January 3 is the third day of the year in the Gregorian calendar; 362 days remain until the end of the year (363 in leap years).
1749 – Benning Wentworth issues the first of the New Hampshire Grants, leading to the establishment of Vermont.
1777 – American General George Washington defeats British General Lord Cornwallis at the Battle of Princeton.
1861 – American Civil War: Delaware votes not to secede from the United States.
1870 – Construction work begins on the Brooklyn Bridge in New York, United States 1911 – A gun battle in the East End of London leaves two dead. It sparked a political row over the involvement of then-Home Secretary Winston Churchill 1920 – Over 640 are killed after a magnitude 6.4 earthquake strikes the Mexican states Puebla and Veracruz 1944 – World War II: US flying ace Major Greg 'Pappy' Boyington is shot down in his Vought F4U Corsair 1946 – Popular Canadian American jockey George Woolf suffers a concussion during a freak racing accident; he dies from the injury the following day. The annual George Woolf Memorial Jockey Award is created to honor him.
1947 – Proceedings of the U.S. Congress are televised for the first time.
11956 – A fire damages the top part of the Eiffel Tower.
1959 – Alaska is admitted as the 49th U.S. state.
1961 – Cold War: After a series of economic retaliations against one another, the United States severs diplomatic relations with Cuba.
1961 – The SL-1 nuclear reactor, near Idaho Falls, Idaho, is destroyed by a steam explosion in the only reactor incident in the United States to cause immediate fatalities.
1962 – Pope John XXIII excommunicates Fidel Castro.
1977 – Apple Computer is incorporated.
1990 – United States invasion of Panama: Manuel Noriega, former leader of Panama, surrenders to American forces.