1905: Norway holds a referendum resulting in popular approval of the Storting's decision to authorise the government to make the offer of the throne of the newly-independent country.
1912: King George I of Greece makes a triumphal entry into Thessaloniki after its liberation from 482 years of Ottoman rule.
1912: The frozen bodies of Robert Scott and his men are found on the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica.
1918: Austria becomes a republic.
1920: Italy and the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes sign the Treaty of Rapallo.
1928: SS Vestris sinks approximately 200 miles (320 km) off Hampton Roads, Virginia, killing at least 110 passengers, mostly women and children who die after the vessel is abandoned.
1940: World War II: Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov arrives in Berlin to discuss the possibility of the Soviet Union joining the Axis Powers.
1941: World War II: Temperatures around Moscow drop to -12 °C as the Soviet Union launches ski troops for the first time against the freezing German forces near the city.
1941: World War II: The Soviet cruiser Chervona Ukraina is destroyed during the Battle of Sevastopol.
1970: The Oregon Highway Division attempts to destroy a rotting beached Sperm whale with explosives, leading to the now infamous "exploding whale" incident.
1970: The 1970 Bhola cyclone makes landfall on the coast of East Pakistan becoming the deadliest tropical cyclone in history.
1971: Vietnam War: As part of Vietnamization, US President Richard Nixon sets February 1, 1972 as the deadline for the removal of another 45,000 American troops from Vietnam.
1999: The 7.2 Mw Düzce earthquake shakes northwestern Turkey with a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX (Violent). At least 845 people were killed and almost 5,000 were injured.
2003: Iraq War: In Nasiriyah, Iraq, at least 23 people, among them the first Italian casualties of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, are killed in a suicide bomb attack on an Italian police base.
2003: Shanghai Transrapid sets a new world speed record (501 kilometres per hour (311 mph)) for commercial railway systems, which remains the fastest for unmodified commercial rail vehicles.
2011: A blast in Iran's Shahid Modarres missile base leads to the death of 17 of the Revolutionary Guards members, including Hassan Tehrani Moghaddam, a key figure in Iran's missile program.