Today in History - January 13

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532                  Jan 13-532 Jan 14, The 2nd Hagia Sophia cathedral burned down in Constantinople during the Nika uprising, which failed leaving some 30-40,000 people dead. Justinian and his wife Theodora had attended festivities at the Hippodrome, a stadium for athletic competition. Team support escalated from insults to mob riots and in the end Constantinople lay in ruins. Justinian proceeded to rebuild the city with extensive commissions for religious art and architecture, including the new Hagia Sophia.

            (ATC, p.33)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hagia_Sophia)

 

1099                Jan 13, Crusaders set fire to Mara, Syria.

            (MC, 1/13/02)

 

1397                Jan 13, John of Gaunt married Katherine Rouet.

            (HN, 1/13/99)

 

1628                Jan 13, Charles Perrault, lawyer, writer (Mother Goose), was born in France.

            (MC, 1/13/02)

 

1691                Jan 13, George Fox (66), founder of Quakers, died.

            (MC, 1/13/02)

 

1733                Jan 13, James Oglethorpe and 130 English colonists arrived at Charleston, SC.

            (MC, 1/13/02)

 

1794                Jan 13, President Washington approved a measure adding two stars and two stripes to the American flag, following the admission of Vermont and Kentucky to the union. The number of stripes was later reduced to the original 13.

            (AP, 1/13/01)

 

1808                Jan 13, Salmon P. Chase, US Treasury secretary during the American Civil War and 6th Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, was born. His picture was later put on the $10,000 bill.

            (HN, 1/13/99)

 

1813                Jan 24, Theodore Sedgwick (b.1746), former Massachusetts Senator (1796-1799), died. In 2007 John Sedgwick authored “In My Blood: Six Generations of Madness and Desire in an American Family.”

            (http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=S000222)

 

1830                Jan 13, There was a great fire in New Orleans. It was thought to be set by rebel slaves.

            (MC, 1/13/02)

 

1832                Jan 13, Horatio Alger, Jr., the author of more than 100 inspirational books for young people from the Civil War to the turn of the 20th century, was born the son of a Unitarian minister. Rejected by the Union Army because of asthma, Horatio Alger was a poet, teacher and newspaper correspondent before he eventually followed in his father's footsteps and became a minister on Cape Cod. Alger is best-known, however, for his books with rags-to-riches themes. In Alger's world, everyone, no matter how poor or powerless, could succeed through hard work, honesty and high moral values. His "pluck and luck" books of hope in the face of adversity were always bestsellers and almost every home, school and church owned a large collection. More than 250 million copies of his books have been sold worldwide. His books include "Ragged Dick" and "Tattered Tom."

            (HNPD, 1/13/99)

 

1842                Jan 13, In the 1st British-Afghan War British troops retreating from Kabul were ambushed and nearly all slaughtered at the Khyber Pass, even though the Afghans had promised them safe passage during their withdrawal from the Afghan capital. Dr. William Brydon, badly wounded, reached Jalalabad as the only survivor of a 16,000 person retreat from Kabul.

            (SSFC, 10/28/01, p.C8)(MC, 1/13/02)

 

1846                Jan 13, President James Polk dispatched General Zachary Taylor and 4,000 troops to the Texas Border as war with Mexico loomed. At the outset of the Mexican-American War, the Mexican army numbered 32,000 and the American army consisted of 7,200 men. The American army had, since 1815, only fought against a few Indian tribes. Forty-two percent of the army was made up of recent German or Irish immigrants. In the course of the war, the total U.S. force employed reached 104,000. In 2008 Martin Dugard authored “The Training Ground: Grant, Lee, Sherman, and Davis in the Mexican War, 1846-1848.”

