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HISTORY & TIMELINE
3 January

A journey through
3 January in history

The third day of the year has seen a Chinese lander touch down on the far side of the Moon, work begin under the East River on the Brooklyn Bridge, Nietzsche collapse in a Turin square and ten Caribbean colonies join in a short-lived federation. This timeline follows 3 January from the American Revolution to the twenty-first century.

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JUMP THROUGH TIME
III
A CHANGING WORLD

Early Modern Era

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

1521
Luther burns the papal bull that threatened him with excommunication, in a painting by Karl Aspelin, 1885.Luther burns the papal bull that threatened him with excommunication, in a painting by Karl Aspelin, 1885.Image: Karl Aspelin · Public domain
culture · Europe

The Pope excommunicates Martin Luther

In 1520 Pope Leo X gave Martin Luther sixty days to take back forty-one of his teachings or be cast out of the Church. Luther’s answer, in December, was to burn the papal bull in public at Wittenberg, together with books of Church law. On 3 January 1521 the Pope issued a new bull, Decet Romanum Pontificem, declaring Luther and his followers excommunicated. Months later, at the Diet of Worms, Luther again refused to recant and was declared an outlaw of the Empire. The break could no longer be mended, and the Protestant Reformation went its own way.

Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: Decet Romanum Pontificem ↗
1777
The Battle of Princeton, painted by James Peale about 1782.The Battle of Princeton, painted by James Peale about 1782.Image: James Peale · Public domain
world · Americas

Washington wins at Princeton

A week after crossing the Delaware to win at Trenton, George Washington slipped his army away by night from a larger British force and fell on the British garrison at Princeton, New Jersey, on 3 January 1777. General Hugh Mercer was mortally wounded, but Washington rallied the Americans in person and the British broke. The two victories revived the Revolution after a year of defeats.

Source: George Washington’s Mount Vernon: Battle of Princeton ↗
IV
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

The 1800s

Industry, empire, invention, reform and a century of enormous transformation.

1848
Joseph Jenkins Roberts, first president of Liberia, about 1851.Joseph Jenkins Roberts, first president of Liberia, about 1851.Image: not stated · Public domain
politics · Africa

Liberia swears in its first president

Liberia began in 1822 as a settlement on the West African coast for free Black Americans and formerly enslaved people, founded by the American Colonization Society. Joseph Jenkins Roberts, born free in Virginia, arrived in 1829 as a young trader and rose to become the colony’s governor. Liberia declared its independence in July 1847, and on 3 January 1848 Roberts was sworn in as the first president of the new republic. He won recognition from Britain and France and served until 1856, returning for a second spell in the 1870s. Power stayed with the settlers and their descendants for more than a century, often at the expense of the Indigenous peoples of the interior.

Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: Joseph Jenkins Roberts ↗
1868
The young Emperor Meiji, photographed by Uchida Kuichi in 1873.The young Emperor Meiji, photographed by Uchida Kuichi in 1873.Image: Uchida Kuichi · Public domain
politics · Asia

A palace coup restores the Japanese emperor

For more than 260 years real power in Japan had belonged to the Tokugawa shoguns, while the emperor lived in seclusion in Kyoto. By 1867 the shogunate had been badly weakened by unrest at home and by the Western powers that had forced Japan to open its ports. On 3 January 1868 troops from the domains of Satsuma and Choshu seized the gates of the imperial palace in Kyoto, and the court proclaimed that the fifteen-year-old Emperor Meiji would rule in his own name. The shogunate was abolished. After a short civil war, the young samurai who led the coup set about turning Japan into a modern industrial state.

Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: Meiji Restoration ↗
1870
A drawing of one of the great timber caissons used by Washington Roebling to build the Brooklyn Bridge, published in 1879.A drawing of one of the great timber caissons used by Washington Roebling to build the Brooklyn Bridge, published in 1879.Image: unknown artist/W. A. Roebling, engineer · Public domain
science · Americas

Work begins on the Brooklyn Bridge

Construction of the Brooklyn Bridge, then planned as the longest suspension bridge in the world, began on 3 January 1870 with work on the foundation of the Brooklyn tower. Its designer, John A. Roebling, had died after an accident the year before, and his son Washington took charge. The towers were raised on caissons, huge upturned wooden boxes sunk into the riverbed, inside which men dug in compressed air. Many fell ill with the bends, then called caisson disease, and Washington Roebling himself was left partly paralysed. His wife, Emily Warren Roebling, carried his instructions to the site until the bridge opened in 1883.

