Return to home
838
Jan 4, Babak, Persian social and religious reformer,
was martyred.
(MC, 1/4/02)
871 Jan 4, Ethelred of Wessex was
defeated by Danish forces at Reading.
(PCh, 1992, p.72)
1493 Jan 4, Columbus departed La
Navidad, Hispaniola, and sailed eastward along the coast. He left
behind 38 men, all of whom were later killed in disputes with the local
Indians.
(ON, 8/09, p.2)
1493 Jan 4, Ivan III, Grand Duke
of Moscow, announced the 1st war with Lithuania. In fact the war had
begun in 1487.
(LHC, 1/4/03)
1581 Jan 4, James Ussher (d.1656),
Irish prelate and scholar, Archbishop of Armagh, was born. According to
Ussher and Dr. John Lightfoot of Cambridge, the world was created on
Oct 23, 4004BC, a Sunday, at 9 a.m.
(WUD, 1994, p.1574)(NG, Nov. 1985, edit. p.559)(HN,
10/23/98)(MC, 1/4/02)
1642 Jan 4, King Charles I
attacked the English parliament with 400 soldiers.
(MC, 1/4/02)
1643 Jan 4, (NS) Sir Isaac Newton,
scientist, was born. He developed the laws of gravity and planetary
relations [See Dec 25, 1642].
(HN,
1/4/01)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Newton)
1710 Jan 4, Giovanni Battista
Pergolesi (d.1736), Italian composer (Il Prigioniero Superbo), was born.
(MC, 1/4/02)(SFC, 6/24/02, p.B6)
1754 Jan 4, Columbia University
was founded as Kings College in NYC. [see July 7]
(MC, 1/4/02)
1757 Jan 4, Robert Francois
Damiens made an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate King Louis XV of
France.
(HN, 1/4/01)
1785 Jan 4, Jacob Ludwig Carl
Grimm, German philosopher who wrote Grimm’s Fairy Tales, was born.
(HN, 1/4/99)(MC, 1/4/02)
1786 Jan 4, Mozes Mendelssohn
(56), Jewish-German philosopher (Haksalah), died.
(MC, 1/4/02)
1790 Jan 4, President Washington
delivered the 1st "State of the Union" address.
(MC, 1/4/02)
1809 Jan 4, Louis Braille
(d.1852), inventor of a universal reading system for the blind, was
born in Coupvray, France.
(AP, 1/4/98)(HN, 1/4/99)
1813 Jan 4, Isaac Pitman, inventor
(stenographic shorthand), was born in Britain.
(MC, 1/4/02)
1821 Jan 4, Elizabeth Ann Seton,
the first native-born American saint, died in Emmitsburg, Md.
(AP, 1/4/98)
1838 Jan 4, Charles Sherwood
Stratton (d.1883), later known as the dwarf Tom Thumb, was born in
Bridgeport, Conn. In 1842, P.T. Barnum discovered Charles, who measured
25
inches
and weighed 15 pounds, only six pounds more than his birth weight.
(www.barnum-museum.org)
1843 Jan 4, Gaetano Donizetti's
opera "Don Pasquale," premiered in Paris.
(MC, 1/4/02)
1862 Jan 4, In the Romney Campaign
Stonewall Jackson occupied Bath.
(MC, 1/4/02)
1863 Jan 4, General Halleck, by
direction of President Lincoln, ordered U.S. Grant to revoke his
infamous General Order No. 11 that expelled Jews from his operational
area.
(HN, 1/4/99)
1863 Jan 4, Roller skates with 4
wheels were patented by James Plimpton of NY.
(MC, 1/4/02)
1865 Jan 4, The New York Stock
Exchange opened its first permanent headquarters at 10-12 Broad Street
near Wall Street in NYC. The Corinthian-style structure would serve the
Exchange until 1903 when more spacious quarters opened at 18 Broad
Street.
(http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/today/jan04.html)
1874 Jan 4, Josef Suk, Czech
violinist and composer (Asrael), was born.
(MC, 1/4/02)
1877 Jan 4, Cornelius Vanderbilt
(b.1794), US financier, railroad and shipping magnate, rob-ber baron,
died. His estate at $105 million was worth more than all the money in
the US Treas-ury. His value in 2007 dollars would be $143 billion. In
2007 Edward J. Renehan Jr. authored “Commodore: The Life of Cornelius
Vanderbilt.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornelius_Vanderbilt)(SFC, 5/30/98,
p.E4)(WSJ, 12/19/07, p.D9)
1881 Jan 4, The "Academic Festival
Overture" by Johannes Brahms premiered in Breslau.
(MC, 1/4/02)
1883 Jan 4, Benjamin Butler
(1818-1893) began serving as the 33rd governor of Massachu-setts and
continued until January 3, 1884.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Franklin_Butler_%28politician%29)
1885 Jan 4, Dr. William W. Grant
of Davenport, Iowa, performed what is believed to have been the first
appendectomy; the patient was 22-year-old Mary Gartside.
(AP, 1/4/00)
1890 Jan 4, Alfred G. Jodl, German
Wehrmacht general and chief of staff, was born.
(MC, 1/4/02)
1893 Jan 4, US president Cleveland
granted amnesty to Mormon polygamists.
(MC, 1/4/02)
1896 Jan 4, Utah was
admitted to the Union as the 45th state.
(AP, 1/4/98)
1902 Jan 4, The French offered to
sell their Nicaraguan Canal rights to the U.S.
(HN, 1/4/99)
1903 Jan 4, Topsy the elephant was
poisoned electrocuted in Luna Park, Coney Island, NYC. The 10-foot
elephant had killed 3 keepers over the last 2 years. Edison used the
opportunity to demonstrate the lethal potential of alternating current,
promoted by rival George Westinghouse.
(Econ, 7/26/03, p.33)(Internet)
1904 Jan 4, The US Supreme Court,
in Gonzalez v. Williams, ruled that Puerto Ricans were not aliens and
could enter the US freely; however, the court stopped short of
declaring them US citizens.
(AP, 1/4/08)
1907 Jan 4, George Bernard Shaw's
"Don Juan in Hell" scene from "Man and Superman" pre-miered in London.
(MC, 1/4/02)
1908 Jan 4, Angela Maria "Geli"
Raubal, Austrian nude model, Hitler's cousin and lover, was born.
(MC, 1/4/02)
1908 Jan 4, Antony Winkler Prins
(70), writer (Grolier Encyclopedia), died.
(MC, 1/4/02)
1910 Jan 4, Leon Walrus (b.1834),
French economist, died. In 1874 he wrote and published the first
edition of his magnum opus, the “Elements of Pure Economics.”
(http://cepa.newschool.edu/het/profiles/walras.htm)(http://tinyurl.com/pdw34)
1914 Jan 4, Jane Wyman, U.S. film
actress who was the first wife of President Ronald Reagan, was born.
(HN, 1/4/99)
1920 Jan 4, William Egan Colby,
CIA director under Nixon, was born.
(MC, 1/4/02)
1920 Jan 4, The Negro National
League, the first black baseball league, was organized by Rube Foster.
(HN, 1/4/99)
1921 Jan 4, Congress overrode
President Wilson’s veto, reactivating the War Finance Corps to aid
struggling farmers.
(HN, 1/4/99)
1923 Jan 4, The Paris Conference
on war reparations hit a deadlock as the French insisted on the hard
line and the British insisted on Reconstruction.