            (HN, 1/13/99)(HNQ, 2/28/99)(WSJ, 5/16/08, p.W8)

 

1854                Jan 13, Anthony Foss patented an accordion. [see 1850, 1852]

            (MC, 1/13/02)

 

1862                Jan 13, President Lincoln named Edwin M. Stanton Secretary of War.

            (HN, 1/13/99)

 

1863                Jan 13, Thomas Crapper pioneered a one-piece pedestal flushing toilet.

            (MC, 1/13/02)

 

1864                Jan 13, Wilhelm K.W. Wien, German physicist (Nobel 1911), was born.

            (MC, 1/13/02)

1864                Jan 13, Composer Stephen Foster (37), composer and American song writer, died in a New York City hospital. Ken Emerson later authored his biography.

            (HFA, '96, p.22)(AHD, p. 519)(AP, 1/13/98)(SFC, 4/23/01, p.E4)

 

1865                Jan 13-14, Union fleet bombed Fort Fisher, NC.

            (AH, 2/05, p.16)

 

1874                Jan 13, Battle between jobless and police in NYC left 100s injured.

            (MC, 1/13/02)

 

1883                Jan 13, Fire in circus Ferroni in Berditschoft, Poland, killed 430.

            (MC, 1/13/02)

 

1893                Jan 13, Britain's Independent Labor Party, a precursor to the current Labor Party, had its 1st meeting.

            (AP, 1/13/00)

 

1895                Jan 13, J.R. Seeley (b.1834), English essayist and historian, died. His essay Ecce Homo, published anonymously in 1866, and afterwards acknowledged by him, was widely read, and prompted many replies, being deemed an attack on Christianity.

            (WSJ, 12/8/08, p.A17)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Robert_Seeley)

 

1898                Jan 13, Emile Zola's famous defense of Captain Alfred Dreyfus, “J'accuse," was published in Paris. The open letter to French President Felix Faure accused the French judiciary of giving into pressure from the military to perpetuate a cover-up in the Dreyfus treason case.

            (AP, 1/13/98)(MC, 1/13/02)

 

1900                Jan 13, To combat Czech nationalism, Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria-Hungary decreed that German would be the language of the imperial army.

            (HN, 1/13/99)

 

1906                Jan 13, The Golden Gate Hotel opened on Fremont Street in Las Vegas, Nev..

            (SSFC, 11/13/05, p.F4)

 

1910                Jan 13, Andrew Jackson Davis (b.1826), American clairvoyant, died. While in a mesmeric (hypnotic) trance, could allegedly communicate with the spirit world and accurately diagnose medical disorders. In 1850, in his book the “Great Harmonia,” Davis talks about how man evolved from animals and that evolution also took place in plants and animals up to man.

            (www.andrewjacksondavis.com/)

 

1912                Jan 13, A temp. of 40F (-40C), Oakland, Maryland, set a state record.

            (MC, 1/13/02)

 

1915                Jan 13, An earthquake in Avezzano, Italy, killed 29,800.

            (MC, 1/13/02)

 

1919                Jan 13, Jackie Robinson, baseball star, was born. He broke the apartheid ban in 1947.

            (SFEC, 10/4/98, p.B14)

1919                Jan 13, Robert Stack, actor best know for his role as Elliot Ness in the TV series "The Untouchables," was born.

            (HN, 1/13/99)

1919                Jan 13, California voted to ratify the Prohibition amendment.

            (HN, 1/13/99)

 

1920                Jan 13, A NY Times editorial excoriated Dr. Robert H. Goddard, and reported that rockets can never fly. In 1969 the NY Times belatedly apologized.

            (WSJ, 8/7/03, p.A1)

 

1923                Jan 13, Hitler denounced the Weimar republic as 5,000 storm troopers demonstrated in Germany.

            (HN, 1/13/99)

 

1927                Jan 13, A woman took a seat on the NY Stock Exchange breaking the all-male tradition.

            (HN, 1/13/99)

 