Source: American Society of Civil Engineers: Washington Augustus Roebling ↗
1889
Friedrich Nietzsche, photographed in the 1870s.Friedrich Nietzsche, photographed in the 1870s.Image: Friedrich Hermann Hartmann · Public domain
culture · Europe

Nietzsche collapses in Turin

Friedrich Nietzsche had spent 1888 in Turin writing at a furious pace. On the morning of 3 January 1889 he collapsed in the Piazza Carlo Alberto; the story told since is that he had just thrown his arms around the neck of a horse being whipped by its driver. He never recovered his mind. Cared for by his mother and then his sister, he lived another eleven years, unaware that the books few had read in his working life were making him one of the most influential thinkers of the modern age.

Source: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Nietzsche’s life and works ↗
V
THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

The 1900s

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

1958
A 1958 St Vincent stamp marking the West Indies Federation, with a map of its islands.A 1958 St Vincent stamp marking the West Indies Federation, with a map of its islands.Image: British Government · Public domain
politics · Americas

The West Indies Federation is born

On 3 January 1958 ten British colonies in the Caribbean, from Jamaica and Trinidad to Barbados and the smaller islands, were joined in the Federation of the West Indies, meant to lead them together to independence. Rivalries between the islands proved too strong: Jamaica voted to leave in 1961 and the federation was dissolved in 1962. Its members went on to independence one by one.

Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: West Indies Federation ↗
1959
Alaska's senators hold up a 49-star flag in front of the US Capitol, late 1958 or early 1959.Alaska’s senators hold up a 49-star flag in front of the US Capitol, late 1958 or early 1959.Image: E.L. Bob Bartlett (1904-1968) · Public domain
politics · Americas

Alaska becomes the 49th state

The United States bought Alaska from Russia in 1867, and for decades it was ruled as a distant territory. Alaskans campaigned for statehood for years, and in 1958 Congress passed the Alaska Statehood Act. On 3 January 1959 President Dwight Eisenhower signed the proclamation admitting Alaska as the 49th state. It is by far the largest state, more than twice the size of Texas, and it brought the United States its first territory in the Arctic. Hawaii followed as the 50th state that August.

Source: National Archives: Alaska statehood (educator resources) ↗
1976
The Palais Wilson in Geneva, home of the UN human rights office.The Palais Wilson in Geneva, home of the UN human rights office.Image: Likasia · CC BY-SA 3.0
politics · Global

A UN treaty on economic and social rights takes effect

The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1966, came into force on 3 January 1976, once 35 countries had ratified it. It commits the states that join to the rights to work, to fair pay, to social security, to education and to the highest attainable standard of health. With its twin covenant on civil and political rights, it forms the core of international human rights law.

Source: UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights: International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights ↗
VI
2000 TO TODAY

Modern Day

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

2019
China's Yutu-2 rover on the far side of the Moon, in an image processed from Chang'e 4 mission data.China’s Yutu-2 rover on the far side of the Moon, in an image processed from Chang’e 4 mission data.Image: CSNA/Siyu Zhang/Kevin M. Gill · CC BY 2.0
science · Asia

The first landing on the far side of the Moon

Because the Moon always keeps the same face towards us, its far side can never be seen from Earth, and no radio signal can reach it directly. China solved that problem by first placing a relay satellite, Queqiao, far beyond the Moon. On 3 January 2019 its Chang’e 4 lander touched down in the Von Karman crater, inside the vast South Pole-Aitken basin, the first spacecraft ever to land on the far side. Hours later it released the Yutu-2 rover, which went on to become the longest-lived rover on the Moon.

Source: China National Space Administration: Chang’e-4 probe makes historic landing on moon’s far side ↗
RESEARCH

Sources & Further Reading

Selected authoritative references supporting the events on this page.

WHY THESE MOMENTS?

Significance before volume

This page is not the longest possible list of events. It is a chronological journey through 3 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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