On this Day in History, January 1
Today’s Feature - Ellis Island
1892 - Ellis Island opened as a U.S. Immigration inspection station (research pending for a Special Report)
The 2025 This Day in Science 365 Day Calendar
2016 - 3D printing creates superstrong ceramics
HRL Laboratories announced the invention of a 3D printing process that creates a revolutionary ceramic resistant to heat up to 1700°C (3092°F) and ten times stronger than any previously in existence. Ceramics have replaced traditional metals, becoming essential in rocket engines, microelectromechanical systems, and more, and this new formula offers next-generation durability.
The 2025 History Channel Military History 365 Day Calendar
1946 - U.S. Coast Guard operates under the U.S. Department of the Treasury
On January 1, 1946, Executive Order 9666 signed by President Harry S. Truman-went into effect, dictating that the U.S. Coast Guard would operate under the U.S. Department of the Treasury after previously being under the wartime direction of the secretary of the U.S. Navy.
The U.S. Coast Guard was officially created in January 1915 under the direction of U.S. president Woodrow Wilson, and at its origination, military oversight was assigned to the Treasury.
However, the U.S. government temporarily shifted governance to the U.S. Navy during World War I and World War II.
Just over twenty years later in 1967, the U.S. Department of Transportation was granted ownership of the branch. In 2003, with the consolidation of much of the American government's border monitoring apparatus, the U.S. Coast Guard was placed under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
Click here to see an archived timeline (Archive.org pdf link) of the US Coast Guard.
The 2025 History Channel 365 Day Calendar
1980 - Princess Victoria becomes heiress apparent of Sweden
On January 1, 1980, Victoria Ingrid Alice Desiree became heiress apparent to the Swedish throne.
Sweden's Act of Succession became law on January 1, which meant succession to the throne changed to absolute primogeniture, or to the eldest child of the current monarch regardless of gender.
Sweden had enacted another Act of Succession in 1810, which stipulated only male descendants could inherit the throne and its duties.
According to Wikipedia:
The actual contents of the Act, save the solemn preamble, has been thoroughly rewritten over the years: the most notable change occurred in 1980 when the core principle of agnatic primogeniture (male succession only) was changed in favor of absolute primogeniture (eldest child regardless of sex).
Princess Victoria had a younger brother (Prince Carl Philip, Duke of Värmland), born in May 1979, who had been crowned prince immediately upon his birth. However, the 1979 Act of Succession removed him as first in line and replaced him with Victoria.
Since the act's passage, two other princesses-Catharina-Amalia of the Netherlands and Elisabeth of Belgium—have become the first in line for their monarchies.
In her role as heir apparent to Sweden's throne, Princess Victoria has made great efforts to prepare herself to lead her country, including extensive traditional educational pursuits, experience serving within the United Nations, training within the official Swedish government, and basic military training.
Encyclopedia Britannica
Featured Event
2002 - The Euro goes live in Europe
Other Events
1863 - Abraham Lincoln releases The Emancipation Proclamation
1902 - The first Rose Bowl is played, though it’s not initially called that. The bowl was not played on a yearly basis until 1916. The stadium of the same name wasn’t built until 1922.
1959 - Dictator Fulgencio Batista fled Cuba after his regime was toppled by rebel forces led by Fidel Castro. (Part of this event was depicted in the film The Godfather Part II)
1994 - The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) went into effect, eliminating most tariffs and other trade barriers on products and services passing between the United States, Canada, and Mexico.
1995 - The World Trade Organization was formally established.
2011 - The Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN) debuted on television.
2025 - Today marks the release of a new batch of copyrighted material into the public domain. Some of the works shedding their copyright include cartoon characters Popeye and Tintin, the first feature film from the Marx Brothers, and the first “talkies” directed by Alfred Hitchcock, John Ford, Cecil B. DeMille, and King Vidor. In the literary world, highlights include Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms, Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon, and Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own.
Born on This Day
1449 - Lorenzo de' Medici
1484 - Huldrych Zwingli
1735 - Paul Revere
1752 - Betsy Ross
1883 - Bill Donovan
1895 - J. Edgar Hoover
1909 - Barry Goldwater
1912 - Kim Philby
1919 - J.D. Salinger
1953 - Garry Johnson
1954 - Bob Menendez
Died on This Day
1515 - Louis XII
1894 - Heinrich Hertz (from which we get our word meaning cycles per second)
1953 - Hank Williams
1992 - Grace Hopper
45 BC - The Julian calendar takes effect as the civil calendar of the Roman Republic, establishing January 1 as the new date of the new year.
1776 - General George Washington hoists the first United States flag, the Grand Union Flag, at Prospect Hill. (The Declaration of Independence is not signed by John Hancock until July of that year)
1808 - Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves takes effect, even though slavery is still the law of the land
1898 - New York, New York annexes land from surrounding counties, creating the City of Greater New York. The four initial boroughs, Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and The Bronx, are joined on January 25 by Staten Island to create the modern city of five boroughs.
1899 - Spanish rule ends in Cuba.
1928 - Boris Bazhanov defects through Iran to seek asylum in France. He is the only member of Joseph Stalin's secretariat to have defected from the Soviet Union.
1961 - Alastair Denniston dies. (Curiously, he does not have his own entry in Encyclopedia Britannica)
The Book of This Day in History
1772 - The first traveler's checks go on sale in London.
The London Credit Exchange Company became the first business to offer traveler's checks, which were secured against loss or theft. The checks could be used in 90 European cities.
1908 - Revelers watch the ball drop at midnight in New York City's Times Square for the first time.
The ball was dropped above the roof of the New York Times building at 1 Times Square. It had one hundred incandescent light bulbs, weighed seven hundred pounds, and was five feet in diameter.
A few years ago, I used an obscure fact about the dropping of the ball for the 1988 New Years: the drop that year took 61 seconds instead of 60 because of leap second. And, according to Wikipedia, there was “a special one-second light show at 12:00:01 a.m”.
1983 - The Internet is created.
The Advanced Research Projects Agency Network, ARPANET, officially changed to using the Internet Protocol (IP) suite to transmit information, making ARPANET an early component of the new Internet.
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