1929                Jan 13, Frontiersman Wyatt Earp died in LA, Ca., after an illustrious life in the West. Cowboy stars William S. Hart and Tom Mix served as pallbearers. Born in Illinois in 1848, he served as a lawman in Wichita and Dodge City, Kansas, as well as Tombstone, Arizona Territory, where Wyatt and his brothers Morgan and Virgil were notorious for violent clashes with outlaws. Western historians have disagreed about the particulars of Wyatt Earp's life, but he is said to have been a freighter-teamster, railroad construction worker, policeman, prisoner, saloon keeper and horse farmer, and he was involved in several gunfights--for reasons that may or may not have been related to law enforcement. When Morgan was killed, Wyatt avenged his death by killing Frank Stilwell, an outlaw he had previously arrested. Wyatt Berry Stapp Earp died and was buried in Colma, Ca. In 2003 Lee A. Silva authored Wyatt Earp, A Biography of the Legend, Volume 1, the Cowtown Years.”

            (HNPD, 1/12/99)(SFEC, 3/14/99, Z1 p.10)(MesWP)(CHA, 1/2001)(AH, 6/03, p.60)

 

1931                Jan 13, The Bridge connecting New York and New Jersey was named the George Washington Memorial Bridge.

            (HN, 1/13/99)

 

1934                Jan 13, Rip Taylor, comedian (Gong Show, $1.98 Beauty Show), was born.

            (MC, 1/13/02)

 

1937                Jan 13, The United States barred Americans from serving in the Spanish War.

            (HN, 1/13/99)

 

1939                Jan 13, Jacob Ruppert, CEO of the NY Yankees (1915-39), died.

            (MC, 1/13/02)

 

1941                Jan 13, James Joyce, Irish-born novelist, died in Zurich, Switzerland. In 1983 Richard Ellmann authored the 900-page "James Joyce" biography. In 1999 Edna O'Brien authored the pocket bio "James Joyce."

            (AP, 1/13/98)(SFC, 12/9/99, p.B1)

 

1943                Jan 13, General Leclerc's Free French forces merged with the British under Montgomery in Libya.

            (HN, 1/13/99)

 

1944                Jan 13, Three Reich plane plants were wrecked; 64 U.S. aircraft were lost in an air attack in Germany.

            (HN, 1/13/99)

 

1945                Jan 13, The Red Army opened an offensive in South Poland, crashing 25 miles through the German lines.

            (HN, 1/13/99)

 

1947                Jan 13, British troops replaced striking truck drivers.

            (HN, 1/13/99)

 

1948                Jan 13, T Bone Burnett, rocker, was born.

            (MC, 1/13/02)

 

1952                Jan 13, Cornelius Bumpus, keyboardist (Doobie Bros-Minute by Minute), was born.

            (MC, 1/13/02)

 

1955                Jan 13, Chase National and the Bank of Manhattan agreed to merge resulting in the second largest U.S. bank.

            (HN, 1/13/99)

 

1956                Jan 13, Lebanon and Syria signed a defense pact providing for joint retaliation against Israel if either was attacked.

            (EWH, 1968, p.1241)

1956                Jan 13, Lyonel Feininger (b.1871), American-German painter, died. His work included the woodcut "Kreuzende Segelschiffe" (1919) and the pen and ink wash "Three Ghosts" (1953). A catalog of his prints was made by Leona Prasse (1897-1984), late curator of prints at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Feininger published comics for the Chicago Tribune from 1906-1907.

            (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyonel_Feininger)(HT, 5/97, p.60)(WSJ, 1/10/07, p.D10)

 

1957                Jan 13, The Wham-O Company produced the 1st Frisbee. It was initially called the Pluto Platter.

            (SFC, 7/1/02, p.B5)(MC, 1/13/02)

 

1958                Jan 13, 9,000 scientists of 43 nations petitioned the UN for a nuclear test ban.

            (MC, 1/13/02)

 

1962                Jan 13, Ernie Kovacs (b.1919), comedian and TV star, died at age 42 in a car crash in west Los Angeles. ''Nothing in moderation'' was his credo and appeared on his epitaph.

            (AP, 1/13/98)(www.nytimes.com/1990/05/13/books/nothing-in-moderation.html?scp=4)

 

1963                Jan 13, Togo’s first president, Sylvanus Olympio, was killed by a military junta led by Gngassigbe Eyadema. Nicholas Grunitzky succeeded Olympio.