(HN, 1/4/99)
1934 Jan 4, President Franklin D.
Roosevelt asked Congress for $10.5 billion to fund recovery programs
over the next 18 months.
(SSFC, 1/18/09, p.D6)
1935 Jan 4, President Franklin D.
Roosevelt claimed in his State of the Union message that the federal
government would provide jobs for 3.5 million Americans on welfare.
(HN, 1/4/99)
1935 Jan 4, Ft. Jefferson National
Monument was established in Florida.
(MC, 1/4/02)
1936 Jan 4, Billboard magazine
published its first music hit parade.
(HN, 1/4/99)
1937 Jan 4, Grace Bumbry, soprano
(Venus, in "Tannhauser"), was born in St. Louis.
(MC, 1/4/02)
1939 Jan 4, Hermann Goering
appointed Reinhard Heydrich as head of Jewish Emigration.
(MC, 1/4/02)
1941 Jan 4, On the Greek-Albanian
front, the Greeks launched an attack towards Valona from Berat to
Klisura against the Italians.
(HN, 1/4/00)
1942 Jan 4, Japanese forces began
the evacuation of Guadalcanal
(HN, 1/4/00)
1944 Jan 4, The British Fifth Army
attacked Monte Cassino, Italy.
(HN, 1/4/99)
1944 Jan 4, Soviet troops crossed
the former Polish border.
(HN, 1/4/99)
1945 Jan 4, The last German
offensive in Bastogne, Belgium, failed.
(HN, 1/4/99)
1947 Jan 4, J. Danforth Quayle
(Sen-R-Ind, 44th VP 1989-93) was born. [see Feb 4]
(MC, 1/4/02)
1948 Jan 4, Britain granted
independence to Burma (later renamed to Myanmar). Aung San had arranged
for national independence on this day but was assassinated before the
event by political rivals.
(SFEC, 1/19/97, Par p.4)(AP, 1/4/98)
1951 Jan 4, During the Korean
conflict, North Korean and Communist Chinese forces cap-tured the city
of Seoul. UN forces abandoned Seoul, Korea, to the Communists.
(AP, 1/4/98)(HN, 1/4/99)
1952 Jan 4, The French Army in
Indochina launched Operation Nenuphar in hopes of ejecting a Viet Minh
division from the Ba Tai forest.
(HN, 1/4/00)
1954 Jan 4, Elvis Presley recorded
a 10 minute demo in Nashville.
(MC, 1/4/02)
1960 Jan 4, Albert Camus
(1913-1960), French writer, died in an automobile accident at age 46.
He won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1957. His work included the
play “Caligula” and a col-lection of journalistic pieces for the
clandestine newspaper Combat (1944-1947). In 1997 Oliver Todd wrote the
biography “Albert Camus.” In 1979 Herbert Lottman also wrote a
biography: “Albert Camus.” In 2006 Camus’ WW II pieces, edited by
Jacqueline Levi-Valensi, were pub-lished as ”Camus at Combat.” In 2010
Virgil Tanase authored “Albert Camus.”
(SFC, 12/25/96, p.A22)(WSJ, 12/12/97, p.A16)(AP,
1/4/98)(WSJ, 2/11/06, p.P10)(Econ, 1/9/10, p.83)
1961 Jan 4, The Danish barbers'
assistants strike ended after 33 yrs. It was the longest strike on
record.
(MC, 1/4/02)
1962 Jan 4, The 1st automated
(unmanned) subway train ran in NYC.
(MC, 1/4/02)
1965 Jan 4, President Johnson
outlined the goals of his "Great Society" in his State of the Un-ion
address. The “Great Society” was to be achieved through a vast program
that included an attack on diseases, a doubling of the war on poverty,
greater enforcement of Civil Rights Law, immigration law reform and
greater support of education.
(AP, 1/4/98)(HNQ, 9/11/99)
1965 Jan 4, T.S. Eliot, English
poet, died in London at age 76. In 1995 Anthony Julius pub-lished “T.S.
Eliot, Anti-Semitism and Literary Form.” Julius was the lawyer who won
a divorce settlement of $23 million for Princess Diana in 1996. “Little
Gidding” is an Eliot work.
(SFC, 7/17/96, p.E6)(NH, 8/96, p.57)(AP, 1/4/98)
1969 Jan 4, Spain returned the
Ifni province to Morocco.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ifni)
1974 Jan 4, President Nixon
refused to hand over tape recordings and documents subpoe-naed by the
Senate Watergate Committee.
(AP, 1/4/98)
1975 Jan 4, Pres. Ford’s signed
Executive Order No. 11828 on CIA Activities within the US. He directed
the Commission, chaired by VP Nelson A. Rockefeller, to determine
whether or not any domestic CIA activities exceeded the Agency's
statutory authority and to make appropriate recommendations.
(www.archives.gov/federal-register/executive-orders/1975.html)(http://tinyurl.com/5ukhxo)
1976 Jan 4, "Candide" closed at
Broadway Theater in NYC after 740 performances.
(www.sondheim.org/php/news.php?id=1675)
1978 Jan 4, Said Hammami, the PLO
representative in London, was assassinated. It was ini-tially believed
to be the work of Abu Nidal but was later reported to have been
organized by Yasser Arafat.
(WSJ, 1/10/02,
p.A12)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_attacks_attributed_to_Abu_Nidal)
1978 Jan 4, Chile’s Gen. Pinochet
held a National Consultation, "in defense of the dignity of Chile,"
which took place one week after it was first announced, on December 27.
(www.chipsites.com/derechos/1978_eng.html)
1979 Jan 4, Ohio officials
approved an out-of-court settlement awarding $675,000 to the vic-tims
and families in the 1970 shootings at Kent State University, in which
four students were killed and nine wounded by National Guard troops.
(HN,
1/4/99)(http://members.aol.com/nrbooks/chronol.htm)
1979 Jan 4, Charles Mingus (56),
the most accomplished bassist in jazz history, died of Lou Gehrig’s
disease. In 1999 the film "Charles Mingus: Triumph of the Underdog" was
written and directed by Don McGlynn. In 2000 Gene Santoro authored
“Myself when I Am Real: the Life and Music of Charles Mingus.”
(WSJ, 4/18/97, p.A16)(SFC, 4/27/98, p.E3)(SFC,
5/21/99, p.C3)(SFEC, 8/20/00, BR p.9)(WSJ, 8/22/00, p.A24)(MC, 1/4/02)
1986 Jan 4, Christopher Isherwood,
British born author, died of prostate cancer in Santa Monica, Ca. He
was best know for his 1935 semi-autobiographical "The Berlin Stories,"
which was the basis for the 1966 musical Cabaret and made into a 1972
film. His life-partner was painter Don Bachardy. His "Diaries: Volume
II, 1939-1960" were published in 1997. In 2005 Pe-ter Parker authored
“Isherwood: A Life Revealed.”
(www.booksfactory.com/writers/isherwood.htm)(SFC,
1/16/97, p.E3)(SFC, 5/11/99, p.B6)
1987 Jan 4, An Amtrak train bound
from Washington to Boston collided with Conrail engines approaching
from a side track in Chase, Md., and 16 people were killed.
(AP, 1/4/98)
1988 Jan 4, Drinking water began
to dry up in Pittsburgh suburbs because of a massive die-sel oil spill
two days earlier that fouled the Monongahela and Ohio rivers.
