18 January 1949

In a sting operation conducted by the FBI, Marion Barry (pictured), the mayor of Washington, D.C., was arrested for possession of crack cocaine.

Thirty years after his death, the International Olympic Committee presented commemorative medals to the family of American athlete Jim Thorpe, who had been stripped of his gold medals for playing semi-professional baseball before the 1912 Summer Olympics.

Singaporean communist activist Tan Chay Wa was executed, leading to a much-publicised trial of his brother for engraving "subversive" material on the gravestone.

In response to months of nationwide student protests, thousands of Japanese police stormed the University of Tokyo.

Willie O'Ree of the Boston Bruins played his first game in the National Hockey League, becoming the first black Canadian to compete in the NHL.

Members of the Lumbee tribe arrived to protest at a Ku Klux Klan rally near Maxton, North Carolina, which turned into an armed confrontation between the two groups (pictured).

Construction of the United Nations Military Cemetery (pictured) began in Busan, South Korea.

World War II: In Operation Iskra, the Red Army established a narrow land corridor to Leningrad, partially easing the protracted German siege of the city.

The Alt Llobregat insurrection began with a miners' strike in Fígols and quickly spreads throughout central Catalonia.

Japanese prime minister Ōkuma Shigenobu issued the Twenty-One Demands to China in a bid to increase Japan's power in East Asia.

The German Empire was formed by the unification of previously independent German states, under the rule of Kaiser Wilhelm I.

The armed tender HMS Supply, the first ship of the First Fleet, arrived at Botany Bay, Australia.

Francisco Pizarro founded Ciudad de los Reyes (present-day Lima, Peru) as the capital of the lands he conquered for the Spanish crown.

The young child Leo II became the sole Byzantine emperor upon the death of his grandfather Leo I.

At least 45 people are killed and 292 others injured after two trains collide in Adamuz in the worst railway disaster in over a decade in Spain.

The popular social media app, TikTok, is banned in the United States, after the passing of PAFACA.

A helicopter crash in Ukraine leaves 14 people dead, including the country's Interior Minister, Denys Monastyrsky.

A bus catches fire on the Samara–Shymkent road in Yrgyz District, Aktobe, Kazakhstan. The fire kills 52 passengers, with three passengers and two drivers escaping.

More than 115,000 websites engage in an online protest against the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect IP Act in the US.[citation needed] The websites involved viewed the laws as infringing on the right to free speech and many of them temporarily shut down in protest.

The Euphronios Krater is unveiled in Rome after being returned to Italy by the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The strongest storm in the United Kingdom in 17 years kills 14 people and Germany sees the worst storm since 1999 with 13 deaths. Cyclone Kyrill causes at least 44 deaths across 20 countries in Western Europe.

The Airbus A380, the world's largest commercial jet, is unveiled at a ceremony in Toulouse, France

A bushfire kills four people and destroys more than 500 homes in Canberra, Australia.

The Sierra Leone Civil War is declared over.