            (SFC, 6/25/98, p.A12)(EWH, 1st ed., p.1172)

 

1965                Jan 13, Two U.S. planes were shot down in Laos while on a combat mission.

            (HN, 1/13/99)

 

1966                Jan 13, Robert C. Weaver became the first black Cabinet member as he was appointed Secretary of Housing and Urban Development by President Johnson.

            (AP, 1/13/98)

 

1967                Jan 13, In Togo Lt. Col. Etienne Eyadama (29) led an army coup and overthrew Pres. Grunitzky. Eyadama suspended the constitution and instituted direct military rule.

            (EWH, 1st ed., p.1172)

 

1968                Jan 13, Hester & Appolinar's musical "Your Own Thing," premiered in NYC.

            (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Your_Own_Thing)

1968                Jan 13, The U.S. reported shifting most air targets from North Vietnam to Laos.

            (HN, 1/13/99)

 

1973                Jan 13, In Bernardsville, N.J., Rabbit Wells (21) was shot a killed by a local patrolman. In 1998 William Loizeaux authored "The Shooting of Rabbit Wells: An American Tragedy."

            (www.amazon.com/Shooting-Rabbit-Wells-American-Tragedy/dp/1559703806)(SFEC, 2/8/98, BR p.5)

 

1976                Jan 13, Sarah Caldwell became the first woman to conduct at New York's Metropolitan Opera House as she led a performance of “La Traviata.”

            (AP, 1/13/02)

1976                Jan 13, Argentina ousted a British envoy in dispute over Falkland Islands War.

            (HN, 1/13/99)

 

1978                Jan 13, Former Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey died in Waverly, Minn., at age 66.

            (AP, 1/13/98)

 

1980                Jan 13, The United States offered Pakistan a two-year aid plan to counter the Soviet threat in Afghanistan.

            (HN, 1/13/99)

 

1982                Jan 13, An Air Florida 737 crashed into the capital's 14th Street Bridge after takeoff and fell into the Potomac River, killing 78 people.

            (AP, 1/13/98)

 

1985                Jan 13, A train plunged into a ravine in eastern Ethiopia and killed at least 392 people.

            (http://tinyurl.com/yznz8w)

 

1986                Jan 13, In Guatemala just before turning over power to Pres. Cerezo, Gen. Humberto Mejia Victores issued a blanket self-amnesty for acts committed during the 3-year rule of the military government.

            (SFC, 7/5/96, p.A13)(www.cidh.org/annualrep/85.86eng/chap4.a.htm)

 

1987                Jan 13, West German police arrested Mohammed Ali Hamadi at the Frankfurt airport, when customs officials discovered liquid explosives in his luggage. The Lebanese man was convicted and served a life sentence in Germany for the 1985 hijacking of a TWA jetliner and killing of a U.S. Navy diver. Although convicted and sentenced to life, Hamadi was paroled by Germany in December 2005.

            (AP, 12/20/05)(AP, 1/13/07)

 

1988                Jan 13, The US Supreme Court ruled 5-3 that public school officials had broad powers to censor school newspapers, school plays and other "school-sponsored expressive activities."

            (AP, 1/13/98)

 

1989                Jan 13, New York City subway gunman Bernhard H. Goetz was sentenced to one year in prison for possessing an unlicensed gun that he used to shoot four youths he said were about to rob him. (He was freed the following September.)

            (AP, 1/13/99)

1989                Jan 13, There was a sit-in at SF General Hosp. by ACT-UP to call attention to the difficulty of obtaining foscarnet, a drug to stabilize CMV retinitis, a common AIDS illness that could lead to blindness.

            (SFC, 3/22/97, p.A13)

 

1990                Jan 13, L. Douglas Wilder of Virginia, the nation's first elected black governor, took the oath of office in Richmond.

            (AP, 1/13/00)

 

1991                Jan 13, UN Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar met with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in a bid to avoid war in the Persian Gulf.

