1940 : Worst air raid on London

http://history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&id=7126

December 30, 1853

James Gadsden, the U.S. minister to Mexico, and General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, the president of Mexico, sign the Gadsden Purchase in Mexico City. The treaty settled the dispute over the location of the Mexican border west of El Paso, Texas, and established the final boundaries of the southern United States. For the price of $15 million, later reduced to $10 million, the United States acquired approximately 30,000 square miles of land in what is now southern New Mexico and Arizona.

January 2: 1980 : U.S.-Russia detente ends

On this day in 1980, in a strong reaction to the December 1979 Soviet
invasion of Afghanistan, President Jimmy Carter asks the Senate to
postpone action on the SALT II nuclear weapons treaty and recalls the
U.S. ambassador to Moscow. These actions sent a message that the age
of detente and the friendlier diplomatic and economic relations that
were established between the United States and Soviet Union during
President Richard Nixon's administration (1969-74) had ended.

Carter feared that the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, in which an
estimated 30,000 combat troops entered that nation and established a
puppet government, would threaten the stability of strategic
neighboring countries such as Iran and Pakistan and could lead to the
USSR gaining control over much of the world's oil supplies. The Soviet
actions were labeled "a serious threat to peace" by the White House.
Carter asked the Senate to shelve ratification talks on SALT II, the
nuclear arms treaty that he and Soviet Premier Leonid Brezhnev had
already signed, and the president called U.S. ambassador to Moscow
Thomas J. Watson back to Washington for "consultation," in an effort
to let the Kremlin know that military intervention in Afghanistan was
unacceptable.

When the Soviets refused to withdraw from Afghanistan, America halted
certain key exports to the USSR, including grain and high technology,
and boycotted the 1980 summer Olympics, which were held in Moscow. The
United States also began to covertly subsidize anti-Soviet fighters in
Afghanistan. During Ronald Reagan's presidency in the 1980s, the CIA
secretly sent billions of dollars to Afghanistan to arm and train the
mujahedeen rebel forces that were battling the Soviets. This tactic
was successful in helping to drive out the Soviets, but it also gave
rise to the oppressive Taliban regime and Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida
terrorist organization.

In 1980, Jimmy Carter lost the presidency to Ronald Reagan, who
favored a more aggressive anti-Communist foreign policy. Reagan dubbed
the USSR the "evil empire" and believed it was America's
responsibility to save the world from Soviet repression. He
dramatically increased U.S. defense spending and ramped up the nuclear
arms race with the Soviets, whose faltering economy ultimately
prevented them from keeping pace. The Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.

On Jan 7:

1785 - Frenchman Jean-Pierre Blanchard and American John Jeffries traveled from Dover, England, to Calais, France, in a gas balloon, becoming the first to cross the English Channel by air.

1901 : Gusher signals start of U.S. oil industry http://history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihVideoCategory&id=52320