1801 – John Marshall is appointed the Chief Justice of the United States.
1865 – The United States Congress passes the 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution, abolishing slavery and submits it to the states for ratification.
1917 – Germany announces that its U-boats will resume unrestricted submarine warfare after a two-year hiatus.
1943 – German Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus surrenders to the Soviets at Stalingrad, followed 2 days later by the remainder of his Sixth Army, ending one of the war's fiercest battles.
1945 – About 3,000 inmates from the Stutthof concentration camp are forcibly marched into the Baltic Sea at Palmnicken (now Yantarny, Russia) and executed.
1949 – These Are My Children, the first television daytime soap opera is broadcast by the NBC station in Chicago.
1966 – The Soviet Union launches the unmanned Luna 9 spacecraft as part of the Luna program.
1990 – The first McDonald's in the Soviet Union opens in Moscow.
1995 – President Bill Clinton authorizes a $20 billion loan to Mexico to stabilize its economy.
2009 – In Kenya, at least 113 people are killed and over 200 injured following an oil spillage ignition in Molo, days after a massive fire at a Nakumatt supermarket in Nairobi killed at least 25 people.
2010 – Avatar becomes the first film to gross over $2 billion worldwide.
2011 – A winter storm hits North America for the second time in the same month, causing $1.8 billion in damage across the United States and Canada and killing 24 people.
2013 – An explosion at the Pemex Executive Tower in Mexico City kills at least 33 people and injures more than 100.