            (AP, 1/13/01)

1991                Jan 13, Soviet troops besieged the Vilnius TV tower and crushed a woman under a tank, but failed to quash the drive for independence. The assault claimed 14 lives. The Soviets occupied strong points in Vilnius, Lithuania, in an attempt to stop the independence movement.

            (Wired, Dec., '95, p.94)(DrEE, 9/28/96, p.1)(AP, 1/13/01)(LHC, 1/12/03)

1991                Jan 13, Forty-two people were killed in a brawl and stampede during a soccer match in Johannesburg, South Africa.

            (AP, 1/13/01)

 

1992                Jan 13, US serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer pleaded guilty but insane in fifteen of the seventeen murders he confessed to committing.

            (MC, 1/13/02)

1992                Jan 13, Israeli, Palestinian and Jordanian negotiators began talks in Washington on Palestinian autonomy.

            (AP, 1/13/98)

1992                Jan 13, Japan apologized for forcing tens of thousands of Korean women to serve as sex slaves for Japanese soldiers during World War II.

            (AP, 1/13/98)

 

1993                Nov 13, President Clinton used his weekly radio address to make yet another pitch for the North American Free Trade Agreement, then flew to Memphis, Tenn., where he delivered an anti-crime speech to black ministers at the Temple Church of God in Christ.

            (AP, 11/13/98)

1993                Jan 13, American and allied warplanes raided southern Iraq.

            (AP, 1/13/98)

1993                Jan 13, The space shuttle Endeavor blasted off from Cape Canaveral.

            (AP, 1/13/98)

1993                Jan 13, Marine Pvt. 1st Class Domingo Arroyo became the first U.S. serviceman to be killed in Somalia.

            (AP, 1/13/98)

1993                Jan 13, Former East German leader Erich Honecker was freed from prison and allowed to leave for Chile.

            (AP, 1/13/00)

 

1994                Jan 13, President Clinton held talks in Moscow with Russian President Boris Yeltsin.

            (AP, 1/13/99)

1994                Jan 13, In Los Angeles, the judge in the Erik Menendez murder case declared a mistrial after jurors could not reach a verdict.

            (AP, 1/13/04)

1994                Jan 13, Authorities in Portland, Ore., arrested Shawn Eckardt, a bodyguard for figure skater Tonya Harding, and Derrick Smith in connection with the attack on Nancy Kerrigan.

            (AP, 1/13/99)

 

1995                Jan 13, The Johnson Grove Baptist Church in Bells, Tenn., burned down as did the Macedonia Baptist Church in Denmark, Tenn. Arson was suspected and investigations by the FBI and ATF were later begun.

            (SFC, 6/11/96, p.A16)

1995                Jan 13, Italy named Treasury Minister Lamberto Dini its prime minister. He pledged to resign after approval of a deficit cutting budget.

            (AP, 1/13/00)(WSJ, 10/27/95, p.A-1)

1995                Jan 13, Authorities in the Philippines said they had unearthed a conspiracy by militant Muslims to assassinate Pope John Paul II during his visit.

            (AP, 1/13/00)

 

1996                Jan 13, President Clinton paid a front-line visit to American forces in Bosnia, praising the troops as “warriors for peace.”

            (AP, 1/13/01)

1996                Jan 13, Nine Republican presidential hopefuls debated in Des Moines, Iowa, where front-runner Bob Dole and flat-tax champion Steve Forbes found themselves facing repeated, bristling criticism.

            (AP, 1/13/01)

 

1997                Jan 13, Supreme Court justices aggressively questioned both sides in a battle over whether a sexual-harassment lawsuit should be allowed to proceed against President Clinton while he was in office. The following May, the justices ruled unanimously that it could.

            (AP, 1/13/98)

1997                Jan 13, Seven black soldiers received the Medal of Honor for World War II valor; the lone survivor, former Lt. Vernon Baker, received his medal from President Clinton at the White House.

