1933 - Hugh Gray of the British Aluminium Company takes the first known photos of the Loch Ness Monster; four of them turn out to be blank, while the last one is later proven to be a hoax.
1934 - The musical Babes in Toyland debuts, featuring Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy as comic relief (see Laurel and Hardy).
1936 - In California, the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge opens to traffic.
1938 - Hermann Göring announces Nazi Germany plans to make Madagascar the "Jewish homeland", an idea that actually was first considered by 19th century journalist Theodor Herzl.
1941 - World War II: Temperatures around Moscow drop to -12 ° C and the Soviet Union launches ski troops for the first time against the freezing German forces near the city.
1942 - World War II: The Naval Battle of Guadalcanal between Japanese and American forces begins near Guadalcanal, will last for three days.
1944 - World War II: The Royal Air Force launches one of the most successful precision bombing attacks of war and sinks the German battleship Tirpitz off the coast of Norway.
1946 - A branch of the Exchange National Bank in Chicago opens the first ten drive-up teller windows.
1948 - In Tokyo, an international war crimes tribunal sentences seven Japanese military and government officials to death, including General Hideki Tojo, for their roles in World War II.
1969 - Vietnam War: My Lai Massacre - Independent investigative journalist Seymour Hersh breaks the My Lai story.
1970 - The Oregon Highway Division attempts to destroy a rotting beached Gray whale with explosives, leading to the now infamous exploding whale incident
1971 - Vietnam War: As part of Vietnamization, US President Richard M. Nixon sets February 1, 1972 as the deadline for the removal of another 45,000 American troops from Vietnam.
1979 - Iran hostage crisis: In response to the hostage situation in Tehran, US President Jimmy Carter orders a halt to all oil imports into the United States from Iran.
1980 - The NASA space probe Voyager I makes its closest aproach to Saturn.
1982 - In the Soviet Union, Yuri Andropov is selected to become the general secretary of the Soviet Communist Party's Central Committee, succeeding the late Leonid I. Brezhnev.
1992 - Absolutely Fabulous airs its first episode on BBC1.
1996 - A Saudi Arabian Airlines Boeing 747 and a Kazakh Ilyushin Il-76 cargo plane collide in mid-air near New Delhi, India killing 349.
1997 - Ramzi Yousef is found guilty of masterminding the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
1998 - Daimler-Benz completes a merger with Chrysler to form Daimler-Chrysler.
2001 - In New York City, an Airbus A300 carrying American Airlines Flight 587 crashes minutes after takeoff from John F. Kennedy International Airport, killing all 260 on board.
2001 - 2001 Attack on Afghanistan: Taliban forces abandon Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, ahead of advancing Northern Alliance troops.
2002 - Special Extended DVD Edition of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring is released.
2003 - Occupation of Iraq: In Nasiriya, Iraq, at least 23 people, among them the first Italian casualties of the 2003 Iraq war are killed in a suicide bomb attack on an Italian police base.
2004 - Scott Peterson is found guilty of first degree murder of his wife Laci Peterson and their unborn son Conner after a five-and-a-half month long trial.
