HISTORY & TIMELINE
15 January

A journey through
15 January in history

The fifteenth day of the year has seen Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht murdered in Berlin, the first Super Bowl played in Los Angeles, an online encyclopedia that anyone could edit go live and an airliner come down safely on the Hudson River. This timeline follows 15 January from the sixteenth century to the twenty-first.

JUMP THROUGH TIME
III
A CHANGING WORLD

Early Modern Era

Exploration, political change, scientific development and expanding global connections.

1559
Elizabeth I in her coronation robes, patterned with Tudor roses and trimmed with ermine; painted about 1600-10 after a lost original of about 1559.Elizabeth I in her coronation robes, patterned with Tudor roses and trimmed with ermine; painted about 1600-10 after a lost original of about 1559.Image: Unknown authorUnknown author · Public domain
politics · Europe

Elizabeth I is crowned in Westminster Abbey

Elizabeth, daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, came to the throne in November 1558 on the death of her Catholic half-sister, Mary I. The country was divided over religion, and many Catholics doubted her right to rule. After a grand procession through the City of London the day before, she was crowned in Westminster Abbey on 15 January 1559, a date said to have been chosen by her astrologer, John Dee. The Archbishop of Canterbury’s post was vacant, so the Bishop of Carlisle crowned her, in a service partly in Latin and partly in English. She reigned for 44 years, and it was the last coronation in the Abbey to follow the Catholic rite.

Source: Westminster Abbey: Elizabeth I ↗
1759
Montagu House in Bloomsbury, the British Museum's first home, in a drawing by Sutton Nicholls published in 1754.Montagu House in Bloomsbury, the British Museum’s first home, in a drawing by Sutton Nicholls published in 1754.Image: Unknown · Public domain
culture · Europe

The British Museum opens to the public

When the physician and collector Sir Hans Sloane died in 1753, he left his collection of more than 70,000 objects, books and specimens to the nation in return for a payment to his heirs. Parliament set up the British Museum to hold it, together with two great libraries, and bought Montagu House in Bloomsbury as its home. The museum opened on 15 January 1759. It was free to ‘all studious and curious persons’, though at first visitors had to apply for tickets and were shown round in small groups. It was one of the first national museums open to the public anywhere, and it now welcomes millions of visitors a year on the same site, in the buildings that replaced Montagu House.

Source: British Museum: Montagu House, the first British Museum ↗
V
THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

The 1900s

War and peace, technological leaps, social change, politics, sport and popular culture.

1919
Rosa Luxemburg, photographed about 1911.Rosa Luxemburg, photographed about 1911.Image: Unknown authorUnknown author · Public domain
politics · Europe

Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht are murdered

Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, founders of the German Communist Party, backed the Spartacist uprising in Berlin in January 1919. After it was crushed, Freikorps paramilitaries captured them on 15 January 1919 and killed them the same night; Luxemburg’s body was thrown into the Landwehr Canal. The killers were barely punished.

Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: Rosa Luxemburg ↗
1934
The old Raj palace at Darbhanga in Bihar, damaged by the earthquake of 1934.The old Raj palace at Darbhanga in Bihar, damaged by the earthquake of 1934.Image: P. C. Roy Chaudhury · CC BY-SA 4.0
world · Asia

A great earthquake strikes Nepal and Bihar

A little after two in the afternoon local time on 15 January 1934, an earthquake of about magnitude 8 struck eastern Nepal and the plains of Bihar in northern India. The ground shook violently across a vast area, and in the soft soils of the plains it turned to liquid, swallowing buildings and fields. About 10,600 people died, around two-thirds of them in India. Towns such as Monghyr and Darbhanga in Bihar were badly damaged, and in the Kathmandu Valley many old temples and houses fell. It remained the worst natural disaster in Nepal’s recorded history until the earthquake of 2015.

Source: US Geological Survey: M 8.0, 1934 Bihar-Nepal earthquake ↗
1967
The Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, where the first Super Bowl was played, seen from the air in 2025.The Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, where the first Super Bowl was played, seen from the air in 2025.Image: Quintin Soloviev · CC BY 4.0
sport · Americas

The first Super Bowl is played

In the 1960s American professional football had two rival leagues, the National Football League and the newer American Football League. In 1966 they agreed to merge, and to have their champions meet in a single game at the end of the season. The first AFL-NFL World Championship Game, later called Super Bowl I, was played at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum on 15 January 1967. Vince Lombardi’s Green Bay Packers beat the Kansas City Chiefs 35-10 in front of about 63,000 spectators, with millions more watching on two television networks. The Super Bowl has since become the biggest annual sporting event in the United States.

Source: Pro Football Hall of Fame: 1967 ↗
1970
General Yakubu Gowon, head of Nigeria's federal military government during the civil war.General Yakubu Gowon, head of Nigeria’s federal military government during the civil war.Image: Unknown authorUnknown author · Public domain
world · Africa

Biafra surrenders and Nigeria’s civil war ends

In 1967 Nigeria’s Eastern Region, home of most of the Igbo people, broke away as the Republic of Biafra under Colonel Odumegwu Ojukwu. Federal forces blockaded it, and the war and the famine it caused killed hundreds of thousands of people, perhaps more than a million, most of them civilians. By January 1970 Biafra had collapsed. Ojukwu fled abroad, and on 15 January 1970 his deputy, Major General Philip Effiong, formally surrendered to the federal head of state, General Yakubu Gowon, in Lagos. Gowon declared there was ‘no victor, no vanquished’ and set out to reconcile the country, though the scars of the war lasted for decades.

Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: Nigerian civil war ↗
VI
2000 TO TODAY

Modern Day

The events of recent decades that have already become part of the historical record.

2001
Jimmy Wales, co-founder of Wikipedia, at the Edinburgh International Book Festival in 2026.Jimmy Wales, co-founder of Wikipedia, at the Edinburgh International Book Festival in 2026.Image: PhilipRomano · CC BY-SA 4.0
science · Global

Wikipedia goes online

In 2000 the internet entrepreneur Jimmy Wales and the philosopher Larry Sanger started Nupedia, a free online encyclopedia written by experts, but its careful review process meant very few articles were finished. They decided to try a ‘wiki’, a website that any visitor could edit. Wikipedia went online on 15 January 2001. Written and corrected by volunteers, it grew far faster than anyone expected, spread to hundreds of languages and became one of the most visited websites in the world. It is run by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation and has no advertising.

Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: Larry Sanger ↗
2009
US Airways Flight 1549 in the Hudson River on 15 January 2009, with passengers standing on the wings.US Airways Flight 1549 in the Hudson River on 15 January 2009, with passengers standing on the wings.Image: Greg L · CC BY 2.0
science · Americas

An airliner lands safely on the Hudson River

Minutes after take-off from LaGuardia Airport in New York on 15 January 2009, US Airways Flight 1549 flew into a flock of Canada geese and lost power in both engines. Captain Chesley Sullenberger and First Officer Jeffrey Skiles brought the Airbus A320 down on the Hudson River, and ferries and rescue boats took off all 155 people aboard.

Source: National Transportation Safety Board: accident report, US Airways Flight 1549 ↗
WHY THESE MOMENTS?

Significance before volume

This page is not the longest possible list of events. It is a chronological journey through 15 January, where each entry is chosen for historical significance, human interest and reliability.

Facts are checked against authoritative museums, archives, universities and reference works. Where sources disagree, the page says so.

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