            (AP, 1/13/98)

 

1998                Jan 13, The National Football League completed a blockbuster $9.2 billion deal with the Walt Disney Co., which got to keep "Monday Night Football" for ABC and won the entire Sunday night cable package for ESPN.

            (AP, 1/13/99)

1998                Jan 13, Linda Tripp, a Pentagon aide, met with Monica Lewinsky while wearing a secret listening device, and recorded a conversation concerning Lewinsky’s 1995 alleged affair with Pres. Clinton. It was later reported that she had visited the White House over 3 dozen times after leaving her job there to work at the Pentagon in 1996. Tripp came forward with allegations that Lewinsky was planning to commit perjury in the Jones vs. Clinton case.

            (SFC, 1/22/98, p.A3)(SFC, 2/3/98, p.A2)(SFC, 9/12/98, p.A12)

1998                Jan 13, Three robbers stole $1.17 million at the NYC World Trade Center from guards delivering money to a currency exchange center. They returned to their Brooklyn neighborhood where neighbors reported them and 2/3 were arrested. The robbers were dubbed the blundering bandits after authorities said they removed their masks while under video surveillance; three suspects were arrested.

            (SFC, 1/14/98, p.A3)(SFC, 1/16/98, p.A3)(AP, 1/13/99)

1998                Jan 13, In SF four to five men robbed a jewelry salesman in Chinatown near 3 plainclothes police officers for some $2 million in jewels and escaped.

            (SFC, 1/14/98, p.A16)

1998                Jan 13, It was reported that scientists at Geron Corp. demonstrated a method to reproduce human cells without signs of aging. the process incorporated the use of the telomerase protein.

            (SFC, 1/14/98, p.A1)

1998                Jan 13, It was reported that bycatch (unintended catch that is discarded) from overfishing depletes the world’s oceans of 20 million tons a year, or roughly one of every four pounds caught. This wasted bycatch is equivalent to about 10 pounds of food for every person on Earth.

            (SFC, 1/13/98, p.A6)

1998                Jan 13, An Afghan Russian-made cargo plane crashed in southwestern Pakistan with as many as 90 Taliban militia and all were killed.

            (SFC, 1/14/98, p.C2)

1998                Jan 13, In Australia a federal court upheld the armed forces’ right to expel HIV-positive soldiers.

            (SFC, 1/14/98, p.C3)

1998                Jan 13, Iraq blocked a UN weapons inspection tem led by an American.

            (SFC, 2/24/98, p.A9)

1998                Jan 13, In Israel the Cabinet adopted a 12-page list of conditions for the Palestinians to meet before the transfer of any more West Bank land.

            (SFC, 1/14/98, p.C2)

1998                Jan 13, From Rwanda The government reported that 9 Roman Catholic nuns were killed last week by Hutu rebels near the Congo border.

            (WSJ, 1/13/98, p.A1)

 

1999                Jan 13, 60 Minutes II premiered on TV.

            (WSJ, 1/18/99, p.A16)

1999                Jan 13, Michael Jordan announced his retirement from basketball and the Chicago Bulls.

            (SFC, 1/13/99, p.A1)(AP, 1/13/00)

1999                Jan 13, President Clinton's legal team dispatched a formal trial brief to the Senate, arguing that neither "fact or law" warranted his removal from office; House officials sent the Senate all public evidence in the case.

            (AP, 1/13/00)  

1999                Jan 13, Lawyers filed suit against major garment retailers for inhumane working conditions for thousands of Asian women on Saipan, a US commonwealth island.

            (SFC, 1/14/99, p.A1)

1999                Jan 13, The expedition to reach the South Pole by Jon Muir, Peter Hillary and Eric Phillips, called in outside support for food.

            (SFC, 1/14/99, p.C2)

1999                Jan 13, An explosion on Smackover, Ark., killed 3 men working on a naphtha tank valve.

            (SFC, 1/14/99, p.A3)

1999                Jan 13, A KC-135 refueling tanker crashed while landing near Geilenkirchen, Germany, and 4 US airmen were killed. They were attached to an Air national Guard unit based in Spokane.

