Historical Events on January 10

  • 1806: In the colony of Cape Town in South Africa, the Dutch settlers surrender to British forces.
  • 1861: Florida becomes the third U.S state to secede from the Union as the American Civil War looms ever closer.
  • 1870: Standard Oil is incorporated by industrialist John D. Rockefeller.
  • 1901: An oil gusher is discovered in Beaumont, Texas. This gusher, which is located at Spindletop is one of the first Texas oil gushers to be uncorked.
  • 1920: World War I officially comes to a close as the Treaty of Versailles goes into effect.
  • 1927: The movie Metropolis by Fritz Lang is released in theaters in Germany.
  • 1941: During WWII, the city of Kleisoura is captured by Greek military forces.
  • 1946: In London, England, the first General Assembly of the U.N begins. At this general assembly, 51 nations are present.
  • 1946: The U.S Army Signal Corps conduct Project Diana. This project bounces radio waves off of the moon and then receives the reflected signals back again. It is an unmitigated success.
  • 1962: NASA announces plans for the Saturn V Moon Rocket.
  • 1990: The company Time Warner comes into existence on this day. It’s a merger between Time Inc. and Warner Communications.
  • 2012: Thirty people are killed and another seventy-eight are wounded during a bombing in Khyber Agency, Pakistan.
  • 2015: At a funeral in Mozambique, fifty-six people were killed and another two hundred were hospitalized when beer spiked with either crocodile bile or the poisonous plant foxglove was injected by people attending the funeral.

Famous Birthdays on January 10

  • American Revolutionary War patriot, Ethan Allen is born in 1738.
  • German explorer and physician, Martin Lichtenstein is born in 1780.
  • American soldier and criminal, Frank James is born in 1843.
  • American engineer and inventor, Gordon Kidd Teal is born in 1907.
  • American author Cynthia Freeman is born in 1915.
  • Swedish biochemist and Nobel Prize laureate, Sune Bergström is born in 1916.
  • American painter Eldzier Cortor is born in 1916.
  • American singer-songwriter Jim Croce is born in 1943.
  • German anatomist and inventor of plastination, Gunther von Hagens is born in 1945.
  • English singer-songwriter Rod Stewart is born in 1945.
  • American author George Alec Effinger is born in 1947.