(AP, 1/4/98)
1989 Jan 4, US Navy F-14s shot
down 2 Libyan jet fighters over Mediterranean.
(www.history.navy.mil/wars/foabroad.htm)
1990 Jan 4, Charles Stuart, who
had claimed a gunman had killed his pregnant wife and wounded him,
leaped to his death from a Boston Harbor bridge after he became a
suspect.
(AP, 1/4/00)
1990 Jan 4, Deposed Panamanian
leader Manuel Noriega was arraigned in federal district court in Miami
on drug-trafficking charges.
(AP, 1/4/00)
1990 Jan 4, In Sindh Province,
Pakistan, an overcrowded 16-car passenger train collided with standing
freight train and more than 210 people were killed.
(SFC, 6/4/98, p.A15)(AP, 2/18/04)
1991 Jan 4, With a week and a-half
left before a U-N deadline for Iraq to withdraw from Ku-wait, Iraq
agreed to hold its first high-level talks with the United States since
the start of the Persian Gulf crisis.
(AP, 1/4/01)
1992 Jan 4, President Bush,
visiting Singapore as part of a Pacific trade tour, announced plans to
shift to Singapore the Navy logistics command that was being evicted
from the Philip-pines.
(AP, 1/4/02)
1993 Jan 4, President-elect
Clinton spoke by telephone with Russian President Boris Yeltsin about
the newly signed START II treaty; Clinton pledged to do all he could to
get early ratifica-tion.
(AP, 1/4/98)
1993 Jan 4, Junk bond king Michael
Milken was released from jail after 22 months.
(www.nybooks.com/articles/article-preview?article_id=2223)
1994 Jan 4, Treasury Secretary
Lloyd Bentsen announced a plan to drive most gun dealers out of
business by proposing sharp increases in the licensing fee and stricter
controls on people who buy and sell weapons.
(AP, 1/4/04)
1995 Jan 4, The 104th Congress
convened, the first entirely under Republican control since the
Eisenhower era; Newt Gingrich was elected speaker of the House.
(SFC, 11/7/98, p.A4)(AP, 1/4/00)
1995 Jan 4, Eduardo Mata (52),
Mexican conductor, died in air crash.
(www.imdb.com/name/nm0557996/)
1996 Jan 4, Bowing to pressure
from NATO and the United States, Bosnian Serbs freed 16 civilians who
had entered Serb-held territory after NATO forces had declared roads in
Bosnia open to all.
(AP, 1/4/01)
1996 Jan 4, The Boeing Sikorsky
Comanche helicopter was unveiled.
(NPub, 2002, p.26)
1996 Jan 4, Ramon Vinay (83),
operatic tenor, baritone, died.
(www.grandi-tenori.com/tenors/vinay.php)
1997 Jan 4, President Clinton, in
his weekly radio address, took credit for policies reducing teen-age
pregnancy and said he would work for even greater reductions over the
next four years.
(AP, 1/4/98)
1997 Jan 4, Harry Helmsley (87),
self-made billionaire and husband to Leona, died in Scotts-dale, Ariz.
His vast real estate holdings included the Empire State Building. His
entire $1.7 bil-lion estate was left to his wife except for $25k left
to a longtime secretary.
(SFC,1/6/97, p.A17)(WSJ, 1/3/97, p.A1)(SFC, 1/10/97,
p.A3)(AP, 1/4/98)
1997 Jan 4, In Argentina thieves
tunneled into a Buenos Aires bank and robbed as much as $25 million.
(SFC, 1/16/97, p.A12)
1997 Jan 4, In Brazil some 54
people were killed during 4 days of torrential rain in the
south-eastern state of Minas Gerais.
(SFEC, 1/5/97, p.A13)
1997 Jan 4, Czech President Vaclav
Havel married his girlfriend Dagmar Veskrnova, less than a year after
the death of his first wife Olga Havlova.
(SFEC, 7/6/97, p.B4)
1997 Jan 4, In New Zealand during
the week Cyclone Fergus, the worst to hit in 8 years, pro-duced heavy
rains and wind damage along the northern coast.
(SFC, 1/4/97, p.A19)
1998 Jan 4, The History of the
Future Museum, a part of the Star Trek: The Experience, a $70 million
attraction, was scheduled to open at the Las Vegas Hilton.
(SFEC,12/28/97, Par p.18)
1998 Jan 4, Actress Mae Questel
(89), who had supplied the voices of cartoon characters Betty Boop and
Olive Oyl, died in New York.
(AP, 1/4/08)
1998 Jan 4, In Canada Nirmal Singh
Gill (65) was found beaten and bleeding in the parking lot of a Sikh
temple in Surrey near Vancouver. He soon died. 5 young men linked to a
white su-premacist group, White Power, were later jailed on
charges of murder.
(SFC, 4/23/98, p.A16)
1998 Jan 4, In Israel David Levy,
the foreign minister, resigned. He denounced Netanyahu’s government for
abandoning the peace process and not addressing problems with the poor
and unemployed.
(SFC, 1/5/98, p.A1)
1999 Jan 4, The US stance towards
Cuba was reported to be easing following the completed report by the
Council on Foreign Relations. It was proposed to restore mail service,
increase flights, permit food sales to non-government entities, and
allow more Americans to send money.
(SFC, 1/5/99, p.A1)(WSJ, 1/5/99, p.A1)
1999 Jan 4, The US mint began
distributing a new series of commemorative state quarters. The first
one from Delaware marked the 1776 ride of Caesar Rodney from Dover to
Philadel-phia to vote for the Declaration of Independence. Rep. Michael
Castle of Delaware dreamed up the program in 1996.
(SFC, 1/5/99, p.A2)(WSJ, 12/29/03, p.A4)
1999 Jan 4, Former professional
wrestler Jesse Ventura was sworn in as Minnesota's 37th governor.
(AP, 1/4/00)
1999 Jan 4, Elizabeth Dole quit as
the head of the American Red Cross and it was speculated that she might
run as the Republican candidate for president.
(SFC, 1/5/99, p.A2)
1999 Jan 4, In Nevada a sniper hit
at least 4 vehicles on I-80 between Reno and the Califor-nia border.
Police arrested Christopher Lee Merritt (20) of Mankato, Minn., who
hoped to rob the drivers after they crashed. Merritt pleaded guilty in
1999.
(SFC, 1/5/99, p.A3)(SFC, 1/6/99, p.A2)(SFC, 11/6/99,
p.A6)
1999 Jan 4, The euro, the new
money of 11 European nations, got off to a strong start on its first
trading day, rising against the dollar on world currency markets and
closed in New York at $1.181. A founding principal of the euro area
held that national central banks be independent of their governments.
(SFC, 1/5/99, p.C2)(AP, 1/4/00)(HN, 1/4/01)(Econ,
2/25/06, p.77)
1999 Jan 4, In Angola UNITA rebels
denied shooting down 2 UN planes and claimed that there were no
survivors.
(WSJ, 1/5/99, p.A1)
1999 Jan 4, A footbridge in
Chongqing, China, collapsed and killed 40 people. A week later another
bridge in Fujian province collapsed and killed 7. Bridge officials were
arrested on suspi-cion of graft or using shoddy materials. A Party
official in Chongqing was later convicted of tak-ing bribes and
sentenced to death.