            (WSJ, 1/14/99, p.A1)

1999                Jan 13, Brazil was forced to allow its currency to slide and global markets fell in response. Gustavo Franco, head of the central bank, quit and was replaced by Francisco Lopes ('Chico'). Lopes announced a new trading range for the real between 1.2 and 1.32 to the dollar.

            (SFC, 1/14/99, p.A10)(WSJ, 1/14/99, p.A1)

1999                Jan 13, Dozens of illegal refugees on Crete went on a hunger strike to support their demand for political asylum. A boat that was to take them to Italy ran aground in a storm Nov 27. The refugees were Kurds, Indians and Sudanese.

            (SFC, 1/14/99, p.A6)

1999                Jan 13, In Kosovo rebels freed 8 Yugoslav soldiers after getting private incentives from int'l. officials.

            (SFC, 1/14/99, p.A11)

 

1999                Jan 13-14, In Moscow agreements were signed with Iraq to reinforce air defenses and upgrade squadrons of MiG fighters. The $160 million deal had been reportedly approved by Prime Minister Primakov on Dec 7.

            (SFC, 2/15/99, p.A10)

1999                Jan 13-25, Marvin Kalb covered this period of the Monicagate story in his 2001 book: “One Scandalous Story: Clinton, Lewinsky, and 13 Days That Tarnished American Journalism.”

            (WSJ, 10/22/01, p.A17)

 

2000                Jan 13, Bill Gates stepped down as CEO of Microsoft and handed the leadership over to Steve Ballmer.

            (SFC, 1/14/00, p.A1)(AP, 1/13/01)

2000                Jan 13, In Algeria the deadline for the surrender of Islamic militants expired.

            (SFC, 1/14/00, p.A14)

2000                Jan 13, In Brazil Mexican singer Gloria Trevi was arrested with her manager Sergio Andrade and Maria Raquenal Portillo on Mexican charges of corrupting Karina Yapor (17). Trevi became pregnant in May and rape was suspected. Brasilia federal police chief Paulo Magalhaes was removed from his post in October.

            (SFC, 1/15/00, p.A10)(SFC, 10/18/01, p.C2)

2000                Jan 13, In France a 50 member surgical team performed the world's first double-hand and forearm transplant at Edouard-Herriot Hospital in a 17-hour operation led by Dr. Jean-Michel Dubernard.

            (SFC, 1/15/00, p.A3)

2000                Jan 13, Serbian authorities charged 144 jailed ethnic Albanians with terrorism in Kosovo during 1999.

            (SFC, 1/14/00, p.D2)

2000                Jan 13, In Vitina, Kosovo, Merita Shabiu, an 11-year-old Albanian girl, was raped and murdered. On Jan 16 American soldier, Staff Sgt. Frank J. Ronghi (35), was charged for the rape and murder. Ronghi later confessed and was sentenced to life in prison.

            (SFC, 1/17/00, p.A10)(WSJ, 1/17/00, p.A1)(SFC, 1/24/00, p.A9)(SFC, 8/2/00, p.A14)

2000                Jan 13, A Swiss Shorts 300-360 airplane carrying Libyan oil workers to a refinery at Marsa el-Brega crashed off the Libya coast and at least 15 of 41 people were killed.

            (SFC, 1/14/00, p.D2)(WSJ, 1/14/00, p.A1)

 

2001                Jan 13, In Utah a small plane crashed into the Great Salt Lake and all 9 people aboard were killed.

            (SFC, 1/16/01, p.A2)

2001                Jan 13, In El Salvador a 7.6 earthquake hit near San Salvador. Some 1200 people were not accounted for in the buried Las Colinas neighborhood. The “slab earthquake” originated 24-36 miles below the surface. The earthquake death toll later climbed to over 840. Damages were estimated at $1 billion.

            (SSFC, 1/14/01, p.A1)(SSFC, 1/21/01, p.D1)(AP, 1/13/06)

2001                Jan 13, The Palestinian Authority executed the 1st 2 Palestinians ever convicted of collaborating with Israel.

