On This Day: Czech Republic, Slovakia split

Jan. 1 (UPI) — On this date in history:

In 45 B.C., New Year’s Day was celebrated on Jan. 1 for the first time as the Julian calendar took effect.

In 1801, Ceres, classified as a dwarf planet, was discovered by Giuseppe Piazzi.

In 1803, two months after his defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte’s colonial forces, Jean-Jacques Dessalines proclaimed the independence of Saint-Domingue, renaming it Haiti after its original Arawak name.

In 1863, the Emancipation Proclamation, introduced the previous September by Abraham Lincoln, took effect. It declared freedom for slaves in all areas of the Confederacy that were still in rebellion against the Union.

In 1890, the first Tournament of Roses parade took place in Pasadena, Calif.

In 1892, Ellis Island opened in New York Harbor.

In 1902, the University of Michigan beat Stanford, 49-0, in the inaugural Rose Bowl game in Pasadena, Calif.

In 1951, the Zenith Radio Corp. of Chicago demonstrated the first pay-per-view television system, offering three movies, April Showers, Welcome Stranger and Homecoming.

In 1959, Fidel Castro declared victory in the Cuban revolution as dictator Fulgencio Batista fled the island.

In 1975, a jury convicted former U.S. Attorney General John Mitchell and former White House aides John Ehrlichman and H.R. Haldeman on all counts in the Watergate coverup case.

In 1978, an Air India Boeing 747 carrying 213 people on a flight to Dubai disintegrated in the air shortly after takeoff from a Bombay airport, killing all aboard.

In 1993, the country of Czechoslovakia dissolved with the New Year, replaced by separate Czech Republic and Slovak states. The split was the result of the Velvet Revolution in late 1989.

In 1994, the North American Free Trade Agreement between Canada, Mexico and the United States, took effect. Former President H.W. Bush signed the NAFTA agreement in 1992 before he left office.

In 1999, 12 European countries turned in their own currency and adopted a common one, the euro. It was the biggest currency change in history.

File Photo by David Silpa/UPI

In 2009, police said a fire killed at least 52 people and injured about 100 at the two-story Santika Club in Bangkok. The fire erupted shortly after approximately 1,000 revelers rang in the New Year.

In 2010, a suicide bomber killed nearly 90 people, including children, during a New Year’s Day volleyball game in Lakki Marwat in northhwest Pakistan.

In 2014, Colorado became the first state where specialty shops began legally selling small amounts of recreational marijuana.

In 2017, Portugal’s Antonio Guterres succeeded Ban Ki-moon of South Korea as secretary-general of the United Nations.

In 2022, South Africa held a state funeral for Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu in Cape Town.

File Photo by Nic Bothma/EPA-EFE

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