5 January 1856

In Eng Foong Ho v Attorney-General, the Court of Appeal of Singapore held that equality before the law was satisfied by a "reasonable nexus" between state action and the object of the law.

Mikheil Saakashvili was decisively re-elected as President of Georgia in "the first genuinely competitive presidential election" in the history of the country.

The Taiwan High Speed Rail opened, connecting Taipei and Kaohsiung.

The dwarf planet Eris was discovered by a team using images from the Samuel Oschin telescope at Palomar Observatory.

The Metropolitan Police arrested six people in conjunction with an alleged terrorist plot to release ricin on the London Underground, although no toxin was found.

Sri Lankan Tamil politician Kumar Ponnambalam was killed in an assassination suspected to have been sanctioned by President Chandrika Kumaratunga.

Georgian troops attacked Tskhinvali, the South Ossetian capital, beginning the First South Ossetia War.

The embassy of the United States to Somalia was evacuated by helicopter airlift days after violence enveloped Mogadishu during the Somali Civil War.

The Troubles: In response to the killings of six Catholics the previous night, South Armagh Republican Action Force gunmen killed ten Protestants in County Armagh, Northern Ireland.

The bulk carrier Lake Illawarra struck a bridge over the River Derwent in Hobart, Australia, causing the deaths of seven of the ship's crewmen and five motorists on the bridge.

A magnitude-7.1 earthquake struck Tonghai County in southern China, killing at least 10,000 people and eventually spurring the creation of the nation's largest earthquake monitoring system.

In his State of the Union speech, U.S. president Harry S. Truman (pictured) announced: "Every segment of our population, and every individual, has a right to expect from his government a fair deal."

Second World War: Australian and British troops defeated Italian forces in Bardia, Libya, the first battle of the war in which an Australian Army formation took part.

Construction began on the Golden Gate Bridge across the Straits of the Golden Gate, the entrance to San Francisco Bay.

Nellie Tayloe Ross was inaugurated as Governor of Wyoming, the first woman to serve as the governor of a U.S. state.

Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton (pictured) died of a heart attack during his final expedition.

The German Workers' Party, the precursor of the Nazi Party, was founded by Anton Drexler.

Te Kooti's War: After surviving a five-day siege in the pā at Ngātapa, Māori leader Te Kooti escaped from New Zealand's Armed Constabulary.

King Louis XV survived an assassination attempt by Robert-François Damiens, who later became the last person in France to be executed by drawing and quartering.

Franco-Dutch War: French troops defeated Austrian and Brandenburg forces at the Battle of Turckheim (pictured) in Alsace.

Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 makes an emergency landing at Portland International Airport after a door plug blows off the Boeing 737 MAX 9 operating the flight. There are no fatalities, but the accident prompts the 737 MAX to be grounded and renews scrutiny on Boeing's manufacturing and design issues.

Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev dismisses Prime Minister Asqar Mamin and declares state of emergency over the 2022 Kazakh unrest.

The dwarf planet Eris is discovered by Palomar Observatory-based astronomers, later motivating the International Astronomical Union (IAU) to define the term planet for the first time.

Georgian forces enter Tskhinvali, the capital of South Ossetia, Georgia, opening the 1991–92 South Ossetia War.