Today in History - January 7

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Jan 7, Followers of the Greek Orthodox faith celebrate Christmas.
    (SFC, 1/7/97, p.A9)

1297        Jan 7, Francois Grimaldi (Francois the Crafty) founded Monaco. The House of Grimaldi celebrated its 700th anniversary in 1997.
    (SFC, 1/8/96, p.C1)

1327        Jan 7, Edward II of England was deposed. [see Jan 20]
    (HN, 1/7/99)

1558        Jan 7, The French, under the Duke of Guise, finally took the port of Calais from the English.
    (HN, 1/7/99)

1584        Jan 7, This was the last day of the Julian calendar in Bohemia & Holy Roman empire. The 1582 Gregorian (or New World) calendar was adopted by this time in Belgium, most of the German Roman Catholic states and the Netherlands.
    (SFEC, 10/3/99, Par p.27)(MC, 1/7/02)

1598        Jan 7, Theodorus I (40), [Feodor Ivanovitch], czar of Russia (1584-98), died. Boris Godunov seized the Russian throne on death of Feodor I.
    (MC, 1/7/02)

1601        Jan 7, Robert, Earl of Essex led a revolt in London against Queen Elizabeth.
    (MC, 1/7/02)

1608        Jan 7, An accidental fire devastated the Jamestown settlement in the Virginia Colony.
    (AP, 1/7/08)

1610        Jan 7, The astronomer Galileo Galilei sighted four of Jupiter's moons. Galileo discovered the 1st 3 Jupiter satellites, Io, Europa & Ganymede. He discovered mountains and valleys on the moon, that Jupiter has a moon of its own, and that the sun has spots which change. Galileo discovered multiple moons around Jupiter. He also observed Mars.
    (V.D.-H.K.p.200)(SFC, 11/5/96, p.A4)(SFC, 11/29/96, p.A16)(AP, 1/7/98)(MC, 1/7/02)

1618        Jan 7, Francis Bacon became English lord chancellor.
    (MC, 1/7/02)

1695        Jan 7, Mary II Stuart 32), queen of England, died [OS=Dec 28 1694].
    (MC, 1/7/02)

1714        Jan 7, A typewriter was patented by Englishman Henry Mill. It was built years later.
    (MC, 1/7/02)

1718        Jan 7, Israel Putnam, American Revolutionary War hero, was born. He planned the fortifications at the Battle of Bunker Hill and told his men, "don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes."
    (HN, 1/7/99)   

1745        Jan 7, Jacques Etienne Montgolfier (d.1799), French inventor, was born. He and his brother, Joseph (1740-1810), launched the first successful hot-air balloon in 1783.
    (HN, 1/7/99)(WUD, 1994 p.928)

1782        Jan 7, The 1st US commercial bank, Bank of North America, opened in Philadelphia.
    (MC, 1/7/02)

1785        Jan 7, Frenchman Jean-Pierre Blanchard and the American Dr. John Jeffries crossed the English Channel for the first time in a hydrogen balloon.
    (HN, 1/7/99)

1789        Jan 7, The first U.S. presidential election was held. Americans voted for  electors who, a month later, chose George Washington to be the nation's first president.
    (AP, 1/7/98)

1800        Jan 7, Millard Fillmore, 13th US president (1850-1853), was born in Summerhill (Locke), N.Y.
    (SFC, 2/21/97, p.A25)(AP, 1/7/98)(HN, 1/7/99)

1807        Jan 7, Responding to Napoleon's blockade of the British Isles, The British blockaded Continental Europe.
    (HN, 1/7/99)

1830        Jan 7, 1st US Railroad Station opened in Baltimore.
    (MC, 1/7/02)
1830        Jan 7, Albert Bierstadt, painter (US landscapes), was born in Germany.
    (MC, 1/7/02)

1839        Jan 7, Louis Daguerre had the influential astronomer Dominique-Francois-Argo make an announcement at the Academy of Sciences in Paris of the daguerreotype, a photographic process using fumes of iodine to sensitize a silver plate, vapor of mercury to bring out the image, and common salt to fix the image.
    (ON, 10/08, p.9)

1842        Jan 7, Gioacchino Rossini's "Stabat Mater" premiered in Paris.
    (MC, 1/7/02)

1845        Jan 7, Louis III (Ludwig II), last King of Bavaria (1913-1918), was born at Nymphenburg. He was also called the "Mad King" for his extravagant castles.
    (HN, 1/7/99)(SFEC, 4/9/00, p.T4)(MC, 1/7/02)

1862        Jan 7, Battle of Manassas Junction, VA.
    (MC, 1/7/02)
   
1865        Jan 7, Cheyenne and Sioux warriors attacked Julesburg, Colo., in retaliation for the Sand Creek Massacre.
    (HN, 1/7/99)

1873        Jan 7, Adolph Zukor, movie producer, director, executive (Paramount), was born in Hungary.
    (MC, 1/7/02)

1890        Jan 7, William B. Puris patented a fountain pen.
    (MC, 1/7/02)

1894        Jan 7, One of the earliest motion picture experiments took place at the Thomas Edison studio in West Orange, N.J., as comedian Fred Ott was filmed sneezing.
    (AP, 1/7/98)

1895        Jan 7, The new government of Hawaii placed the country under martial law following news of a planned revolt. Queen Lili’uokalani was convicted of treason and sentenced to 5 years in prison. She was released after serving 2 years under house arrest.
    (ON, 11/02, p.7)

1896        Jan 7, Fanny Farmer published her 1st cookbook.
    (MC, 1/7/02)

1898        Jan 7, Art Baker, TV host (You Asked For It), was born in NYC.
    (MC, 1/7/02)

1901        Jan 7, New York stock exchange trading exceeded two million shares for the first time in history.
    (HN, 1/7/99)

1902        Jan 7, Imperial Court of China returned to Peking. The Empress Dowager resumed her reign.
    (HN, 1/7/01)

1903        Jan 7, Alan Napier, actor (Alfred-Batman), was born in Birmingham, England.
    (MC, 1/7/02)

1904        Jan 7, The Marconi International Marine Communication Company, Limited, of London announced that the telegraphed letters “C-Q-D” would serve as a maritime distress call. It was later replaced by “S-O-S”.
    (AP, 1/7/07)

1910        Jan 7, Alain JG de Rothschild, banker and baron, was born in France.
    (MC, 1/7/02)

1912        Jan 7, Charles Addams, cartoonist whose macabre Addams Family appeared in The New Yorker, was born.
    (HN, 1/7/99)

1914        Jan 7, The first ship  crossed the Panama Canal.
    (HFA, '96, p.22)

1918        Jan 7, The Germans moved 75,000 troops from the East Front to the Western Front.
    (HN, 1/7/99)

1927        Jan 7, Commercial transatlantic telephone service was inaugurated between New York and London.
    (AP, 1/7/98)

1928        Jan 7, William Peter Blatty, author and director (The Exorcist), was born in NYC.
    (MC, 1/7/02)

1929        Jan 7, "Tarzan," one of the 1st adventure comic strips, 1st appeared.
    (MC, 1/7/02)

1934        Jan 7, The Radio Church of God under Herbert W. Armstrong began broadcasting in Pasadena, Ca. His program was called "The World Tomorrow" and his magazine was called "The Plain Truth."
    (WSJ, 2/120/00, p.A1)
1934        Jan 7, Six-thousand pastors in Berlin defied the Nazis insisting that they will not be muzzled.
    (HN, 1/7/99)

