Shimla, Jan.
2020
The United Kingdom formally left the European Union, more than three years after the country voted for “Brexit.”
2001
Libyan national Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi was convicted in the 1988 Pan Am flight 103 bombing, in which 270 people were killed; in 2009 the Scottish government released Megrahi from prison after he was diagnosed with terminal cancer.
1981
American singer and actor Justin Timberlake, who was a member of the hugely successful “boy band” *NSYNC before launching a solo career, was born in Memphis, Tennessee.
1977
The Pompidou Centre, a French national cultural centre named for former president Georges Pompidou, opened in Paris.
1966
The Soviets launched Luna 9, the first spacecraft to make a soft landing on the Moon.
1961
The American film drama The Misfits, which was directed by John Huston, had its world premiere; it was perhaps best remembered as the final movie of Marilyn Monroe and Clark Gable.
1958
Explorer 1 was the first artificial space satellite orbited by the United States, marking the country’s entry into the space race.
1956
Johnny Rotten—lead singer of the Sex Pistols, a rock group that created the British punk movement of the late 1970s—was born in London.
1943
German Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus surrendered to the Soviet Red Army at Stalingrad (now Volgograd), his troops surrendering two days later.
1797
Austrian composer Franz Schubert was born near Vienna.
