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Following are some of the major events to have occurred on January 1 since 1900:

1901 - The Commonwealth of Australia came into being, with Edmund Barton as its first prime minister.

1942 - In Washington, 26 nations signed the "Declaration of the United Nations", affirming their opposition to the Axis powers and confirming that no co-signatory would make a separate peace.

1956 - Sudan became an independent republic.

1958 - The European Economic Community, the "Common Market" that was a precursor to the European Union, came into being.

1959 - Fidel Castro seized power in Cuba after the dictator Fulgencio Batista fled to the Dominican Republic.

1962 - The Beatles were rejected by Decca Records after an audition because "groups of guitars are on the way out".

1972 - The French singer and actor Maurice Chevalier died. He starred in films such as "Love Me Tonight" and "Gigi".

1992 - The Salvadorean government and the rebel Farabundo Marti Liberation Front reached a ceasefire accord after a 12-year civil war.

1993 - Czechoslovakia split into the separate Czech and Slovak republics.

1995 - The World Trade Organisation came into being, succeeding GATT.

2001 - Greece joined the European Union's single currency.

2002 - Some 300 million people in 12 member countries began using the EU's single currency, the euro. Only Britain, Sweden and Denmark retained their own national currencies.

2003 - The European Union Police Mission took over supervising Bosnia's policing operation from a U.N. international police task force -- launching the EU's first ever defence and security operation.

2003 - Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva became Brazil's first working-class president.

2005 - The Netherlands introduced a new law making it compulsory to produce identity documents to police for the first time since World War Two


Source: Reuters

Labels: world news