1939        Jan 7, Tom Mooney (1882-1942), California imprisoned labor leader, was pardoned by newly elected Democratic Governor Culbert Olson (1876-1962). Mooney had been convicted and imprisoned for over 22 years for the SF Preparedness Day Bombing of 1916.
    (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Mooney)(www.atheists.org/Atheism/roots/olson/)

1942        Jan 7, Vasili Alexeyev, weightlifter (Olympic-gold-72, 76), was born in USSR.
    (MC, 1/7/02)
1942        Jan 7, The World War II siege of Bataan began in the Philippines.
    (AP, 1/7/98)

1943        Jan 7, Nicola Tesla (b.1856), Croatian born inventor and physicist, died In NYC. In 1996 Marc Seifer authored “Wizard: The Life and Times of Nikola Tesla: Biography of a Genius.”
    (SFC, 12/29/96, Z1 p.2)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikola_Tesla)(WSJ, 3/7/09, p.W8)

1944        Jan 7, The U.S. Air Force announced the production of the first jet-fighter, Bell P-59 Airacomet.
    (HN, 1/7/99)

1945        Jan 7, U.S. air ace Major Thomas B. McGuire Jr. was killed in the Pacific.
    (HN, 1/7/99)

1948        Jan 7, Kenny Loggins, singer (& Messina-This is it, Footloose), was born in Everett, WA.
    (MC, 1/7/02)
1948        Jan 7, US president Truman raised taxes for the Marshall plan.
    (MC, 1/7/02)

1952        Jan 7, French forces in Indochina launch Operation Violette in an effort to push Viet Minh forces away from the town of Ba Vi.
    (HN, 1/7/00)

1953        Jan 7, President Truman announced in his State of the Union address that the United States had developed a hydrogen bomb.
    (AP, 1/7/98)

1955        Jan 7, Singer Marian Anderson made her debut with the Metropolitan Opera in New York, in Verdi's "Un Ballo in Maschera." She was the first black singer to perform there.
    (WSJ, 2/28/97, p.A14)(AP, 1/7/98)(HN, 1/7/99)
1955        Jan 7, The opening of the Canadian Parliament in Ottawa was televised for the first time.
    (AP, 1/7/05)

1957        Jan 7, Katie Couric, [Katherine], TV news host (Today), was born in Arlington, VA.
    (MC, 1/7/02)

1958        Jan 7, Petru Groza (74), premier and president (Romania, 1945-58), died.
    (MC, 1/7/02)

1959        Jan 7, The United States recognized Fidel Castro's new government in Cuba.
    (AP, 1/7/98)

1964        Jan 7, Nicolas Cage, [Coppola], actor (Moonstruck, Racing with the Moon), was born.
    (MC, 1/7/02)

1970        Jan 7, Woodstock, NY, farmers sued Max Yasgur (1919-1973) for $35,000 for damages caused by the "Woodstock" rock festival.
    (www.woodstockpreservation.org/pastpresent/maxtribute.html)

1972        Jan 7, Lewis F. Powell Jr., private practice lawyer, and William H. Rehnquist (1925-2005), Assistant Attorney General for Pres. Nixon, were sworn in as the 99th and 100th members of the Supreme Court.
    (AP, 1/7/98)(AP, 9/4/05)
1972        Jan 7, Poet John Berryman (b.1914), US poet (Imaginary Jew), leaped to his death from a bridge above the Mississippi River. He was teaching a graduate course at the Univ. of Minnesota on America’s character as revealed by its poets. Carl Rakosi took over the class. His former wife, Eileen Simpson, died in 2002. Simpson authored her memoir "Poets in Their Youth" in 1982.
    (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Berryman)(SFEC, 4/23/00, BR p.1)(SFC, 10/26/02, p.A24)

1975        Jan 7, "Shenandoah" opened at Alvin Theater, NYC, for 1050 performances.
    (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shenandoah_(musical))
1975        Jan 7, Hanoi troops took Phuoc Binh in new full-scale offensive.
    (HN, 1/7/99)

1978        Jan 7, Michael Josselson (b.1908), Estonia-born director of the Congress for Cultural Freedom, died. The organization was a CIA front to gain the support of the non-Communist left for the US. In 2000 Frances Stonor Saunders authored "The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters."
    (SFEC, 7/16/00, BR p.4)

1979        Jan 7, The Vietnamese army captured the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh overthrowing the Khmer Rouge government. The People’s Party, a Hanoi installed Khmer Rouge faction, took power with Hun Sen as prime minister and Heng Samrin as president. This finally ended the mass genocide depicted in the 1984 film "The Killing Fields." The Khmer Rouge retreated into sanctuaries along the Thai border, set up bases and picked up support from Thailand and China.
    (WSJ, 2/27/96, p.A-1)(SFC, 6/14/97, p.A15)(WSJ, 5/3/96, p.A-10)(SFC, 4/29/97, p.A8)(AP, 1/7/98)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heng_Samrin)

1980        Jan 7, Some 60,000 US oil refinery workers went on nationwide strike for the 1st time in 11 years. No major disruptions were reported in the walkout.
    (SFC, 1/7/05, p.F6)

1981        Jan 7, An operational and planning assistance team (OPAT) arrived in El Salvador to provide assistance in protecting the harvest from the guerrillas. By the end of the Carter Administration, nineteen US military advisors had been deployed there.
    (http://tinyurl.com/3bk6f3)

1985        Feb 7, "New York, New York" became the official anthem of NYC.
    (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1985)
1985        Jan 7, Vietnam seized the Khmer National Liberation Front headquarters near the Thai border.
    (HN, 1/7/99)

1986        Jan 7, US president Reagan proclaimed economic sanctions against Libya.
    (www.iie.com/research/topics/sanctions/libya.cfm)

1987        Jan 7, The US House of Representatives, by House Resolution 12, established the Select Committee to Investigate Covert Arms Transactions with Iran. The US Senate passed a similar resolution a day earlier. The two Chambers instructed their respective Committees to work together and charged them with investigating, among other things, any activity of any officer or entity of the United States Government relating to the Iran initiative.
    (www.pinknoiz.com/covert/weinberger.html)

1988        Jan 7, Secretary of State George P. Shultz, seeking to smooth a rift caused by a United Nations vote, told reporters that overall American support for Israel remained "unshakable."
    (AP, 1/7/98)
1988        Jan 7, British actor Trevor Howard died in England at age 71.
    (AP, 1/7/98)

1989        Jan 7, Emperor Hirohito of Japan died at age 87 after the longest reign in the history of Japan; he was succeeded by Crown Prince Akihito. Heisei, which means Peace and Prosperity, was adopted as the new reign name. For the first time since 1955, the Liberal Democratic Party lost its majority in the Diet's Upper House. In 1989 Edward Behr authored "Hirohito: Behind the Myth." In 2000 Herbert P. Bix authored "Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan." Hirohito was a marine biologist and collector. His work included the illustrated book "Crabs of Sagami Bay."
    (Jap. Enc., BLDM, p. 217)(AP, 1/7/98)(WSJ, 8/30/00, p.A24)(WSJ, 5/29/01, p.A20)

1990        Jan 7, The president of El Salvador, Alfredo Cristiani, said in a nationally broadcast address that military men two months earlier had massacred six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and her daughter.
    (AP, 1/7/00)

