On this date...

In 1752, Great Britain (excluding Scotland) and its colonies, move New Year to January 1. Previously the British have observed the New Year on March 25. Scotland had changed to January 1 in 1600.

In 1776, The Burning of Norfolk was an incident during the American War of Independence. British Royal Navy ships in the harbor of Norfolk, Virginia began shelling the town, and landing parties came ashore to burn specific properties.

In 1776, In his first General Orders of the new year, Washington insists that without order and discipline the army is only a “commission’d mob,” and demands orderly books, accurate returns, and a strict chain of command. He pardons past offences, releasing all but prisoners of war.

In 1780, American patriots conduct a continuing guerrilla campaign against the British in the territory surrounding Augusta, Georgia.

In 1780, The mutiny of the Massachusetts line at West Point, New York occured.

In 1781, 1,500 soldiers from the Pennsylvania Line—all 11 regiments under General Anthony Wayne’s command—insist that their three-year enlistments are expired, kill three officers in a drunken rage and abandon the Continental Army’s winter camp at Morristown, New Jersey.

In 1782, The supporters of the British cause, the Loyalists, begin to leave the US, mainly for Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.

In 1808, The United States made the slave trade illegal as the Act Prohibiting the Importation of Slaves went into effect, although slavery persisted in the country. Signed by Thomas Jefferson who advocated for it even though he remained a slaveholder until the end of his life.

In 1815, At New Orleans, British commander Sir Edward Pakenham leads an attack against the US fortifications around the city. Under General Andrew Jackson, the US Artillery proves superior, and the British are forced to withdraw in order to await reinforcements.

In 1831, William Lloyd Garrison publishes the first issue of the abolitionist newspaper "The Liberator" in Boston; publication continues until the 13th Amendment abolishes slavery in 1865

In 1835, President Andrew Jackson achieves his goal of entirely paying off the United States’ national debt. It was the only time in U.S. history that the national debt stood at zero, and it precipitated one of the worst financial crises in American history.

In 1854, Presbyterian minister John Miller Dickey and his wife, Sarah Emlen Cresson, found Ashmun Institute, a historically Black college later known as Lincoln University, in Hinsonville, Pennsylvania

In 1862, U.S.S. Yankee, Lieutenant Eastman, and U.S.S. Anacostia, Lieutenant Oscar C. Badger, exchanged fire with Confederate batteries at Cockpit Point, Potomac River; Yankee was damaged slightly.

In 1863, The Emancipation Proclamation, which freed enslaved people in the Confederacy (the states in rebellion against the Union during the American Civil War), was issued by U.S. President Abraham Lincoln.

In 1863, A farmer named Daniel Freeman submits the first claim under the new Homestead Act for a property near Beatrice, Nebraska.

In 1892, Annie Moore, a teenage girl from Ireland, becomes the very first immigrant to be processed on America’s Ellis Island.

In 1898, New York City was consolidated into five boroughs.

In 1902, The first college football bowl game was held as the University of Michigan defeated Stanford in what became known as the Rose Bowl; however, the game did not become an annual event until 1916.

In 1903, President Theodore Roosevelt and Edith Roosevelt unveil new renovations to The White House, including a new West Wing.

In 1915, audiences file into the Loring Opera House at 3745 7th Street in Riverside, California, for a sneak preview of D.W. Griffith’s first full-length feature film, The Clansman. Later renamed The Birth of a Nation, the controversial Civil War epic would become Hollywood’s first blockbuster hit.

In 1920, Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer and his assistant J. Edgar Hoover, begin prosecution of what he perceives as a “Red Menace.” Without warrants Palmer authorizes raids on private homes and labor headquarters across the country, targeting in particular the members and offices of the International Workers of the World (IWW) known as “wobblies.”

In 1923, white vigilante mobs begin their descent upon the predominantly Black community of Rosewood, Florida. In an attack that would last several days, they shoot and beat Black residents, set buildings aflame and raze the small, but prosperous mill town that was home to approximately 200 people.

In 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill issue a declaration, signed by representatives of 26 countries, called the “United Nations.” The signatories of the declaration vowed to create an international postwar peacekeeping organization.

In 1979, The United States and China established diplomatic relations.

In, 1980, under the headline “Sherry Lansing, Former Model, Named Head of Fox Productions,” The New York Times announces the first woman to head production at a major movie studio. Selected to lead the production department at 20th Century Fox, Lansing signing a three-year contract at a minimum of $300,000 per year (plus the possibility of hefty bonuses based on box-office returns).

In 1980, Comic strip "The Far Side" by Gary Larson debuts in the San Francisco Chronicle.

In 1984, AT&T was divested of its 22 Bell System companies under terms of an antitrust agreement.

In 1990, David Dinkins was sworn in as New York City's first African-American mayor.

In 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.

In 2009, The United States handed control of the Green Zone and Saddam Hussein’s presidential palace to the Iraqi government in a ceremonial move described by the country’s prime minister as a restoration of Iraq’s sovereignty.