1496 – Leonardo da Vinci unsuccessfully tested a flying machine on the 3rd January 1496.
1749 – The first issue of Berlingske, Denmark‘s oldest continually operating newspaper was published on the 3rd January 1749.
1870 – The construction of the Brooklyn Bridge began on the 3rd January 1870.
1925 – Benito Mussolini announced he was taking dictatorial powers over Italy on the 3rd January 1925.
1947 – Proceedings of the U.S. Congress were televised for the first time on the 3rd January 1947.
1956 – A fire damaged the top part of the Eiffel Tower on the 3rd January 1956.
1957 – The Hamilton Watch Company introduced the first electric watch on the 3rd January 1957.
1959 – Alaska was admitted as the 49th U.S. state on the 3rd January 1959.
1977 – Apple Computer was incorporated on the 3rd January 1977.
1993 – In Moscow, Russia, George Bush and Boris Yeltsin signed the 2nd Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) on the 3rd January 1993.
1994 – 7 million people from the former Apartheid Homelands, received South African citizenship on the 3rd January 1994.
1996 – The Motorola StarTAC, the first flip phone and one of the first mobile phones to gain widespread consumer adoption, went on sale on the 3rd January 1996.
1997 – China announced it would spend US$27.7 billion to fight erosion and pollution in the Yangtze and Yellow River valleys on the 3rd January 1997.
1999 – The Mars Polar Lander was launched on the 3rd January 1999.
2004 – Flash Airlines Flight 604 crashed into the Red Sea on the 3rd January 2004, resulting in 148 deaths, making it the deadliest aviation accident in Egyptian history.
2014 ~ Phil Everly the American country-influenced rock and roll singer died on the 3rd January 2014, aged 74 (born 19th January 1939).
Today in History for the 3rd January video produced by Associated Press
Associated Press official website: www.AP.org