1991        Jan 7, Defense Secretary Dick Cheney canceled plans to purchase the A-12 stealth attack plane for the Navy.
    (AP, 1/7/01)
1991        Jan 7, Pete Rose left an Illinois federal prison camp and checked into a halfway house in Cincinnati to complete his sentence for cheating on his taxes.
    (AP, 1/7/01)
1991        Jan 7, Loyalist troops in Haiti crushed a coup attempt that had threatened the transition of power to the country’s first freely elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
    (AP, 1/7/01)

1992        Jan 7, Pitchers Tom Seaver and Rollie Fingers were elected to baseball's Hall of Fame.
    (AP, 1/7/02)
1992        Jan 7, President Bush arrived in Japan on a tough-talk trade mission.
    (AP, 1/7/02)
1992        Jan 7, Serb forces shot down a European Community helicopter in Croatia, killing five truce observers.
    (AP, 1/7/02)

1993        Jan 7, The US claimed that Saddam Hussein moved surface-to-air missiles into southern Iraq. Baghdad refused to remove them and allied warplanes attacked the missile sites and warships fired cruise missiles at a nuclear facility near Baghdad.
    (SFC, 9/4/96, p.A8)
1993        Jan 7, US forces in Somalia unleashed tank, helicopter and rocket fire on two clan camps in Mogadishu where snipers had been taking potshots at the troops. Cpl. James Perciavalle of Leetsdale, Pa., became the 1st US Marine wounded by friendly fire in Somalia.
    (AP, 1/7/98)(Sewickley Herald (Pa), 3/3/93, p.11)
1993        Jan 7, A preliminary report prepared for the European Community said Serb fighters may have raped about 20,000 women in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
    (AP, 1/7/98)

1994        Jan 7, The US government reported the unemployment rate fell to a three-year low of 6.4 percent in December 1993.
    (AP, 1/7/99)
1994        Jan 7, Nancy Kerrigan withdrew from the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Detroit, a day after her right leg was severely bruised in an attack after a practice session.
    (AP, 1/7/99)

1995        Jan 7, Major General Viktor Vorobyov, a senior commander leading Russian troops in their advance on the secessionist capital of Chechnya, was killed by a mortar shell.
    (AP, 1/7/00)

1996        Jan 7, "Crazy After You" closed at Shubert Theater, NYC, after 1622 performances.
    (www.ibdb.com/show.asp?ID=2807)
1996        Jan 7, Pres. Clinton and Monica Lewinsky, a White House intern, engaged in a 5th sexual encounter at the White House.
    (SFC, 9/12/98, p.A13)
1996        Jan 7, Republicans rejected President Clinton’s budget plan and warned they would close government programs they didn’t like if there were no agreement on a budget plan in the next few weeks.
    (AP, 1/7/01)
1996        Jan 7, A major blizzard, one of the worst in the century, paralyzed the Eastern United States. More than 100 deaths were later blamed on the severe weather.
    (WSJ, 1/8/96, p.A-1)(WSJ, 1/2/97, p.R2)(AP, 1/7/01)

1997        Jan 7, Newt Gingrich overcame dissension in GOP ranks to become the first Republican re-elected House speaker in 68 years with 216 of 227 Republicans in support.
    (SFC, 1/8/97, p.A5)(AP, 1/7/98)
1997        Jan 7, Serial killer Henry Louis Wallace was convicted in Charlotte, N.C., of raping and murdering 9 women over a 20 month period.
    (SFC, 1/8/97, p.A3)
1997        Jan 7, A 2 day Santa Ana windstorm subsided in Southern California after causing power blackouts that affected over a million Edison customers.
    (SFC, 1/8/97, p.A3)
1997        Jan 7, In Algiers a car bomb killed 13 and wounded 10.
    (SFC, 1/8/97, p.A7)
1997        Jan 7, It was announced that the government’s plan to privatize its 51% of Companhia Vale do Rio Doce (CVRD) was opposed by former Presidents Jose Sarney and Itamar Franco, as well as Workers Party leader Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, all candidates in the 1998 elections. Vale’s Carajas mine in Para produced 25% of the world’s iron ore and held reserves for some 400 years.
    (SFC, 1/7/97, p.A10)
1997        Jan 7, Beryl Brainbridge won the British Whitbread award for best novel of 1996 for "Every Man for Himself," a tale of the Titanic disaster. Seamus Heaney won poetry award for "The Spirit Level."
    (SFC, 1/8/97, p.B5)
1997        Jan 7, The Hebron Protocol or Hebron Agreement began and was concluded from January 15 to January 17, 1997 between Israel, represented by PM Benjamin Netanyahu, and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), represented by PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat, under the supervision of US Secretary of State Warren Christopher, for redeployment of Israeli military forces in Hebron. Palestinian authorities gained control of 80% of Hebron.
    (SFC, 12/4/08, p.A27)
1997        Jan 7, The Jerusalem Prize for literature was awarded to Spanish author Jorge Semprun (b.1923). His works include "The Long Voyage," "Literature for Life," and the screenplays for the Costas Gavras films "Z" and "The Confession."
    (SFC, 1/9/97, p.E3)
1997        Jan 7, In France it was announced that a 20.6% value-added tax would be placed on telephone services offered by phone companies outside the European Union. The charge was directed at "call-back" services mainly in the US.
    (WSJ, 1/7/97, p.A14)
1997        Jan 7, In Honduras it was reported that Chagas disease, a parasitical illness, has infected an estimated 300,000 out of a population of 5.8 mil. Some 65,000 were in the late stages.
    (SFC, 1/7/97, p.A9)
1997        Jan 7, In South Korea broadcasting and hospital unions joined the nationwide strike.
    (SFC, 1/8/97, p.A6)
1997        Jan 7, Russia’s inflation rate for 1996 was announced to have fallen to 21.8%, down from 133% in 1995.
    (WSJ, 1/7/97, p.A14)

1998        Jan 7, The jury in the Terry Nichols case deadlocked over his punishment when it failed to decide on how active his role in the Oklahoma bombing was. This saved him from a death penalty and forced Judge Richard Matsch to decide on a sentence.
    (SFC, 1/8/98, p.A1)(AP, 1/7/99)
1998        Jan 7, In Mustang, Nevada, two blasts at the Sierra Chemical Co. plant left 4 workers feared killed.
    (SFC, 1/8/98, p.A3)
1998        Jan 7, In Afghanistan it was reported that some 600 civilians were dragged from their homes and shot by the Taliban army in the northwest, prompting thousands to flee the area. Most of the victims were said to be Uzbeks.
    (SFC, 1/8/98, p.B3)
1998        Jan 7, In Canada the government apologized to the nation’s indigenous peoples for past acts of oppression and pledged $245 million for counseling and treatment programs. The aboriginal population is about 810,000 that includes 38,000 Inuits and 139,000 Metis, people of mixed Indian and white ancestry.
    (SFC, 1/8/98, p.A13)(AP, 1/7/99)
1998        Jan 7, Pres. Mohhamad Khatami of Iran endorsed cultural relations with the US but no political ties in a preliminary effort to "crack the wall" of hostility between the two countries.
    (SFC, 1/8/98, p.A12)
1998        Jan 7, In Mexico Chiapas Gov. Julio Cesar Ruiz Ferro submitted his resignation due to the massacre in Acteal.
    (SFC, 1/8/98, p.A12)
1998        Jan 7, In South Africa the attorney general announced that former Pres. Peter Botha would be prosecuted for refusing to appear before the Truth Commission and for hindering its work.
    (SFC, 1/8/98, p.A12)

