🌟 Editor's Note
Good morning—and Happy New Year. We’re here because you read, replied, donated, and kept us honest; thank you for building FlashBack with us—now let’s kick off 2026 right. 🚀
You didn’t just read FlashBack—you helped make it; here’s to another year of stories worth saving (starting now). 🙌
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Invite your friend to join you on this daily journey — good karma. 💌
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— Fatih Taskiran, Editor
🚀 Time Machine
-45 BC
Roman dictator Julius Caesar enacted the Julian calendar, and New Year’s Day was celebrated for the first time.
-630
Prophet Muhammad led a 10-thousand-strong army to conquer Mecca.
-1758
The International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN) sets the standard for species names based on the binomial nomenclature in Systema Naturae by Carl Linnaeus.
-1818
Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, was published by 20-year-old Mary Shelley, is often regarded as the first science fiction novel.
-1835
President Andrew Jackson paid off the U.S. national debt, making it the only time in history that the debt was zero, which led to a severe financial crisis.
-1863
Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation to free slaves in Confederate states.
-1892
Ellis Island opens as a US first immigration station, welcoming more than 12 million people.
-1896
German physicist Wilhelm Röntgen announces his discovery of X-rays.
-1942
President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, along with representatives from 26 countries, signed the “United Nations” Declaration, pledging to establish an international peacekeeping organization after the war.
-1958
The European Economic Community, better known as the European Common Market, came into effect.
-1960
Johnny Cash plays his first of many free concerts behind bars at San Quentin Prison, California, to an audience of inmates.
-1999
The Euro was adopted as a single currency by 11 nations.
📸 Snapshot
Revelers celebrating New Year's Eve in Times Square in 1938
🗨️ Final Words
“Taught, half by reason, half by mere decay,
To welcome death, and calmly pass away.”