(SFC, 3/2/99, p.D1)(WSJ, 4/5/99, p.A1)
1999 Jan 4, Chevron received word
of an attack on its Searrex oil rig. Soldiers dispatched to the rig
allegedly fired on Opia village from a helicopter and 2 villagers were
killed. 2 more villag-ers were killed a short time later at Ikenyan. A
day later Chevron was invoiced $109.25 for the services of the soldiers.
(SFC, 8/4/05, p.A4)
1999 Jan 4, In Sha Jamal,
Pakistan, in the eastern Punjab gunmen on motorcycle opened fire on
Shiite Muslim worshipers and killed 16 people and wounded at least 25.
(SFC, 1/4/99, p.A22)(SFC, 1/5/99, p.A8)
1999 Jan 4, In Sierra Leone
Nigerian troops repelled a rebel attack on Freetown's airport. Gambia
and Mali agreed to send troops to join the Nigerian forces.
(WSJ, 1/5/99, p.A1)
2000 Jan 4, Former presidential
rival Elizabeth Dole endorsed fellow Republican George W. Bush.
(AP, 1/4/01)
2000 Jan 4, In China the State
Development Planning Commission announced that private enterprise
should be put on "equal footing with state-owned enterprises."
(SFC, 1/5/00, p.A6)
2000 Jan 4, In Colombia Red Cross
work shut down after peasant refugees took 40 hostages in Bogota and
demanded homes.
(WSJ, 1/5/00, p.A1)
2000 Jan 4, In Indonesia at least
17 people were killed when troops opened fire on Christian and Muslim
mobs on Seram Island in Maluku province. Thousands of people fled
violence and poured into Ternate, the capital of North Maluku. Refugees
claimed that hundreds of people died in fighting over 2 days.
(SFC, 1/5/00, p.A6)(SFC, 1/7/00, p.D3)
2000 Jan 4, Israel and Palestine
agreed on an Israeli troop pullback and the transfer of an additional
5% of West Bank land.
(SFC, 1/5/00, p.A6)(AP, 1/4/01)
2000 Jan 4, In Srinagar, Kashmir,
13 people and a horse were blown up in an explosion set by insurgents
in a vegetable market used by Indian troops.
(SFC, 1/22/00, p.A10)
2000 Jan 4, In Namibia gunmen
attacked a family of French tourists, killed 3 children and wounded the
parents. Unita rebels were blamed.
(WSJ, 1/5/00, p.A1)
2000 Jan 4, In Norway 2 passenger
trains collided 110 miles north of Oslo. At least 20 people were
believed to have died.
(WSJ, 1/5/00, p.A1)(SFC, 1/6/00, p.A10)
2000 Jan 4, In Colombo, Sri Lanka,
a suicide bomber set off explosives strapped to her body and killed
herself and 19 [12] others near the prime minister's office. A Tamil
politician was shot dead by motorcycle assassin nearby.
(SFC, 1/5/00, p.A8)(WSJ, 1/6/00, p.A1)
2001 Jan 4, It was announced that
George, the politics and lifestyle magazine founded by the late John F.
Kennedy Jr., would fold.
(AP, 1/4/02)
2001 Jan 4, California state
regulators approved raising electricity rates by an average 10% as
state utilities stood near bankruptcy.
(SFC, 1/5/01, p.A1)
2001 Jan 4, Orchestra leader Les
Brown, known for his “Band of Renown,” died at age 88.
(AP, 1/4/02)
2001 cJan 4, In Colombia a
right-wing death squad killed 11 people in a northeast town.
(WSJ, 1/05/01, p.A1)
2001 Jan 4, India test flew its
1st locally developed jet fighter.
(WSJ, 1/05/01, p.A1)
2001 Jan 4, In Indonesia rival
villages clashed on Lombok and 9 people were killed. 7 others were
killed in fighting between rival villages in North Sulawesi.
(SFC, 1/5/01, p.D2)(WSJ, 1/05/01, p.A1)
2001 Jan 4, It was reported that
Russia had moved nuclear warheads into storage areas at its Kaliningrad
naval base over the past year. Russia called the charges a dangerous
joke.
(SFC, 1/4/01, p.A8)(SFC, 1/5/01, p.A20)
2001 Jan 4, In Sri Lanka the
defense ministry announced that the civil war left 3,753 people dead in
2000, including 87 civilians.
(SFC, 1/5/01, p.D2)
2002 Jan 4, The US Postal Service
announced an increase in 1st class stamps to 37 cents from 34 to take
place June 30.
(SFC, 1/5/02, p.A3)
2002 Jan 4, A WSJ editorial by
former US Army officer Ralph Peters blamed Saudi Arabia as the source
of fundamentalist terrorism. “We must be prepared to seize the Saudi
oil fields and administer them for the greater good.”
(WSJ, 1/4/02, p.A12)
2002 Jan 4, Florida coach Steve
Spurrier resigned to pursue an NFL job, two days after lead-ing the
Gators to victory over Maryland in the Orange Bowl.
(AP, 1/4/07)
2002 Jan 4, The WSJ quoted Ali K.
Shukri, retired Jordanian general: a strike on Iraq “is not a question
of whether it’s going to happen, but when—and it is coming.” Action in
the spring was suggested.
(WSJ, 1/4/02, p.A6)
2002 Jan 4, George and Marisol
Gari, members of the Wasp network Cuban spy ring, were sentenced in
Florida to 7 and 3.5 years.
(SFC, 1/5/02, p.A6)
2002 Jan 4, US Army Special Forces
Sgt. Ross Chapman (31) was killed by enemy fire near Khost,
Afghanistan. He became the 1st US soldier to die there by enemy fire.
(SFC, 1/5/02, p.A1)
2002 Jan 4, Antonio Todde, an
Italian shepherd listed by Guinness as the world’s oldest man, died
just shy of his 113th birthday. “Just love your brother and drink a
good glass of red wine every day.”
(SFC, 1/5/02, p.A22)
2002 Jan 4, In Argentina Pres.
Duhalde acknowledged that the nation will devalue the peso.
(SFC, 1/5/02, p.A6)
2002 Jan 4, In England a
twin-engine Bombardier Challenger plane crashed at Birmingham
International Airport. Pilots Thomas Boydston (51) Robert Norton (58)
and Timothy Vandevort (41) were killed along with John Shumejda (56)
the president and chief executive of agricultural giant AGCO, and Ed
Swingle (60), the company's senior VP for sales and marketing. A 2004
report said that the crash was caused by the crew's failure to de-ice
the wings before takeoff.
(AP, 8/19/04)
2002 Jan 4, India reported the
death of 15 soldiers and a number of civilians near Amritsar due to the
mishandling of an ammunition filled truck.
(SSFC, 1/13/02, p.A18)
2002 Jan 4, Pakistan continued to
round up alleged militants. Some 200 were said to have been arrested in
the last 10 days. Key leaders of Lashkar-e-Tayyaba and Jaish-e-Mohammed
were among the detained. Pakistan also handed over senior al Qaeda
trainer al-Shaykh al-Libi to the US military.
(SFC, 1/5/02, p.A3,15)
2002 Jan 4, Dolly the 1996
Scotland-born cloned sheep, was reported to be suffering from
arthritis, a sign of premature aging.
(SFEC, 2/23/96, p.C1)(SFC, 1/5/02, p.A2)
2002 Jan 4, Russia announced that
it would reduce its military by over 15%.