1999        Jan 7, For the 2nd time in history, an impeached American president went on trial before the Senate. Chief Justice William Rehnquist was sworn in to preside over the trial. Pres. Bill Clinton was ultimately acquitted of charges of perjury and obstruction of justice.
    (SFC, 1/8/99, p.A1)(AP, 1/7/05)
1999        Jan 7, A US jet fired on an air defense station in Iraq after it was targeted on radar.
    (WSJ, 1/8/99, p.A1)
1999        Jan 7, The new Encarta Africana contained 3,000 scholarly articles on black culture and history as part of a 2-CD ROM set by Microsoft. It included a timeline that combines events in Africa and America.
    (SFC, 1/7/99, p.A13)
1999        Jan 7, In Brazil Minas Gerais state declared a 90-day moratorium on debt owed to the central government. Former Pres. Itamar Franco, the new governor of Minas Gerais, had vowed to stop payment on over $15 billion to force a renegotiation of payment terms. 24 of 27 states had fixed debt agreements with the federal government.
    (WSJ, 1/6/99, p.A17)(WSJ, 1/7/99, p.A1)
1999        Jan 7, In China police arrested Song Xianggui (36) in Linghai city for setting off explosives on a bus. 19 people were killed when his plan to stun passengers to rob them went awry.
    (SFC, 1/8/99, p.A16)
1999        Jan 7, In Colombia Manuel Marulanda, leader of FARC, was scheduled to come down from the mountains to talk peace with Pres. Pastrana at San Vicente del Caguan. Marulanda failed to show but sent 3 top commanders in his place.
    (SFC, 1/7/99, p.A8)
1999        Jan 7, In Sierra Leone rebels rampaged through Freetown as Pres. Kabbah announced an agreement with jailed rival leader, Foday Sankoh, for a cease-fire.
    (SFC, 1/8/99, p.A13)

2000        Jan 7, Pres. Clinton announced a $91 million program to protect computer security as part of the 2001 fiscal budget.
    (SFC, 1/8/00, p.A1)
2000        Jan 7, US Representative Dan Burton (Republican, Indiana), subpoenaed Elian Gonzalez to testify before Congress, a bid to keep Elian in the United States for at least another month while courts decided whether the six-year-old should be returned to Cuba. Elian never actually testified.
    (AP, 1/7/01)
2000        Jan 7, Johnny Ely (66), a short-order cook, won the New York State Lottery Millennium Millions $100 million jackpot. He elected a one-time pay out of $44 million with $17 million in taxes.
    (SFC, 1/8/00, p.A2)
2000        Jan 7, Some 200 million Orthodox Christians observed Christmas according to the old Julian calendar.
    (SFC, 1/8/00, p.C1)
2000        Jan 7, It was reported that hijackers in Europe were engaged in killing truck drivers and stealing their new trucks for resale. One 50-member ring confessed to the murder of 10 truckers at a charge of $8,500 per head.
    (SFC, 1/7/00, p.A14)
2000        Jan 7, In Germany it was reported that a recent series of tax cuts announced by Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder included a corporate exemption on capital gains taxes on the sale of shares in other corporations. Current capital gains taxes were close to 60%.
    (WSJ, 1/7/00, p.A14)
2000        Jan 7, In Greece the government promised tougher border security after a truck carrying 80 illegal immigrants from Turkey crashed and left 6 people dead.
    (SFC, 1/8/00, p.A10)
2000        Jan 7, In Kosovo 2 Serbian women were killed by an ethnic Albanian gang in Prizren. Attacks in the last 2 days had left 4 Serb men wounded and 1 dead.
    (SFC, 1/8/00, p.A10)
2000        Jan 7, Russia announced a suspension of aerial bombardment in Grozny to allow civilians to escape. A military shakeup was also announced.
    (SFC, 1/8/00, p.A1)

2001        Jan 7, Pres. Clinton told the people of Israel that "there is no choice for you but to divide this land into two states for two people."
    (SFC, 1/8/01, p.A9)
2001        Jan 7, President-elect George W. Bush's transition team acknowledged that Labor Secretary-designate Linda Chavez had provided housing and financial aid to an illegal immigrant. Chavez ended up withdrawing her nomination.
    (AP, 1/7/02)
2001        Jan 7, John Kufuor (b.1938) became president of Ghana.
    (Econ, 11/29/08, p.51)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Kufuor)
2001        Jan 7, Iraqi Kurdish officials reported that at least 500 Turkish troops had pushed 100 miles into northern Iraq in response to a call for help from the PUK. The PUK was fighting the PKK and had lost 200 soldiers in recent weeks. Some 10,000 Turkish troops had entered northern Iraq since Dec 20.
    (SFC, 1/8/01, p.A9)
2001        Jan 7, In the Ivory Coast mutinous soldiers attacked the broadcasting facilities and offices of state television and radio in Abidjan. The coup attempt was reported to have failed. 32 people were arrested and at least 8 people were killed.
    (SFC, 1/8/01, p.A9)(SFC, 1/9/01, p.A15)
2001        Jan 7, In Russia Pres. Putin pledged to pay all of its Soviet-era int’l. debts.
    (SFC, 1/8/01, p.A10)

2002        Jan 7, US planes bombed cave complexes in Afghanistan as British PM Tony Blair and 9 U.S. senators swept into Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan for an unannounced visit and promised Afghan leaders their full support in rebuilding the shattered country..
    (SFC, 1/8/02, p.A11)(WSJ, 1/8/02, p.A1)(AP, 1/7/03)
2002        Jan 7, Louis Pollak, a federal judge in Philadelphia, challenged the scientific validity of fingerprint evidence. In March Pollak declared fingerprint id to be the "bedrock of forensic science."
    (SSFC, 2/24/02, p.A1)(SFC, 3/14/02, p.A3)
2002        Jan 7, Yves Saint Laurent announced his retirement and closure of the fashion house he'd started 40 years earlier.
    (SFC, 1/8/02, p.A1)(AP, 1/7/03)
2002        Jan 7, Scientists reported that symptoms of Parkinson’s were relieved in rats when stem cells were injected into their brains.
    (WSJ, 1/8/02, p.A1)
2002        Jan 7, Comedian Avery Schreiber died in Los Angeles at age 66.
    (AP, 1/7/03)
2002        Jan 7, In Kandahar 7 Taliban officials surrendered and were released by the governor. None of the released were on US wanted lists.
    (SFC, 1/10/02, p.A1)(SFC, 1/11/02, p.A13)

