From Historynet: Today in History January 2

1492          Catholic forces under King Ferdinand  and Queen Isabella  take the town of Granada, the last Muslim kingdom in Spain.

1758          The French begin bombardment of Madras, India.

1839          Photography pioneer Louis Daguerre takes the first photograph of the moon.

1861          The USS Brooklyn is readied at Norfolk to aid Fort Sumter.

1863          In the second day of hard fighting at Stone's River, near Murfreesboro, Tenn., Union troops defeat the Confederates.

1903          President Theodore Roosevelt  closes a post office in Indianola, Mississippi, for refusing to hire a Black postmistress.

1904          U.S. Marines are sent to Santo Domingo to aid the government against rebel forces.

1905          After a six-month siege, Russians surrender Port Arthur to the Japanese.

1918          Russian Bolsheviks threaten to re-enter the war unless Germany returns occupied territory.

1932          Japanese forces in Manchuria set up a puppet government known as Manchukuo.

1936          In Berlin, Nazi officials claim that their treatment of Jews is not the business of the League of Nations.

1942          In the Philippines, the city of Manila and the U.S. Naval base at Cavite fall to Japanese forces.

1943          The Allies capture Buna in New Guinea.

1963          In Vietnam, the Viet Cong down five U.S. helicopters in the Mekong Delta. 30 Americans are reported dead.

1966          American G.I.s move into the Mekong Delta for the first time.

1973          The United States admits the accidental bombing of a Hanoi hospital.

1980          President Jimmy Carter  asks the U.S. Senate to delay the arms treaty ratification in response to Soviet action in Afghanistan.

1981          British police arrest the "Yorkshire Ripper" serial killer, Peter Sutcliffe.

1999          A severe winter storm hits the Midwestern US; in Chicago temperatures plunge to -13 ºF and19 inches of snow fell; 68 deaths are blamed on the storm.

2006          A coal mine explosion in Sago, West Virginia, kills 12 miners and critically injures another. This accident and another within weeks lead to the first changes in federal mining laws in decades.