(SFC, 1/5/02, p.A6)
2002 Jan 4, South Asian leaders
began a 2-day meeting in Nepal.
(SFC, 1/4/02, p.A3)
2002 Jan 4, It was reported that
$54 million in short term food aid was needed to ward off widespread
starvation in Zimbabwe. The AIDS epidemic, called “Nkondombera” (a
Shona word for “no condom”) was claiming over 2,000 people per week.
Inflation was running at over 100% per month. Unemployment was
estimated at 50%.
(SFC, 1/5/02, p.A5)
2003 Jan 4, Pres. Bush said he
will ask Congress to boost federal education aid for poor chil-dren by
$1 billion. As Bush put the finishing touches on an economic growth
package costing $674 billion over 10 years, Democrats who wanted his
job, pledged to scuttle what they charac-terized as a plan that would
help the wealthy without reviving the economy.
(AP, 1/4/03)(AP, 1/4/04)
2003 Jan 4, Clonaid, the company
that claims to have produced the first human clone, said a second child
was born to a Dutch lesbian Jan 3.
(AP, 1/5/03)(SSFC, 1/5/03,
p.A22)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clonaid)
2003 Jan 4, Conrad L. Hall (76),
Oscar-winning cinematographer, died in Santa Monica, Calif.
(AP, 1/4/04)
2003 Jan 4, In Algeria Islamic
militants (GSPC) ambushed a military convoy in the northeast village of
Theniet el-Abed. 43 soldiers were killed and 19 wounded.
(AP, 1/5/03)
2003 Jan 4, In southern Iran a bus
carrying university students overturned on a rain-slick road, killing
15 people and injuring 18 others.
(AP, 1/5/03)
2003 Jan 4, Ivory Coast's main
rebel movement agreed to respect an oft-violated cease-fire and to
resume peace talks with the government later this month in Paris.
(AP, 1/4/03)
2003 Jan 4, A boat from Somalia to
Yemen developed engine trouble and capsized and at least 80 people were
feared dead.
(AP, 1/16/03)
2004 Jan 4, Louisiana State
University won college football's Sugar Bowl, defeating Okla-homa 21-14.
(AP, 1/4/05)
2004 Jan 4, In Iowa, seven of the
nine Democratic presidential hopefuls participated in a fei-sty, first
debate of the election year.
(AP, 1/4/05)
2004 Jan 4, Michael Straight (87),
former US State Dept employee (1938) and later editor of the new
Republic, died. In 1983 he authored "After Long Silence." He had passed
reports to the Russians in 1938.
(Econ, 1/17/04, p.76)
2004 Jan 4, John Toland (91),
historian, died in Danbury, Conn. His books included "The Ris-ing Sun"
(1971), an account of Japan from 1936-1945, and "Adolph Hitler: The
Definitive Biog-raphy" (1976).
(SFC, 1/6/04, p.A19)y
2004 Jan 4, Rival Afghan
factions agreed to a new national constitution. 502 delegates ac-cepted
a system with a strong president and a weaker parliament.
(AP, 1/4/04)(SFC, 1/5/04, p.A1)
2004 Jan 4, In Denmark residents
who openly bought and sold hashish at a famous hippie enclave in
Copenhagen abruptly demolished their booths, trying to head off a
Danish govern-ment crackdown on illegal drug sales.
(AP, 1/4/04)
2004 Jan 4, The former Soviet
republic of Georgia voted for a successor to President Eduard
Shevardnadze. Mikhail Saakashvili, Georgia's young firebrand opposition
leader, declared him-self the victor in presidential elections with
some 85% of the vote.
(AP, 1/5/04)(SFC, 1/5/04, p.A3)
2004 Jan 4, Israeli Prime Minister
Ariel Sharon issued an order to dismantle two West Bank settlement
outposts.
(AP, 1/4/04)
2004 Jan 4, In the southern
Philippines a bomb exploded at a packed basketball game, killing 11
people and wounding at least 68 including Parang Mayor Vivencio Bataga,
who was the likely target of the attack.
(AP, 1/4/04)(SFC, 1/5/04, p.A3)
2004 Jan 4, South Korean
prosecutors, investigating corruption in the bidding on government
contracts by an affiliate of IBM Corp., indicted 48 government and
company officials.
(AP, 1/4/04)
2004 Jan 4, In southern Thailand
assailants set fire to 18 schools and stormed a military ar-mory,
killing four soldiers in nearly simultaneous raids.
(AP, 1/4/04)
2005 Jan 4, The 109th US Congress
convened and took up tsunami aid. The Republican edge was 55 to 45.
(WSJ, 1/5/05, p.A1)
2005 Jan 4, In the Orange Bowl #1
Southern California overwhelmed #2 Oklahoma 55-19.
(AP, 1/4/06)
2005 Jan 4, Wade Boggs was elected
to the Baseball Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibil-ity, and
Ryne Sandberg made it with just six votes to spare on his third try.
(AP, 1/4/06)
2005 Jan 4, Kelbessa Negewo (54),
an Ethiopian immigrant suspected of torturing and mur-dering more than
a dozen political opponents of the Ethiopian government in the 1970s,
was ar-rested at his home near Atlanta. Negewo has lived in the US
since fleeing Ethiopia in 1987.
(Reuters, 1/4/05)
2005 Jan 4, Robert Heilbroner
(b.1919), author of the 1953 economics classic “Worldly Phi-losophers,”
died.
(WSJ, 1/11/05, p.A1)
2005 Jan 4, Cuban Foreign Minister
Felipe Perez Roque said the island nation was renewing contacts with
France, Britain, Germany, Italy, Austria, Greece, Portugal and Sweden
after an EU panel recommended that member states stop inviting
dissidents to their National Day cele-brations at their embassies in
Havana.
(AP, 1/4/05)
2005 Jan 4, Diplomats said the
U.N. atomic watchdog agency has found evidence of secret nuclear
experiments in Egypt that could be used in weapons programs.
(AP, 1/4/05)
2005 Jan 4, Doctors at Haiti's
largest public hospital extended a weeklong strike to protest overdue
paychecks.
(AP, 1/4/05)
2005 Jan 4, Insurgents
assassinated the highest-ranking Iraqi official in eight months,
gun-ning down the governor of Baghdad province and six of his
bodyguards. A suicide truck bomber killed 10 people at an Interior
Ministry commando headquarters. 5 US soldiers were killed in as-saults
elsewhere.
(AP, 1/4/05)(WSJ, 1/5/05, p.A1)
2005 Jan 4, Two Israeli tank
shells slammed into a field in response to Palestinian mortar fire,
killing seven Palestinians youths working in a strawberry field.
(AP, 1/4/05)(SFC, 1/4/05, p.A3)
2005 Jan 4, In Peru the leader of
an armed nationalist group that seized a remote police sta-tion, took
10 officers hostage and allegedly killed four others was detained while
most of his 125 followers were rounded up.
(AP, 1/4/05)
2005 Jan 4, Polish PM Marek Belka
arrived in Tripoli for a two-day visit that will include talks on
cooperation in the oil sector and a meeting with Libyan leader Moamer
Kadhafi.
(AFP, 1/5/05)
2005 Jan 4, Portugal’s national
meteorology office said many regions, including the south-ernmost
province of Algarve, the country's main tourism center, are facing
their worst drought in over a decade.