2003        Jan 7, Pres. Bush put forward a $674 billion "growth and jobs" economic stimulus plan that would provide tax relief to an estimated 92 million Americans by accelerating income tax rate cuts, wiping out all federal taxes on stock dividends paid to investors and boosting the child tax credit by $400 per child.
    (AP, 1/7/03)(SFC, 1/8/03, p.A1)
2003        Jan 7, US Marines, both active and reserves, were ordered to remain in service for the coming 12 months.
    (SFC, 1/10/03, p.A12)
2003        Jan 7, Police in London announced they had found traces of the deadly poison ricin in a north London apartment and arrested six men in connection with the virulent toxin that has been linked to al-Qaida terrorists and Iraq.
    (AP, 1/7/04)
2003        Jan 7, In Colombia rebels ambushed a police convoy near the capital, killing at least 8 officers and wounding 5 in a bold, daylight attack.
    (AP, 1/7/03)
2003        Jan 7, In Congo a military court convicted and sentenced 26 people to death in the Jan 16, 2001 assassination of Congo's president, Laurent Kabila.
    (AP, 1/7/03)(SFC, 1/8/03, p.A16)
2003        Jan 7, In Egypt Orthodox Christmas was marked for the first time as a national holiday in this predominantly Muslim nation.
    (AP, 1/7/03)
2003        Jan 7, Israeli troops exchanged fire with Palestinian militiamen for 4 hours, killing 3 gunmen before withdrawing from the outskirts of a refugee camp. The Israeli government put new restrictions on travel by Palestinians.
    (AP, 1/7/03)(SFC, 1/8/03, p.A11)
2003        Jan 7, In South Africa a passenger train collided with a freight train, killing 10 people and injuring 49.
    (AP, 1/7/03)
2003        Jan 7, In northeastern Uganda rival tribesmen armed with spears and guns clashed over cattle, leaving at least 52 people dead in two days of fighting. At least 35 Pokot and 17 Karamojong were killed.
    (AP, 1/10/03)

2004        Jan 7, Pres. Bush presented a plan to grant legal status to foreigners working in the United States.
    (AP, 1/8/04)(WSJ, 1/8/04, p.A1)
2004        Jan 7, Digital radios went on sale in the US.
    (SFC, 1/7/04, p.B8)
2004        Jan 7, In Georgia Jerry William Jones (31) killed 3 former in-laws and his infant daughter and fled with 3 girl hostages. The girls were found safe and Jones shot himself following a police chase.
    (SFC, 1/9/04, p.A3)
2004        Jan 7, L. Paul Bremer, the top American civilian official in Iraq, said U.S. authorities will release 506 low-level Iraqi prisoners while increasing the bounties for fugitives suspected of major roles in attacks against coalition forces.
    (AP, 1/7/04)
2004        Jan 7, In Colombia FARC rebels killed 8 peasant farmers because they refused to sell them their coca crops.
    (AP, 1/9/04)
2004        Jan 7, Dominica's main political party chose Roosevelt Skerrit (31), the education minister, as the next leader of this Caribbean country.
    (AP, 1/8/04)
2004        Jan 7, Guatemala signed an accord to let UN prosecutors handle organized crime and human-rights cases.
    (AP, 1/8/04)(WSJ, 1/8/04, p.A1)
2004        Jan 7, In southwestern Guatemala men with automatic weapons hijacked a minibus carrying 13 American tourists, killing one passenger. In 2005 Henry Giovanny Vicente (27), and Marvin Sebastian Berganza (29) were convicted by a 3-judge panel of being accomplices in the killing of Brett Richards, a 52-year-old architect from Ogden, Utah, who died during a confrontation with bandits who hijacked a bus of Mormon tourists visiting Mayan ruins.
    (AP, 1/8/04)(WSJ, 1/8/04, p.A1)(AP, 11/30/05)
2004        Jan 7, Haiti university students marched against Pres. Jean-Bertrand Aristide, sparking clashes that left at least 2 dead amid a swelling opposition movement against the leader.
    (AP, 1/7/04)
2004        Jan 7, In Iran a 57-year-old man was pulled from the rubble of Ban's earthquake, barely conscious but still alive because he had a source of water during the 13 days he was buried. He died 4 days later.
    (AP, 1/8/04)(AP, 1/11/04)
2004        Jan 7, L. Paul Bremer, the top American civilian official in Iraq, said U.S. authorities will release 506 low-level Iraqi prisoners while increasing the bounties for fugitives suspected of major roles in attacks against coalition forces.
    (AP, 1/7/04)
2004        Jan 7, Israeli soldiers patrolling West Bank towns shot and killed 3 Palestinian militants during an ongoing sweep of the area.
    (AP, 1/7/04)
2004        Jan 7, Najib Razak, a veteran politician, was named as Malaysia's deputy PM.
    (AP, 1/7/04)
2004        Jan 7, Mauritania armed security force members stopped racers from the famed Paris-Dakar Rally, demanding $65 from each vehicle to pass the border. The 26th Paris-Dakar race crosses 6,920.4-miles, seven countries and the Sahara Desert, ending Jan. 18 outside the Senegalese capital, Dakar
    (AP, 1/9/04)
2004        Jan 7, Morocco pardoned 33 prisoners, including a prominent journalist.
    (AP, 1/7/04)
2004        Jan 7, In Scotland Stephen Gough (44) was convicted of breaching the peace and sentenced to three months in jail for trying to walk the length of Britain naked to promote public nudity.
    (AP, 1/7/04)
2004        Jan 7, Ingrid Thulin (b.1926), Swedish actress, died in Stockholm. Her films included "Foreign Intrigue" (1956).
    (SFC, 1/9/04, p.A21)

2005        Jan 7, A military jury at Fort Hood, Texas, acquitted Army Sgt. Tracy Perkins of involuntary manslaughter in the alleged drowning of an Iraqi civilian, but convicted him of assault in the January 2004 incident.
    (AP, 1/7/06)
2005        Jan 7, The nuclear submarine USS San Francisco ran aground 350 miles off the Pacific Ocean territory of Guam, injuring about 20 crew members. One died the next day.
    (AP, 1/8/05)(AP, 1/9/05)
2005        Jan 7, Conservative columnist Armstrong Williams was dropped by a major syndication service because he'd accepted a payment from the Bush administration to promote the No Child Left Behind law.
    (AP, 1/7/06)
2005        Jan 7, Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston announced they were separating after four years of marriage.
    (AP, 1/7/06)
2005        Jan 7, Rosemary Kennedy (86), the mentally retarded oldest sister of President Kennedy and the inspiration for the Special Olympics, died at a Fort Atkinson, Wis., hospital.
    (AP, 1/7/06)
2005        Jan 7, Congo’s electoral commission hinted that elections scheduled for June would be postponed.
    (Econ, 1/22/05, p.44)
2005        Jan 7, Authorities raised Indonesia's death toll by 7,000, bringing the overall total killed by the disaster to more than 147,000.
    (AP, 1/7/05)
2005        Jan 7, In northern Italy a passenger train and a freight train collided in thick fog on the Bologna-Verona line, killing 17 people and injuring dozens.
    (AP, 1/7/05)(WSJ, 1/10/05, p.A1)
2005        Jan 7, In Indian-controlled Kashmir police said militants stormed a government building, setting it on fire with 70 employees still trapped inside. Three people were killed in the fighting.
    (AP, 1/7/05)
2005        Jan 7, Palestinian militants attacked a group of Israeli civilians outside the West Bank city of Nablus, wounding four people, including one who was in critical condition.
    (AP, 1/7/05)

