What happened on 4 January?

9 events from the Ever-When timeline, ranked by how much they mattered.

1. 1643 Born: Isaac Newton English physicist and mathematician; laws of motion and universal gravitation, co-inventor of calculus — the towering figure of the Scientific Revolution.
2. 1894 Road to World War I The alliance system, imperial crises and arms races that divided Europe into armed camps, from the Franco-Russian Alliance to the outbreak of war.
3. 2010 Burj Khalifa World's tallest building opens in Dubai at 828 metres.
4. 1642 Charles I tries to arrest the Five Members The king marches into the House of Commons with four hundred swordsmen to seize five opposition MPs — and finds them already fled downriver. 'I see the birds are flown.' No monarch
5. 1894 Franco-Russian Alliance France and Russia form a defensive alliance.
6. 1948 Burmese independence Burma wins independence from Britain shortly after the assassination of its independence hero Aung San.
7. 1958 Hillary drives a tractor to the South Pole Leading the New Zealand support party of the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition, Hillary pushes on with converted farm tractors to reach the Pole — the first overland since Sc
8. 1884 Fabian Society founded A London circle of middle-class socialists sets out to reach socialism by gradual reform rather than revolution; Shaw joins within months and, with the Webbs, makes it the think-ta
9. 1960 Death of Albert Camus Camus is killed when his publisher's car hits a tree near Villeblevin; an unused train ticket is found in his pocket and an unfinished novel in his briefcase.