20th January 1942: Senior Nazis meet at the Wannsee Conference to discuss what was referred to as the “Final Solution to the Jewish Question”

SS-Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich called the meeting in the Berlin suburb, in which he outlined the deportation of European Jews to extermination camps in Poland where they would be systematically murdered.

27th January 1945: Auschwitz-Birkenau liberated by Soviet forces

On the 27th January 1945, Soviet soldiers from the 322nd Rifle Division liberated the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp near the Polish city of Oświęcim.

7th January 1979: Cambodian leader Pol Pot overthrown

On the 7th January 1979 Pol Pot, the Cambodian revolutionary and General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Kampuchea, was overthrown when Vietnamese forces captured the capital city Phnom Penh.