2006        Jan 7, US Representative Tom DeLay (R-Texas), facing corruption charges, stepped down as House majority leader.
    (AP, 1/7/07)
2006        Jan 7, In East Palo Alto, Ca., police officer Richard May (38) was gunned down after responding to a report of a fight at a taqueria. Alberto Alvarez (23) was arrested the next day. In 2009 a jury convicted him of first-degree murder and recommended that he be executed. On Feb 8, 2010, a judge sentenced Alvarez to death.
    (SFC, 1/9/06, p.A1)(SFC, 11/26/09, p.C2)(SFC, 12/23/09, p.C2)(SFC, 2/9/10, p.C2)
2006        Jan 7, In Afghanistan a roadside bomb blew up as a van packed with police cadets and trainers was driving through the eastern city of Jalalabad, killing a passer-by and wounding a police colonel and driver.
    (AP, 1/7/06)
2006        Jan 7, In eastern Australia a 21-year-old woman died after a shark attack near North Stradbroke Island. A camper on a nearby beach said the woman had been scuba diving in waist-deep water at the time of the attack.
    (AP, 1/7/06)
2006        Jan 7, Heinrich Harrer (93), an Austrian mountaineer and former Nazi who became a friend and tutor of the young Dalai Lama, died. Actor Brad Pitt played Harrer in the 1997 film "Seven Years in Tibet," which was based on Harrer's 1953 memoir of his time in Tibet.
    (AP, 1/7/06)(Econ, 1/21/06, p.83)
2006        Jan 7, A study reported by Brazilian media said more than 1,000 children have been living underneath highway overpasses, inside tunnels and on city squares in Sao Paulo.
    (AP, 1/7/06)
2006        Jan 7, The World Bank under Paul Wolfowitz halted all lending to Chad saying the country broke a deal to use oil money to cut poverty.
    (WSJ, 1/7/06, p.A1)(Econ, 3/4/06, p.69)
2006        Jan 7, China's ruling Communist Party called on its members to do more to fight widespread corruption and politically explosive problems such as unpaid back wages for migrant workers.
    (AP, 1/7/06)
2006        Jan 7, In Haiti Brazilian Lt. Gen. Urano Teixeira da Matta Bacellar, commander of UN peacekeepers, was found dead in an apparent suicide in a room at the Montana hotel in Port-au-Prince.
    (AP, 1/7/06)
2006        Jan 7, In Iraq gunmen kidnapped Jill Carroll, a female American journalist, and killed her Iraqi translator in western Baghdad. Carroll was freed almost three months later.
    (AP, 1/7/07)(www.csmonitor.com/2006/0110/p01s04-woiq.html)
2006        Jan 7, Talib Enezy Ghadban, an Iraqi detainee held at the US-controlled Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad, died in custody. The military said he died of complications from an apparent stroke and an investigation was under way.
    (AP, 2/6/06)
2006        Jan 7, A US Black Hawk helicopter crashed in northern Iraq, killing all 12 Americans believed to be aboard. 2 US Marines were killed by roadside bombs in separate incidents.
    (AP, 1/8/06)
2006        Jan 7, The French engineer, Bernard Planche (52), was pushed out of a car near a checkpoint in a Baghdad suburb. He had been kidnapped Dec 5.
    (AP, 1/8/06)
2006        Jan 7, Visiting Foreign Secretary Jack Straw has said it was hoped Britain's 8,000 troops would start to withdraw from Iraq in a matter of months.
    (AP, 1/7/06)
2006        Jan 7, Japanese police arrested William Oliver Reese (21), an American sailor, on charges of robbing and beating a Japanese woman to death. Reese was accused of robbing Yoshie Sato (56) of $129.
    (AP, 1/7/06)
2006        Jan 7, Environmentalists continued attempts to thwart Japanese whalers in the Southern Ocean, as both sides accused each other of underhand tactics in the high-seas struggle.
    (AFP, 1/7/06)
2006        Jan 7, Cross border firing at a Pakistani village near the Afghan border killed eight people in Saidgi village. Pakistan protested the incident to the US military.
    (AP, 1/9/06)
2006        Jan 7, In Pakistan assailants armed with rockets and assault rifles attacked a newly built checkpoint near the Afghan border before dawn, killing all eight security forces.
    (AP, 1/7/06)
2006        Jan 7, In Pakistan some 50 survivors of the Oct 8 earthquake commandeered 2 UN relief helicopters to flee the disaster zone.
    (WSJ, 1/7/06, p.A1)
2006        Jan 7, In Sri Lanka an explosives-rigged fishing boat rammed a navy patrol, killing 13 sailors in a suspected rebel attack.
    (AP, 1/7/06)
2006        Jan 7, American singer Harry Belafonte led a delegation of Americans including the actor Danny Glover and the Princeton University scholar Cornel West in a meeting with Venezuela’s president Hugo Chavez.
    (AP, 1/8/06)

2007        Jan 7, Newly elected House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, interviewed on CBS' "Face the Nation," said Democrats running Congress would not give President Bush a blank check to wage war in Iraq.
    (AP, 1/7/08)
2007        Jan 7, The North American Int’l. Auto Show opened in Detroit. China’s Changfeng Group Co., made its first appearance at the international auto show in Detroit, Mich. China numbered over 100 automakers and industry consolidation was expected.
    (Econ, 1/6/07, p.54)(WSJ, 1/3/07, p.B1)
2007        Jan 7, Bobby Hamilton (49), NASCAR driver, died. He had won the 2001 Talladega 500.
    (AP, 1/7/08)
2007        Jan 7, In eastern Afghanistan a roadside bomb ripped through a vehicle, killing a woman, her two newborn twin babies and the children's grandmother.
    (AP, 1/7/07)
2007        Jan 7, Activists and police clashed in Bangladesh, injuring at least 50 people at the start of a three-day transport blockade aimed at derailing upcoming general elections.
    (Reuters, 1/7/07)
2007        Jan 7, Staff at a logistics company in Qingdao, in China's eastern Shandong province, found a human torso in a box seeping blood but marked as carrying medicine. Two days later, police in Beijing and Jiangyin, in eastern Jiangsu province, found a man's head and arms. On Jan 15 state media said Chinese police have detained a man and a woman suspected of killing a man and posting his body parts to three different cities.
    (Reuters, 1/15/07)
2007        Jan 7, A helicopter crashed into the garden terrace of a restaurant in southeastern France, killing three people on the ground and severely injuring a fourth.
    (AP, 1/7/07)
2007        Jan 7, Suspected separatists fatally shot eight people in India's northeast as army, police and paramilitary forces swept through a remote corner of the region after earlier militant attacks killed dozens.
    (AP, 1/7/07)
2007        Jan 7, Three US airmen died in a car bombing in Baghdad, among at least 17 people killed in violence across Iraq as Iraqi troops launched a fresh battle to oust militias and pacify the capital. Two American soldiers were killed north of Baghdad.
    (AP, 1/7/07)(AP, 1/8/07)
2007        Jan 7, In Israel former PM Ehud Barak announced his political comeback, saying he will run for the leadership of the Labor Party in a first step toward a possible bid at regaining the country's top office.
    (AP, 1/7/07)
2007        Jan 7, In Jamaica the Accompong Maroons, descendants of freed African slaves, vowed to fight any plans for bauxite mining in the forested region where they have lived in semiautonomy for centuries. Sydney Peddie, the group's leader, said opening up the territory to mining would breach a treaty signed between the Maroons and the British in 1739, which gave the group nearly 25,000 acres in Cockpit Country, an inhospitable terrain of rocky cliffs and limestone towers.
    (AP, 1/8/07)
2007        Jan 7, A senior Kenyan health official said about 75 people have died of Rift Valley fever (hemorrhagic fever) during the past three weeks and another 183 are infected with it. The last outbreak of the disease in East Africa was between 1997-1998, when 478 people died in Somalia and Kenya. Currently there was no human vaccine.
    (AP, 1/8/07)(WSJ, 1/9/07, p.A1)
2007        Jan 7, Tens of thousands of Fatah supporters packed Gaza's main soccer stadium in a show of strength to boost the movement in its increasingly violent struggle against the Islamic militant group Hamas.
    (AP, 1/7/07)
2007        Jan 7, Stanislaw Wielgus, Warsaw's new archbishop, resigned over his involvement with the communist-era secret police. The Vatican said his past actions had "gravely compromised his authority."
    (AP, 1/7/07)
2007        Jan 7, Russia stopped pumping oil into  a pipeline network that crossed Belarus. The line delivered 12.5% of the EU’s oil needs.
    (Econ, 1/13/07, p.44)
2007        Jan 7, An American AC-130 gunship began attacking suspected al-Qaida positions in southern Somalia. The US airstrikes were the first offensive in the African country since 18 US troops were killed there in 1993. The main target was Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, who allegedly planned the 1998 attacks on the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, that killed 225 people.
    (SFC, 1/11/07, p.A4)(AP, 1/9/07)
2007        Jan 7, Eight Taiwanese banks took charge of a failing subsidiary of the country's Rebar conglomerate, just a day after the financial regulator rescued a private bank owned by the same group.
    (AFP, 1/7/07)

