2 januari

General Nogi Maresuke’s army took the Russian fortress by frontal assault at a terrible cost; the key was 203 Metre Hill, taken in December, from which Japanese guns could reach the Russian fleet in the harbour. Both of Nogi’s sons died in the war.

A Viet Cong battalion in the Mekong Delta held off a South Vietnamese force several times its size, with American advisers, helicopters and armoured personnel carriers, and slipped away at night. Five helicopters were lost and three Americans killed. The adviser John Paul Vann called it a…

In Dallas County, Alabama, Black residents were a majority of the population but only about 2 percent of registered voters. SNCC had worked there since 1963; King opened the SCLC campaign at Brown Chapel AME Church, and Sheriff Jim Clark answered with mass arrests.

A month of filmed rehearsals meant to end in a live show: first on a cold sound stage at Twickenham, then, from 22 January, in the basement studio at Apple with Billy Preston on keyboards. The film became Let It Be; the tapes sat unused for a year.

Tesla’s figures confirmed it: in the last three months of 2023 BYD sold 526,409 battery-electric cars to Tesla’s 484,507.