On This Day

What Happened on January 1 in History

8 events that happened on January 1, oldest first. Every entry is written in our own words and links to its source.

The Young Republic and the Civil War Era

1804
Jean-Jacques Dessalines proclaimed the independence of Haiti, ending French rule in Saint-Domingue.
The declaration came after formerly enslaved people defeated the colonial forces sent by Napoleon Bonaparte. Dessalines gave the new nation the name Haiti, drawn from the island's original Indigenous name.
Source: history.com
1818
Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus was published.
Shelley, then 20, began the story during a rainy stay near Geneva in 1816 with Percy Shelley and Lord Byron. Her tale of a scientist who brings a creature to life is often called the first science fiction novel.
Source: history.com
1863
Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, declaring enslaved people in rebel-held states free.
The order applied only to areas in rebellion against the Union, so it did not reach the loyal border states. It still turned the Civil War into a fight against slavery and opened the Union Army to Black soldiers.
Source: archives.gov; millercenter.org
1863
Daniel Freeman filed the first claim under the Homestead Act for land near Beatrice, Nebraska.
The 1862 law let a settler claim 160 acres of surveyed public land and gain title after five years of improvements and a small fee. More than 1.6 million homesteaders eventually received land in the West.
Source: history.com; nps.gov

1942
Twenty-six nations signed the Declaration by United Nations, pledging to fight the Axis together.
Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill drew up the declaration during the Arcadia Conference in Washington after Pearl Harbor. The name it introduced was later given to the postwar peacekeeping organization.
Source: history.com

1959
Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista fled the island as Fidel Castro's revolution swept to victory.
Batista, who had seized power in a 1952 coup with U.S. backing, left as rebels of the 26th of July Movement closed in. Washington then had to decide how to deal with Castro's new government.
Source: history.com; archive.nytimes.com

1994
The North American Free Trade Agreement took effect among the United States, Canada and Mexico.
The pact removed most trade barriers between the three countries. Ronald Reagan first proposed the idea, George H.W. Bush opened talks, and the agreement stayed controversial in all three nations.
Source: history.com
1999
The euro became the shared currency of 11 European nations.
The participating countries had fixed their exchange rates against one another the day before. The single currency grew out of the 1992 Maastricht Treaty, which created the European Union.
Source: history.com