(AP, 1/5/05)
2005 Jan 4, Venezuela's
left-leaning government promised to grant poor farmers at least 100,000
plots of land carved from either state property or large private
holdings, a step toward implementing a controversial agrarian reform
law.
(AP, 1/4/05)
2006 Jan 4, The US Supreme Court
allowed federal prosecutors to take custody of “enemy combatant” Jose
Padilla so he could face criminal charges.
(SFC, 1/5/06, p.A5)
2006 Jan 4, A US federal appeals
court in Atlanta reinstated a $54.6 million verdict against two retired
Salvadoran generals, Carlos Eugenio Vides Casanova (67), and Jose
Guillermo Garcia (72), accused of torture during the civil war
(1980-1992) in their home country.
(AP, 1/8/06)
2006 Jan 4, The Univ. of Texas
Longhorns scored a 41-38 win over Southern California in the Rose Bowl.
Official tickets sold for $175 and resellers on the internet hawked
them for as much as $3000.
(AP, 1/5/06)(Econ, 1/7/06, p.58)
2006 Jan 4, In a triple-overtime
game that began Jan. 3 and finished after midnight, No. 3 Penn State
beat No. 22 Florida State 26-23 in the Orange Bowl.
(AP, 1/4/07)
2006 Jan 4, Scientists said
protected ocean areas are needed to save deep-sea fish which have been
driven to near extinction by commercial fishing.
(Reuters, 1/4/06)
2006 Jan 4, Chad's President
Idriss Deby urged the UN to take control of Sudan's volatile Darfur
region because he said Khartoum was using the conflict there to
destabilize neighboring states.
(Reuters, 1/4/06)
2006 Jan 4, In China’s central
province of Hunan a mismanaged silt clean-up project allowed the
industrial chemical cadmium, which can cause neurological disorders and
cancer, to flood out of a smelting works and into the Xiangjiang River.
(AFP, 1/8/06)
2006 Jan 4, Two Egyptian guards
were shot dead at the border with Gaza after armed Pales-tinians made a
hole in the border wall. Palestinian militants angry at the jailing of
their leader stole two bulldozers and smashed through the border wall
between Gaza and Egypt.
(AP, 1/4/06)
2006 Jan 4, French Interior
Minister Nicolas Sarkozy said France will create a special police force
to ensure security for railway passengers after a band of marauding
youths robbed and sexually assaulted train travelers Jan 1 in southeast
France.
(AP, 1/4/06)
2006 Jan 4, In Indonesia
landslides triggered by heavy rains swept down on a village on Java
island, burying homes beneath tons of mud and leaving dozens of people
missing and feared dead. The number of dead or missing from days of wet
weather rose to over 200.
(AP, 1/5/06)
2006 Jan 4, An Iraqi Interior
Ministry official said more than 7,000 Iraqis, most of them civil-ians,
were killed in violence in 2005, the first year that Iraqi officials
have kept such records.
(AP, 1/4/06)
2006 Jan 4, In Iraq a suicide
bomber killed 32 mourners and wounded dozens at a funeral for the
nephew of a Shiite politician, one of several attacks across the
country that killed a total of 53 people.
(AP, 1/4/06)
2006 Jan 4, Israel’s PM Ariel
Sharon was rushed to an operating room to staunch a brain hemorrhage;
his official powers were transferred to his deputy, Ehud Olmert.
(WSJ, 1/5/06, p.A1)(AP, 1/4/07)
2006 Jan 4, The world’s largest
bank, the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ (MUFG), opened for business with
$1.6 trillion in assets.
(Econ, 1/7/06, p.64)
2006 Jan 4, The Russian and
Ukrainian natural gas companies agreed on a plan to resume gas
shipments to Ukraine that allowed both sides to claim victory after a
commercial and politi-cal dispute that had raised fears of gas
shortages in Europe.
(AP, 1/4/06)
2006 Jan 4, In Tanzania rocks and
boulders tumbled down Mount Kilimanjaro and crashed into tents where
tourists were sleeping, killing 3 American climbers and seriously
injuring 2.
(AP, 1/5/06)
2006 Jan 4, Sheik Maktoum bin
Rashid Al Maktoum (62), the emir of Dubai and prominent owner and
breeder of thoroughbred horses, died during a visit to Australia.
(AP, 1/4/06)
2006 Jan 4, Intel asked the
Vietnamese government for a license to build a chip plant worth 605
million dollars in southern Ho Chi Minh City. Regulators approved the
plans in February.
(AFP, 1/5/06)(WSJ, 2/24/06, p.A6)
2007 Jan 4, The 110th Congress
convened with Democrats in control of both the House and Senate for the
first time in a dozen years. "Today we make history. Today we change
the direc-tion of our country," exulted Rep. Nancy Pelosi, poised to
become the first woman speaker in history. The House of
Representatives, after installing its new Democratic leadership, voted
to ban lawmakers from flying on corporate jets and accepting gifts and
meals from lobbyists. Keith Ellison of Minnesota's 5th District became
the first Muslim member of Congress.
(AP, 1/4/07)(AP, 1/4/08)
2007 Jan 4, The US Federal Trade
Commission fined the marketers of four weight loss pills $25 million
for making false advertising claims ranging from rapid weight loss to
reducing the risk of cancer.
(AP, 1/4/07)
2007 Jan 4, Harriet Miers resigned
as White House counsel.
(AP, 1/4/08)
2007 Jan 4, Vincent Sardi Jr.
(91), owner of Sardi's restaurant, the legendary Broadway wa-tering
hole, died in Berlin, Vt.
(AP, 1/4/08)
2007 Jan 4, NATO and Afghan forces
fought a three-hour ground battle with suspected Tali-ban militants in
southern Afghan mountains, killing 15 of them. 3 suspected Taliban died
when a land mine they were planting on a highway in Grieshk district
exploded prematurely.
(AP, 1/5/07)
2007 Jan 4, US officials said
Colombia has extradited to the US a police officer and a former
policeman charged with helping smuggle more than 2 tons of cocaine into
the US on cargo flights in 2005 and 2006.
(AP, 1/4/07)
2007 Jan 4, Pieces of a spent
Russian rocket reentered the atmosphere over Colorado and Wyoming,
showering parts of the western United States with space debris.
(Reuters, 1/5/07)
2007 Jan 4, John W. Simpson
(1914-2007), former president of Westinghouse (1969-1977), died. He had
worked with Adm. Rickover to create a nuclear US Navy.
(WSJ, 1/20/07, p.A5)
2007 Jan 4, Victor Ramirez (27), a
day laborer from El Salvador, was gunned down by 2 black teenagers in
Richmond, Ca. Ramirez was taken off life support after 2 weeks and died
Jan 19.
(SFC, 1/30/07, p.A1)
2007 Jan 4, Overshadowed by an
Israeli raid into the Palestinian territories, a summit be-tween Israel
and Egypt achieved little in reviving the long-stalled Mideast peace
process, high-lighting instead the disagreements between Israel and its
Arab neighbors.
(AP, 1/5/07)
2007 Jan 4, Two car bombs exploded
near a fuel station, killing 13 people and wounding 25 amid a relative
downturn in violence in Baghdad during an Islamic holiday that ended
this week.
(AP, 1/4/07)
2007 Jan 4, Israeli troops and
Palestinian gunmen exchanged heavy fire in downtown Ramal-lah after
undercover Israeli forces tried to arrest fugitives in the city's
vegetable market. Four Palestinians were killed and 20 wounded. Pres.
