From Historynet: Today in History January 4

1757          Robert Francois Damiens makes an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate King Louis XV of France .

1863          Union General Henry Halleck, by direction of President Abraham Lincoln, orders General Ulysses Grant to revoke his infamous General Order No. 11 that expelled Jews from his operational area.

1896          Utah becomes the 45th state of the Union.

1902          France offers to sell their Nicaraguan Canal rights to the United States.

1904          The U.S. Supreme Court decides in the Gonzales v. Williams case that Puerto Ricans are not aliens and can enter the United States freely, yet stops short of awarding citizenship.

1920          The Negro National League, the first black baseball league, is organized by Rube Foster.

1923          The Paris Conference on war reparations hits a deadlock as the French insist on the hard line and the British insist on Reconstruction.

1935          President Franklin D. Roosevelt claims in his State of the Union message that the federal government will provide jobs for 3.5 million Americans on welfare.

1936          Billboard magazine publishes its first music Hit Parade.

1941          On the Greek-Albanian front, the Greeks launch an attack towards Valona from Berat to Klisura against the Italians.

1942          Japanese forces begin the evacuation of Guadalcanal.

1951          UN forces abandon Seoul, Korea, to the Chinese Communist Army.

1952          The French Army in Indochina launches Operation Nenuphar in hopes of ejecting a Viet Minh division from the Ba Tai forest.

1969          Spain returns the Ifni province to Morocco.

1970          A 7.7 earthquake kills 15,000+ people in Tonghai County, China.

1972          Rose Heilbron  becomes the first female judge to sit at the Old Bailey in London, England.

1974          President Richard Nixon refuses to hand over tape recordings and documents that had been subpoenaed by the Senate Watergate Committee.

1975          The Khmer Rouge launches its newest assault in its five-year war in Phnom Penh. The war in Cambodia would go on until the spring of 1975.

1976          The Ulster Volunteer Force kills six Irish Catholic civilians in County Armagh, Northern Ireland. The next day 10 Protestant civilians are murdered in retaliation.

1979          Ohio officials approve an out-of-court settlement awarding $675,000 to the victims and families in the 1970 shootings at Kent State University, in which four students were killed and nine wounded by National Guard troops.

1990          Over 300 people die and more than 700 are injured in Pakistan's deadliest train accident, when an overloaded passenger train collides with an empty freight train.

1999          Jesse "The Body" Ventura, a former professional wrestler, is sworn in as populist governor of Minnesota.

1999          The euro, the new money of 11 European nations, goes into effect on the continent of Europe.     

2004          NASA Mars rover Spirit successfully lands on Mars.        

2004          Mikheil Saakashvili  is elected President of Georgia following the Rose Revolution of November 2003.   

2007          Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-California) becomes the first female speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives.       

2010          Burj Khalifa (Khalifa tower) officially opens in Dubai, UAE. At 2,722 ft (829.8 m) it is the world's tallest man-made structure.