University of California at Berkeley announced that they had created a new radioactive element. They named it “californium”. It is also known as element 98. 

1958 - The Vanguard 1 satellite was launched by the U.S. 

1959 - The Dalai Lama (Lhama Dhondrub, Tenzin Gyatso) fled Tibet and went to India. 

1961 - The U.S. increased military aid and technicians to Laos. 

1962 - Moscow asked the U.S. to pull out of South Vietnam. 

1966 - A U.S. submarine found a missing H-bomb in the Mediterranean off of Spain. 

1967 - Snoopy and Charlie Brown of “Peanuts” were on the cover of “LIFE” magazine. 

1969 - Golda Meir was sworn in as the fourth premier of Israel. 

1970 - The U.S. Army charged 14 officers with suppression of facts in the My Lai massacre case. 

1972 - U.S. President Nixon asked Congress to halt busing in order to achieve desegregation. 

1973 - Twenty were killed in Cambodia when a bomb went off that was meant for the Cambodian President Lon Nol. 

1973 - The first American prisoners of war (POWs) were released from the “Hanoi Hilton” in Hanoi, North Vietnam. 

1982 - In El Salvador, four Dutch television crewmembers were killed by government troops. 

1985 - U.S. President Reagan agreed to a joint study with Canada on acid rain. 

1989 - A series of solar flares caused a violent magnetic storm that brought power outages over large regions of Canada. 

1992 - In Buenos Aires, 10 people were killed in a suicide car-bomb attack against the Israeli embassy. 

1992 - White South Africans approved constitutional reforms to give legal equality to blacks. 

1995 - Gerry Adams became the first leader of Sinn Fein to be received at the White House. 

1998 - Washington Mutual announced it had agreed to buy H.F. Ahmanson and Co. for $9.9 billion dollars. The deal created the nation’s seventh-largest banking company. 

1999 - A panel of medical experts concluded that marijuana had medical benefits for people suffering from cancer and AIDS.