◆ On this day

January 1

5 sourced moments from January 1 in history: Ceres: the first asteroid, found on New Year's Day 1801; Batista fled Cuba on January 1, 1959, a week before Castro; Western Samoa: the first Pacific island nation to break free (1962), plus 2 more.

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5 things happened on January 1

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1999 Society & Economy · Economics

The euro launched as an electronic currency for 11 nations

Eleven economies pooled their money under one currency that, for three years, you could not actually hold in your hand.

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1983 Technology · The Internet

The Day the Internet Switched On

On a single coordinated "flag day", ARPANET threw out its old protocol and adopted TCP/IP, the language the whole internet still speaks.

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1962 Geography · Countries

Western Samoa: the first Pacific island nation to break free

On New Year's Day 1962, a tiny Polynesian state slipped New Zealand's grip and rewrote the map of the Pacific.

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1959 History · Modern

Batista fled Cuba on January 1, 1959, a week before Castro

The dictator slipped away before dawn on New Year's Day; Castro reached Havana on January 8, after Washington had moved to recognise the new regime.

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1801 Space · Solar System

Ceres: the first asteroid, found on New Year's Day 1801

Giuseppe Piazzi found Ceres on 1 January 1801, lost it in the Sun's glare within weeks, and needed a young Gauss to find it again.

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