January 2

January 2 in history:

• 1492, Muhammad XI, the sultan of Granada, the last Arab stronghold in Spain, surrendered to Spanish forces

• 1757, the United Kingdom captures Calcutta, India

• 1793, Russia and Prussia partition Poland

• 1882, John D. Rockefeller unites his oil holdings into the Standard Oil trust

• 1893, Webb C. Ball of the General Railroad Timepiece Standards in North America introduces railroad chronometers

• 1900, Secretary of State John Hay announced the "Open Door Policy" to facilitate trade with China

• 1905, the Russian garrison surrenders at Port Arthur, China

• 1923, U.S. Interior Secretary Albert Fall resigns over the Teapot Dome scandal

• 1929, Canada and the United States agree on a plan to preserve Niagara Falls

• 1935, Bruno Hauptmann goes on trial for the murder of Charles Lindbergh, Jr., infant son of aviator Charles Lindbergh. (Hauptmann was found guilty, and executed.)

• 1941, during World War II: The U.S. government announces its Liberty ship program to build freighters in support of the war effort

• 1946, unable to resume rule after World War II, King Zog of Albania abdicates but retains his claim to the throne

• 1957, the San Francisco Stock and Bond Exchange and Los Angeles Oil Exchange merge

• 1974, President Richard Nixon signs a bill lowering the maximum US speed limit to 55 MPH in order to conserve gasoline during an OPEC embargo (Federal speed limits were abolished in 1995)

• 2006, a methane gas explosion at the Sago Mine in West Virginia, claimed the lives of 12 miners, but one miner, Randal McCloy Jr., was eventually rescued.