Abbas demanded $5 million in compensation for the damage to shops and
cars in Ramallah. Fatah Col. Mohammed Ghayeb and six of his bodyguards
were killed in factional fighting in the Gaza Strip.
(AP, 1/4/07)(AP, 1/5/07)
2007 Jan 4, Musir Salem Jawher
(28) from Bahrain won the 30th International Tiberias Mara-thon, around
the Sea of Galilee. The Kenyan runner (Leonard Mucheru), adopted by
Bahrain 4 years earlier, faced anger from Bahrain for running in an
Israeli marathon.
(WSJ, 4/16/07, p.A1)(www.tiberias-marathon.co.il/en/)
2007 Jan 4, Kenya said it has
closed its border with Somalia in an apparent effort to keep Is-lamic
militants and refugees from entering the country.
(AP, 1/4/07)
2007 Jan 4, Jorge Bajos Valverde,
a Mexican state legislator, was gunned down in the center of Acapulco
on his way to an interview at a radio and TV station.
(AP, 1/5/07)
2007 Jan 4, Nigeria’s President
Olusegun Obasanjo said Nigeria has repaid 1.4 billion dollars (1.12
billion euros) to the so-called London Club of private creditors and
that the rest of the debt will be cleared by March. At least 3 people
were killed in violent clashes between farmers and nomads in the
northwestern state of Zamfara. A 4th died in hospital the next day.
(AFP, 1/4/07)(AFP, 1/6/07)
2007 Jan 4, Authorities lifted a
ban on kite-flying in Pakistan’s Punjab province after the sport was
forbidden last year following a series of deaths caused by glass-coated
or metal reinforced kite strings. The ban was lifted ahead of Basant,
Feb 25, an annual festival that heralds spring.
(AP, 1/4/07)
2007 Jan 4, Polish newspapers
reported that Stanislaw Wielgus (67), who is poised to be sworn in as
archbishop of Warsaw, was a "secret and conscious" collaborator with
Poland's hated communist-era security forces from 1973-1978.
(AFP, 1/4/07)
2007 Jan 4, A Somali government
spokesman said government troops, backed by Ethiopian soldiers, were
fighting about 600 Islamic militiamen in the south.
(AP, 1/4/07)
2007 Jan 4, Marais Viljoen (91),
former president of South Africa (1979-1984), died. The post of
president in the then apartheid state was largely ceremonial during his
term.
(AP, 1/5/07)
2007 Jan 4, Police in the Basque
region said they had found a bomb in northern Spain, five days after a
Madrid car bombing, blamed on the separatist group ETA, killed 2 people.
(AP, 1/4/07)(AP, 1/6/07)
2007 Jan 4, Sudan described the
alleged sexual abuse of children by UN peacekeepers in south Sudan as
"outrageous" and said it would launch its own investigation into the
affair.
(AP, 1/4/07)
2007 Jan 4, In Uzbekistan Elena
Urlayeva, a prominent human rights advocate, was attacked and beaten by
a group of women she said were sent by police. Urlayeva has accused the
tightly controlled ex-Soviet state of abuse and torture.
(AP, 1/5/07)
2008 Jan 4, The US Labor
Department said hiring practically stalled in December, driving the
nation's unemployment rate up to a two-year high of 5 percent and
fanning fears of a recession. The DJIA fell 256.54 to 12800.18.
(AP, 1/4/08)(WSJ, 1/5/08, p.A1)
2008 Jan 4, Flights were grounded
and trucks overturned in Northern California as wind gusted to 80 mph
during the second wave of the arctic storm that has sent trees crashing
onto houses, cars and roads. Hundreds of thousands of customers lost
power from central California into Oregon and Washington. An estimated
1.9-2.1 million PG&E customers lost power.
(AP, 1/5/08)(SFC, 1/8/08, p.A1)
2008 Jan 4, In Texas Jana Shearer
(21), the girlfriend of Christopher Lee McCuin (25), was taken by
McCuin from her home and killed. McCuin was arrested Jan 5 after police
found that he had cooked parts of her body and may have tried to eat
them. On Dec 7 McCuin was found dead in his jail cell.
(AP, 1/7/08)(AP, 12/8/08)
2008 Jan 4, In Oakland, Ca.,
Jessica Birden (19) died from wounds suffered on Jan 1, when she was
found unconscious on a trail in the King Estates Recreation Area in the
Oakland Hills. On Jan 8 Kenneth Jovan Washington, a man suspected in
her assault and that of others in the Bay Area, was charged with her
murder and another attack on Dec 24.
(SFC, 1/8/08, p.B3)(SFC, 1/9/08, p.B3)
2008 Jan 4, Mort Garson (b.1983),
Canadian-born composer and arranger, died in SF. He co-wrote the 1963
hit “Our Day Will Come,” performed by Ruby and the Romantics. He also
fused the Moog synthesizer with orchestral music and composed music
that was used by CBS-TV in 1969 in film footage of NASA spaceflights as
Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon.
(SFC, 1/16/08, p.B9)
2008 Jan 4, In Afghanistan’s
Uruzgan province a clash between NATO troops and Taliban insurgents
near Tirin Kot, the provincial capital, left two civilians dead and
five others wounded.
(AP, 1/7/08)
2008 Jan 4, Young men stormed the
streets of Guinea, hurling rocks and setting tires ablaze as labor
unions called for a strike, threatening to throw the African nation
into gridlock.
(AP, 1/5/08)
2008 Jan 4, P. Chidambaram,
India’s finance minister, urged state-run banks to reduce lend-ing
rates by half a percentage point to spur consumption and investment as
signs emerge of a slowdown in consumer spending. Police arrested 14 men
for allegedly harassing two women outside a five-star hotel in Mumbai
during New Year's celebrations, a case that drew wide-spread criticism
after police initially refused to pursue it.
(AP, 1/4/08)(AFP, 1/5/08)
2008 Jan 4, Israeli troops on a
night mission in the Gaza Strip killed two Hamas gunmen in the early
hours as Israel responded to Palestinian rocket fire with strikes
against militants that left 11 dead in 24 hours.
(AP, 1/4/08)
2008 Jan 4, Kenya's opposition
called for a new presidential election to settle a dispute that has
sparked deadly riots from the capital to the coast, but a government
spokesman said a new vote could come on only on orders from the highest
court. The World Food Program warned that 100,000 people faced
starvation in western Kenya.
(AP, 1/4/08)(SFC, 1/5/08, p.A3)
2008 Jan 4, Kosovo's legislators
were sworn in at the first session of a new parliament that is widely
expected to declare independence from Serbia early this year.
(AP, 1/4/08)
2008 Jan 4, A Moroccan court
sentenced 51 Islamists of the Ansar El Mahdi group to be-tween two and
25 years in jail for plotting to overthrow the government here and
install an Islamist regime.
(AFP, 1/4/08)
2008 Jan 4, Myanmar's Independence
Day was marked by opposition calls for the freeing of democracy icon
Aung San Suu Kyi and other political prisoners as the military rulers
urged na-tional discipline.
(AP, 1/4/08)
2008 Jan 4, Russian rescuers saved
11 people stranded for nearly three months in a remote area of the
Pacific coast after a fishing trip went wrong. Their two boats were
damaged in a storm on October 10 during a fishing expedition off the
Kamchatka Peninsula.
