On January 8

Jared Lee Loughner opened fire at a public meeting held by U.S. representative Gabby Giffords in Tucson, Arizona, killing six people and injuring twelve others.

Gunmen from an offshoot of the Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda attacked the bus transporting the Togo national football team to the Africa Cup of Nations in Angola, killing three people.

Jeremy Wade Delle committed suicide in his high-school class in Richardson, Texas, an event that inspired the Pearl Jam song "Jeremy".

In Trans-en-Provence, France, a local farmer reported a UFO sighting claimed to be "perhaps the most completely and carefully documented sighting of all time".

Three bombs attributed to Armenian nationalists exploded across Moscow, killing seven people and injuring 37 people.

Following Pakistan's defeat in the Bangladesh Liberation War, President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto released Bangladeshi politician Sheikh Mujibur Rahman (pictured) from prison in response to international pressure.

Five Evangelical Christian missionaries from the United States were killed by the Huaorani in the rainforest of Ecuador shortly after making contact with them.

The New Deal for Aborigines was formally announced by the Australian government, providing for full civil rights for Indigenous Australians in exchange for cultural assimilation.

Reza Shah issued the Kashf-e hijab decree, ordering Iranian police to remove hijabs from any women in public.

U.S. president Woodrow Wilson announced his Fourteen Points for a moral cause and for post–World War I peace in Europe.

Blackstone Library (pictured), the first branch of the Chicago Public Library system, was dedicated.

American statistician Herman Hollerith received a patent for his electromechanical tabulating machine for punched-card data.

George Washington delivered the first State of the Union address in New York City, then the provisional capital of the United States.

George Frideric Handel's opera Ariodante premiered at the Covent Garden Theatre (pictured) in London.

Scottish student Thomas Aikenhead became the last person in Great Britain to be executed for blasphemy.

Lotario dei Conti was elected as Pope Innocent III; he later worked to restore papal power in Rome.