2008        Jan 7, Jerry Fitch, a Mississippi businessman, must pay more than 750,000 dollars in damages to the man whose wife he wooed away, after the US Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal in the case.
    (AFP, 1/7/08)
2008        Jan 7, The Stanford Center for the Study of Poverty and Inequality (www.inequality.com) announced the launch of its new quarterly publication, Pathways, an online and hardcopy magazine dedicated to examining poverty and inequality in the United States.
    (SFC, 1/29/08, p.E1)
2008        Jan 7, Starbucks ousted CEO Jim McDonald and Howard Schultz, current Chairman and former CEO (1987-2000), took over. Starbucks faced added competition as McDonald’s planned to install coffee bars selling espresso.
    (WSJ, 1/8/08, p.A1)
2008        Jan 7, Tornadoes were reported or suspected in southwest Missouri, southeastern Wisconsin, Arkansas, Illinois and Oklahoma. Two people were killed in Missouri.
    (AP, 1/8/08)
2008        Jan 7, In Alabama Lam Luong (37), a shrimp fisherman and drug addict, threw his 4 young children into the Intracoastal Waterway from the Dauphin Island bridge. He initially reported the children missing and then confessed. On March 5, 2009, Luong pleaded guilty and asked to be put to death. On April 30 he was sentenced to death.
    (SFC, 1/10/08, p.A3)(SFC, 3/6/09, p.A6)(SFC, 5/1/09, p.A8)
2008        Jan 7, Bill Belew (b.1931), costume king, died in Palm Springs, Ca. He created the outfits worn by Elvis Presley and other pop stars.
    (WSJ, 2/2/08, p.A12)
2008        Jan 7, In southern Afghanistan a suicide bomber on a motorcycle attacked a border police patrol, killing a policeman. In neighboring Helmand province, police discovered and tried to defuse a remote-controlled roadside bomb in Nad Ali district, but it exploded, killing two policemen and two civilians. In eastern Afghanistan as roadside bomb killed two soldiers from the US-led coalition.
    (AP, 1/7/08)(AP, 1/8/08)
2008        Jan 7, Australians battled both fires and some of the worst flooding in decades that stranded residents in several communities after days of intense summer heat and storms.
    (AP, 1/8/08)
2008        Jan 7, Britain’s PM Gordon Brown announced plans for a new national screening program to combat some of the country's biggest killer diseases.
    (AP, 1/7/08)
2008        Jan 7, Chadian air force planes attacked a Chadian rebel base across the border, southwest of El-Geneina in the Darfur region of Sudan.
    (AP, 1/7/08)
2008        Jan 7, China’s state media said authorities in central China have expelled 500 people from the Communist Party for defying the country's one-child policy. Wei Wenhua (41), a passer-by who filmed a streetside fracas between villagers and authorities, was beaten and killed in Hubei province. His death touched off protests in central China, in the latest incident to underscore public anger over abusive treatment by government employees.
    (AP, 1/7/08)(AP, 1/9/08)
2008        Jan 7, Colombia’s army captured Carlos Marin Guarin, who uses the nom de guerre "Pablito," a senior commander of the ELN, Colombia’s second largest rebel group.
    (AP, 1/9/08)
2008        Jan 7, Philip Agee (72), a former CIA agent who became an outspoken critic of Washington's Cuba policy, died in a Havana hospital following ulcer surgery. Agee quit the CIA in 1969 after 12 years working mostly in Latin America at a time when leftist movements were gaining prominence and sympathizers. His 1975 book "Inside the Company: CIA Diary," cited alleged CIA misdeeds against leftists in the region that included a 22-page list of purported agency operatives.
    (AP, 1/9/08)
2008        Jan 7, President Mikhail Saakashvili said his re-election demonstrates that Georgia is on the road to becoming a European democracy, while his opponents denounced the vote as fraudulent and vowed to renew street protests.
    (AP, 1/7/08)
2008        Jan 7, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad presented Iran's budget to parliament, promising it would curb a sharp rise in inflation and redistribute Iran's abundant oil revenues among the country's 70 million people.
    (AP, 1/7/08)
2008        Jan 7, In Iraq a double suicide attack outside an agency that cares for Sunni mosques and shrines killed a prominent leader of a US-backed group fighting al-Qaida and at least five others. 12 people died in the twin bombing. In eastern Baghdad, a roadside bomb detonated near a technology university, killing four people, including a student, and wounding 11 others. In Baghdad's Jadriyah neighborhood, two roadside bombs went off minutes apart, killing one civilian and wounding four other people, including three policeman. Gunmen kidnapped 8 members of a newly-formed US-backed Shiite armed group in northern Baghdad's Shaab neighborhood.
    (AP, 1/7/08)(AP, 1/8/08)
2008        Jan 7, Police in Naples clashed with protestors over a mafia-linked rubbish disposal crisis as the Italian government convened an emergency meeting to try and resolve the row.
    (AP, 1/7/08)
2008        Jan 7, Kenya's opposition leader canceled nationwide protests, saying he wanted to avoid new violence and give mediation a chance to resolve the election dispute that has killed nearly 500 people in political and ethnic bloodletting. The chief US envoy for Africa said the vote count from Kenya's election was rigged, but both parties could have been involved, declining to blame either President Mwai Kibaki or the opposition leader who ran against him.
    (AP, 1/7/08)
2008        Jan 7, Kosovo's rival parties struck a power-sharing deal to form a government that is expected to declare independence from Serbia this year.
    (AP, 1/7/08)
2008        Jan 7, A shootout between Mexican authorities and suspected criminals just across the border from Texas left three people dead and eight injured.
    (AP, 1/8/08)
2008        Jan 7, The National Institute of Disaster Management (INGC) said 6 people have died and more than 20,000 others have been displaced by Mozambique's rising waters, the worst since the deadly flooding of 2000 to 2001.
    (AFP, 1/7/08)
2008        Jan 7, In South Korea fire tore through a refrigeration warehouse under construction in an industrial district south of Seoul, killing 40 people and sending toxic fumes into the air.
    (AP, 1/7/08)
2008        Jan 7, According to new military figures gunbattles between government troops and Tamil Tiger rebels have brought the death toll for four days of fighting to 81. Violence intensified following the government's Jan 2 announcement that it would formally withdraw from a 2002 cease-fire accord.
    (AP, 1/7/08)
2008        Jan 7, Armed men opened fire on a UN/African Union supply convoy in Sudan's war-torn Darfur region, the first attack on the newly formed joint peacekeeping mission.  On Jan 10 Sudan admitted that its troops had opened fire on a joint UN/African Union peacekeeping convoy in Darfur saying the attack was the result of a "shared mistake."
    (Reuters, 1/8/08)(Reuters, 1/10/08)
2008        Jan 7, The Tunis-based Arab League Educational Cultural and Scientific Organization said nearly one in 3 people in the Arab world is illiterate, including nearly half of all women in the region.
    (AP, 1/8/08)
2008        Jan 7, In Turkey an accused Kurdish rebel suspected of detonating a deadly car bomb last week in Diyarbakir was captured. Six other suspects also were detained.
    (AP, 1/8/08)