(Reuters, 1/4/08)
2008 Jan 4, The annual 5,760 Dakar
Rally was canceled on the eve of the race across the Sahara Desert
because of terror threats and the recent Christmas Eve killings of a
French fam-ily in Mauritania blamed on al-Qaida-linked militants. The
race, organized by the France-based Amaury Sport Organization (ASO),
had been due to start in Lisbon, Portugal, and finish in Da-kar,
Senegal, on Jan. 20.
(AP, 1/4/08)(WSJ, 1/5/08, p.A1)
2008 Jan 4, Fresh fighting erupted
between southern Sudanese forces and Khartoum-backed Arab tribesmen
near key oil areas of the country, former southern rebels said, further
denting hopes of an end to north-south hostilities.
(AP, 1/4/08)
2008 Jan 4, Taiwan's ties with its
ally Malawi were shaky after the African country snubbed the island's
top diplomat in an aborted visit to the African nation aimed at
persuading it to resist diplomatic wooing by China.
(AP, 1/4/08)
2008 Jan 4, A private plane
carrying 14 people, including 8 Italians, crashed into the sea after
taking off from Venezuela's Los Roques islands.
(AP, 1/5/08)(AP, 1/7/08)
2008 Jan 4, The Zambian government
awarded a 1.2 billion dollar crude oil deal to a Kuwait firm to supply
over 1.4 million tons of oil to the southern African nation.
(AP, 1/5/08)
2008 Jan 4, Zimbabwe’s state-owned
The Herald daily reported that a diarrhea outbreak has hit Harare
following weeks of uncollected garbage, sewer blockages and erratic
water supplies.
(AFP, 1/4/08)
2009 Jan 4, Pres. Obama signed a
law expanding SCHIP, a health scheme covering children in poor
families.
(Econ, 2/7/09, p.26)
2009 Jan 4, New Mexico Gov. Bill
Richardson, Obama's choice for commerce secretary, with-drew under
pressure of a federal investigation into how his political donors
landed a lucrative transportation contract.
(AP, 1/5/09)(SFC, 1/5/09, p.A5)
2009 Jan 4, In Louisiana 8 people
were killed when a PHI Inc. helicopter, bound for offshore oil fields,
crashed about 100 miles southwest of New Orleans.
(SFC, 1/5/09, p.A3)
2009 Jan 4, In Syracuse, NY, Shawn
Rhines (15) killed public works department employee Casimir Snyder
(47). Police later said Ja-Le Johnson and Rhines would often hang out
in an at-tic across the street and shoot target practice with rifles
from a window. Police recovered two ri-fles from the attic. Rhines
confessed and faced 10 years to life in prison.
(SFC, 4/17/09, p.A6)
2009 Jan 4-2009 Jan 5, In
Afghanistan 12 insurgents and 11 civilians were killed in fighting in
central Uruzgan province.
(AP, 1/7/09)
2009 Jan 4, British PM Gordon
Brown pledged to create 100,000 jobs through a public works program and
said he would press banks to resume normal lending as Britain faces its
sharpest economic downturn in decades.
(AP, 1/4/09)
2009 Jan 4, A northern Guatemala
mudslide left at least 37 people dead. At least 50 people were still
missing in Aquil Grande.
(AP, 1/5/09)(AP, 1/6/09)(AP, 1/7/09)
2009 Jan 4, In eastern Indonesia a
series of powerful earthquakes toppled or badly damaged more than 100
buildings and left one person dead and dozens injured.
(AP, 1/4/09)(AP, 1/5/09)
2009 Jan 4, In Iraq a female
suicide bomber blew herself up among a crowd of pilgrims wor-shipping
at a revered Shiite shrine in northern Baghdad, killing at least 38
people and wounding about 72.
(AP, 1/4/09)
2009 Jan 4, Israeli ground troops
and tanks cut swaths through the Gaza Strip, cutting the coastal
territory into two and surrounding its biggest city as the new phase of
a devastating of-fensive against Hamas militants gained momentum. Gaza
officials said at least 31 civilians were killed in the onslaught.
Israel reported one soldier was killed by mortar fire. The new deaths
brought the death toll in the Gaza Strip to more than 500 since Dec 27.
At least 45 mis-siles fell on southern Israel, wounding five people. 2
women waving white flags were killed in the Juher a-Dik neighborhood in
Gaza City. The incident occurred when the Abu Hajaj family evacuated
their home after it was hit by a tank shell.
(AP, 1/4/09)(AP, 1/5/09)(AP, 6/16/10)
2009 Jan 4, In a densely
forested region of Indian Kashmir a gun battle between government
forces and suspected Islamic insurgents raged for a fourth day leaving
at least seven combat-ants killed.
(AP, 1/4/09)
2009 Jan 4, In eastern Nepal
dozens of people were missing after an overcrowded boat carry-ing
mostly women and children capsized in the Saptakosi river. More than 50
people were be-lieved on board the boat and only 14 were rescued.
(AP, 1/4/09)(SFC, 1/5/09, p.A12)
2009 Jan 4, Gunmen hijacked a
vessel and 9 crewmen belonging to French oil services group Bourbon off
Nigeria's Niger Delta as it traveled toward a Royal Dutch Shell
offshore oilfield. The 9 crewmen: five Nigerians, two Ghanaians, one
Cameroonian and one Indonesian aboard. were released on Dec 7.
(Reuters, 1/4/09)(AP, 1/6/09)(AP, 1/7/09)
2009 Jan 4, In northwest Pakistan
a suicide bomber attacked police as they rushed to treat civilians
injured by an earlier explosion, killing seven people and wounding at
least 25 others. During a raid elsewhere in northwest Pakistan, the
army discovered a van packed with 880 pounds (400 kilograms) of
explosives. Six suspected militants were arrested in the raid on a
house in the Khyber tribal region.
(AP, 1/4/09)
2009 Jan 4, Russia's military
leaders approved a plan by the navy to station warships perma-nently in
friendly ports across the globe.
(AP, 1/4/09)
2009 Jan 4, Russia asked the EU to
provide monitoring of Ukraine's gas transit system and charged Ukraine
was stealing gas bound for Europe, as Kiev leveled its own charges.
Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller said that the state-controlled company wanted
$450 per 1,000 cubic meters, up from its last offer of $418. The
reductions in gas supplies spread to the Czech Republic and Turkey.
(AP, 1/4/09)(Reuters, 1/4/09)
2009 Jan 4, A French warship
foiled attempts by Somali pirates in the Gulf of Aden to seize two
cargo vessels and intercepted 19 people.
(AFP, 1/5/09)
2009 Jan 4, Sri Lanka’s
rebel-affiliated TamilNet Web site reported that the insurgents stalled
a military advance on the road to Mullaittivu, killing 53 soldiers and
wounding 80 others.
(AP, 1/5/09)
2009 Jan 4, Jimmy Mohlala, a South
African official who blew the whistle on alleged corrup-tion in the
building of a stadium for the 2010 World Cup, was shot dead by unknown
gunmen. The 46,000-capacity Mbombela stadium, scheduled for completion
this year, is one of 10 ven-ues for the 2010 World Cup.
(AFP, 1/6/09)
2009 Jan 4-2009 Jan 5, In South
Africa a lethal storm on the eastern coast killed 18 people over the
weekend, including four family members struck dead by lightning.
(AFP, 1/6/09) Go to http://www.timelinesdb.com Go to January 5