| 1066 | Harold Godwineson is crowned King Harold II – King of England. | |
| 1540 | Henry VIII of England marries his fourth wife, Anne of Cleves. The marriage will last six months. | |
| 1861 | The Governor of Maryland, Thomas Hicks, announces his opposition to the states’s possible secession from the Union. | |
| 1904 | Japanese railway authorities in Korea refuse to transport Russian troops. | |
| 1910 | Union leaders ask President William H. Taft to investigate U.S. Steel’s practices. | |
| 1912 | New Mexico becomes the 47th U.S. state of the Union. | |
| 1918 | Germany acknowledges Finland’s independence. | |
| 1919 | Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th president of the United States, dies at the age of 60 in his home at Sagamore Hill, New York. | |
| 1921 | The U.S. Navy orders the sale of 125 flying boats to encourage commercial aviation. | |
| 1937 | The United States bans the shipment of arms to war-torn Spain. | |
| 1941 | President Franklin D. Roosevelt asks Congress to support the Lend-lease Bill to help supply the Allies. | |
| 1945 | Boeing B-29 bombers in the Pacific strike new blows on Tokyo and Nanking. | |
| 1946 | Ho Chi Minh wins in the Vietnamese elections. | |
| 1958 | Moscow announces a reduction in its armed forces by 300,000. | |
| 1967 | Over 16,000 U.S. and 14,000 Vietnamese troops start their biggest attack on the Iron Triangle, northwest of Saigon. | |
| 1987 | Astronomers report sighting a new galaxy 12 billion light years away. | |
| 2001 | In one of the closest Presidential elections in U.S. history, George W. Bush was finally declared the winner of the bitterly contested 2000 Presidential elections more then five weeks after the election due to the disputed Florida ballots. | |
| 2005 | Former Ku Klux Klan organizer Edgar Ray Killen arrested as a suspect in the 1964 murders of three civil rights workers in Mississippi. | |
| 2014 | US Senate confirms Janet Yellen as the first woman to chair the Federal Reserve Bank in the central bank’s 100-year history. | |
| Born on January 6 | ||
| 1367 | Richard II, son of Edward the Black Prince. | |
| 1412 | Joan of Arc, French Saint and national heroine. | |
| 1811 | Charles Sumner, anti-slavery senator from Massachusetts. | |
| 1878 | Carl Sandburg, U.S. journalist, poet and biographer. | |
| 1882 | Sam Rayburn, U.S. Congressman from Texas & Speaker of the House (1940-46, 1949-53). | |
| 1899 | Heinz Nordhoff, German engineer, named managing director of the Volkswagen plant at Wolfsburg after World War II; under his leadership the Volkswagen Beetle became a worldwide phenomenon. | |
| 1900 | Maria of Romania, Queen of Yugoslavia; wife of King Alexander. | |
| 1912 | Danny Thomas, actor, producer, philanthropist; founder of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. | |
| 1913 | Loretta Young, actress; won Academy Award for The Farmer’s Daughter (1947). | |
| 1924 | Earl Scruggs, musician; popularized the finger-picking style of banjo playing; blended rock and bluegrass. | |
| 1935 | Queen Margarita of Bulgaria (Dona Margarita Gomez-Acebo y Cejuela). | |
| 1937 | Lou Holtz, college football coach; television sports commentator. | |
| 1944 | Bonnie Franklin, actress (One Day at a Time TV series). | |
| 1946 | Syd Barrett, musician, singer, songwriter; founding member of the band Pink Floyd. | |
| 1957 | Nancy Lopez, pro golfer; won LPGA Championship (1978, 1985) and Mazda LPGA Championship (1989). | |