January 3 in History

January 3 is the third day of the year. There are 363 days remaining until the end of the year.

• 1496 – Leonardo da Vinci unsuccessfully tested a flying machine.
• 1749– The 1st of the New Hampshire Grants were issued, leading to the establishment of Vermont.
• 1870– The construction of the Brooklyn Bridge begins.
• 1888 – The refracting telescope at the Lick Observatory, measuring 91 cm in diameter, is used for the first time. It was the largest telescope in the world at the time.
• 1947 – The proceedings of the US Congress were televised for the first time. 
• 1953 – Frances P. Bolton became the first woman elected to Congress from Ohio and the oldest woman to serve.
• 1957 – The Hamilton Watch Company introduced the first electric watch.
• 1959 – Alaska became the 49th US state.
• 1961– The United States severed diplomatic relations with Cuba.
• 1977 – Apple Computer Company was incorporated.
• 1988 – Margaret Thatcher became the longest-serving British Prime Minister in the 20th Century.
• 1994 – More than 7 million people from the former Apartheid Homelands received South African citizenship.