15 January 1949

US Airways Flight 1549 struck a flock of Canada geese during its climb out from New York City and made an emergency landing in the Hudson River (featured).

Portugal and the nationalist factions UNITA, the MPLA and the FNLA signed the Alvor Agreement, ending the Angolan War of Independence.

American serial killer Dennis Rader, also known as the "BTK killer", murdered his first four victims.

The Republic of Biafra surrendered following a failed attempt at secession from Nigeria, ending the Nigerian Civil War.

The Green Bay Packers defeated the Kansas City Chiefs in the American football championship game now known as Super Bowl I.

The Derveni papyrus (fragment pictured), the oldest surviving manuscript in Europe, was discovered in Macedonia in northern Greece.

Ilse Koch, wife of Karl-Otto Koch, the Nazi commander of the Buchenwald and Majdanek concentration camps, was sentenced to life imprisonment by a West German court.

The mutilated corpse of the Black Dahlia, a 22-year-old woman whose murder is one of the most famous unsolved crimes in the United States, was found in Leimert Park, Los Angeles.

The highest-capacity office building in the world, the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense known as the Pentagon, was dedicated.

Spanish Civil War: Nationalist and Republican forces both withdrew after suffering heavy losses at the Second Battle of the Corunna Road.

At least 10,700 people died when a magnitude-8.0 earthquake struck Nepal and the Indian state of Bihar.

A teenage girl in Banneux, Belgium, reported the first of several Marian apparitions, now known as Our Lady of Banneux.

A large molasses tank in Boston, Massachusetts, burst and a wave of molasses rushed through the streets , killing 21 people and injuring 150 others.

Construction was completed on the Buffalo Bill Dam, then the tallest dam in the world, on the Shoshone River in the U.S. state of Wyoming.

Wilson Bentley (pictured) took the first known photograph of a snowflake by attaching a bellows camera to a microscope.

In Regent's Park, London, the ice on the lake broke, plunging skaters into the water and causing 40 deaths from drowning or hypothermia.

In Regent's Park, London, the ice on the lake broke, plunging skaters into the water and causing 40 deaths from drowning or hypothermia.

American Civil War: The Union Army captured Fort Fisher, the last seaport of the Confederacy.

In British Hong Kong, hundreds of Europeans were non-lethally poisoned by arsenic in bread from a locally owned bakery, leading to geopolitical tension.

War of 1812: The American frigate USS President, commanded by Commodore Stephen Decatur, was captured by a squadron of four British frigates.

Yeti Airlines Flight 691 crashes near Pokhara International Airport, killing all 72 people on board.

The Hunga Tonga-Hunga Haʻapai volcano erupts, cutting off communications with Tonga and causing a tsunami across the Pacific.

The Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare confirms the first case of COVID-19 in Japan.

Somali militants attack the DusitD2 hotel in Nairobi, Kenya killing at least 21 people and injuring 19.