2009        Jan 7, The United States said it has released another $99 million as part of an aid package to support Mexico's police and soldiers in their fight against drug cartels. The US released $197 million in December as part of the $1.3 billion US anti-drug package, known as the Merida Initiative.
    (AP, 1/7/09)
2009        Jan 7, The SEC charged Joseph S. Forte of Broomall, Pennsylvania, an investment fund manager, with running a Ponzi scheme since at least 1995. Losses to investors were estimated at $50 million.
    (WSJ, 1/28/09, p.A12)(www.sec.gov/litigation/litreleases/2009/lr20847.htm)
2009        Jan 7, US health officials said an outbreak of salmonella food poisoning has made 388 people sick across 42 states, sending 18 percent of them to the hospital.
    (Reuters, 1/7/09)
2009        Jan 7, A new federal report said Mississippi now has the nation's highest teen pregnancy rate, displacing Texas and New Mexico for that lamentable title.
    (AP, 1/7/09)
2009        Jan 7, In Oakland, Ca., demonstrations over the New year’s killing of Oscar Grant (22) by a BART police officer turned violent. BART Officer Johannes Mehserle quit his job avoiding an interview with police internal affairs investigators.
    (SFC, 1/8/09, p.A1)
2009        Jan 7, Bank of America Corp. raised more money to cope with US economic turmoil by selling part of its stake in China Construction Bank Ltd., China's second-biggest commercial lender, for $2.8 billion.
    (AP, 1/7/09)
2009        Jan 7, Afghan locals said that operations by the NATO-led force in the southern province of Helmand had killed 19 civilians.
    (AFP, 1/8/09)
2009        Jan 7, In Argentina an Italian climber and an Argentine guide both died when a storm trapped five mountaineers just below the summit of the Aconcagua peak, the highest mountain in the Americas. The three others survived.
    (AP, 1/8/09)
2009        Jan 7, In China a court in Hangzhou, a prosperous city in eastern Zhejiang province, sentenced Wang Rongqing (65) to 6 years in jail on charges of subverting state power for organizing the banned China Democracy Party.
    (AP, 1/8/09)
2009        Jan 7, The EU said Russia and Ukraine will accept using international monitors to verify the transit of natural gas from Russia through Ukraine's pipelines. Russia's gas giant Gazprom completely stopped sending gas to European consumers at 7:44 a.m. (0544 GMT). 80% of Russian gas shipped via Ukraine.
    (AP, 1/7/09)
2009        Jan 7, Freezing temperatures and exceptional snowfall caused travel delays across Europe and were blamed for at least 12 deaths, including that of a man in Milan who was crushed when a canopy collapsed under the weight of snow.
    (AP, 1/7/09)
2009        Jan 7, In Hungary a masked gunman shot to death Jozsef Takacs (62), a school principal, and Laszlo Papp (32), a teacher, at a school in the Budapest neighborhood of Csepel. 2 suspects were arrested the next day. Police said a security guard shot the two men, hours after he and an accomplice, a 36-year-old former administrator at the school, were fired by the principal on suspicion of embezzling up to 4 million forints ($20,000, euro14,600).
    (AP, 1/7/09)(AP, 1/8/09)
2009        Jan 7, B. Ramalingu Raju, the chairman of India's Satyam Computer Services Ltd., quit after admitting the company's profits had been doctored for several years, shaking faith in the country's corporate giants as shares of the software services provider plunged nearly 80 percent. Raju was arrested 2 days later as Indian authorities fired the remaining board members and launched an accounting review of the company.
    (AP, 1/7/09)(WSJ, 1/10/09, p.B1)
2009        Jan 7, In northern Iraq a female suicide bomber allegedly planning to blow herself up among Shiite pilgrims was arrested, as millions joined processions across the country to honor the martyrdom of one of their most revered saints.
    (AP, 1/7/09)
2009        Jan 7,  Israel ordered a three-hour pause in its Gaza offensive to allow food and fuel to reach besieged Palestinians, and said it welcomed a cease-fire proposal as long as Hamas halts rockets and weapons smuggling. About 300 of the more than 670 Palestinians killed so far were civilians. French President Nicolas Sarkozy said that Israel and the Palestinian Authority have accepted an Egyptian-French plan for Gaza.
    (AP, 1/7/09)
2009        Jan 7, Wildlife activists said the box turtle is disappearing across Malaysia because of increased illegal hunting for its meat and use in traditional Chinese medicine.
    (AP, 1/7/09)
2009        Jan 7, In Mexico four decapitated bodies were found in the Otay Mesa neighborhood of Tijuana. The victims' heads were left inside a black bag at the scene.
    (AP, 1/7/09)
2009        Jan 7, Pakistan’s PM Yousuf Raza Gilani fired national security advisor Mahmood Ali Durrani after he gave media interviews on national security issues without consulting Gilani. The move came hours after Durrani and other top officials told reporters that the sole surviving Mumbai attacker was a Pakistani citizen.
    (AP, 1/8/09)
2009        Jan 7, Sri Lanka officially outlawed the Tamil Tigers, ruling out for now the possibility of peace talks to end a 25-year civil war.
    (WSJ, 1/8/09, p.A1)
2009        Jan 7, Taiwan’s central bank unexpectedly cut its key interest rates by half a percentage point and urged banks to increase corporate lending. The finance ministry had just reported that ex[ports in December had fallen 41.9% from a year earlier.
    (WSJ, 1/8/09, p.A8)
2009        Jan 7, Turkey’s state news said police had detained about 40 people, including 3 retired generals, in a probe of an alleged plot to overthrow the Islamist-rooted AK Party government.
    (WSJ, 1/8/09, p.A1)
2009        Jan 7, Venezuela's Citgo Petroleum Corp. announced its fuel oil aid program would continue, just two days after its partner nonprofit group, Boston-based Citizens Energy, said Citgo had halted the free fuel shipments due to the world economic crisis.
    (AP, 1/8/09)
2009        Jan 7, In Zimbabwe seven members of the main opposition party were the first of dozens of jailed dissidents to be formally charged, and they pleaded not guilty in a bombing plot. Zimbabwe delayed the opening of schools by two weeks, amid fears that teachers may not show up for classes due to the country's worsening humanitarian crisis.
    (AP, 1/7/09)(AFP, 1/7/09)

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