            (SSFC, 1/14/01, p.D1)

 

2002                Jan 13, The off-Broadway musical "The Fantasticks" was performed for the last time, ending a run of nearly 42 years and 17,162 shows.

            (AP, 1/13/03)

2002                Jan 13, Pres. Bush lost consciousness briefly after he choked on a cookie while watching a football game on TV.

            (SFC, 1/14/02, p.A1)

2002                Jan 13, Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill and Commerce Secretary Don Evans said on talk shows they had never considered intervening in Enron's spiral toward bankruptcy, nor informed President Bush of requests for help from the fallen energy giant.

            (AP, 1/13/03)

2002                Jan 13, Christian Michael Longo (27), wanted on charges of killing his wife and three children in 2001 and dumping their bodies into coastal waters off Oregon, was arrested in Mexico. Longo had fled the US and impersonated journalist Michael Finkel while abroad. Finkel was fired by the NY Times Magazine in February for creating a composite character in a story on child slavery in West Africa. In 2005 Finkel authored “True Story: Murder, Memoir, Mea Culpa.”

            (SFC, 1/15/02, p.A1)(AP, 1/13/03)(SSFC, 6/5/05, p.B2)

2002                Jan 13, Ted Demme, film and TV director, died at age 38 while playing in a celebrity basketball game in Santa Monica.

            (SFC, 1/15/02, p.A17)

2002                Jan 13, In India armed militants in Tripura state killed 16 and wounded 10 in the Singicherra area. The outlawed National Liberation Front of Tripura targeted Bengali immigrants.

            (SFC, 1/14/02, p.A6)

2002                Jan 13, Muslim scholars concluded a 6-day conference in Mecca and issued a definition of terrorism as: “all acts of aggression committed by individuals, groups or states against human beings, including attacks on their religion, life, intellect or property.

            (WSJ, 1/14/02, p.A12)

 

2003                Jan 13, Connecticut Sen. Joseph Lieberman jumped into the 2004 race for president.

            (AP, 1/13/04)

2003                Jan 13, The owners of FAO Schwarz filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

            (AP, 1/13/04)

2003                Jan 13, Rock musician Pete Townshend was arrested in London on suspicion of possessing indecent images of children. Townshend acknowledged using an Internet Web site advertising child pornography, but said he was not a pedophile and was only doing research for an autobiography dealing with his own suspected childhood sexual abuse; he was eventually cleared of possessing pornographic images of children.

            (AP, 1/13/08)

2003                Jan 13, US warplanes struck an anti-ship missile launcher in southern Iraq. US planes also dropped leaflets over An Najaf, about 85 miles southeast of Baghdad. It was the 14th drop in 3 months.

            (AP, 1/13/03)

2003                Jan 13, It was reported that Iraq has experienced a dramatic increase in child cancers in recent years. Blame was cast on the US use of depleted uranium during the 1991 Gulf War.

            (SFC, 1/13/03, p.A1)

2003                Jan 13, Dutch Foreign Minister Jaap de Hoop Scheffer took over as head of the 55-nation Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe for 2003. He said the Vienna-based OSCE would sharpen its efforts to improve border security and police cooperation and cut off the flow of cash to terrorist groups.

            (AP, 1/13/03)

2003                Jan 13, UN inspectors took their hunt for banned arms to science and technology colleges in Baghdad, and the top nuclear inspector said his teams' mission would take several more months.

            (AP, 1/13/03)

2003                Jan 13, An Indonesia court sentenced Ang Kiem Soei, a Dutch citizen of Chinese descent, to death for operating what police say was one of the biggest ecstasy factories in Southeast Asia.

            (AP, 1/13/03)

2003                Jan 13, Two Palestinians threw grenades at an Israeli bus in the Gaza Strip and were shot dead by Israeli troops, and an Islamic Jihad activist was killed in an explosion in the West Bank.

            (AP, 1/14/03)

2003                Jan 13, Protesters waved Puerto Rican flags and shouted "Navy get out!" as fighter jets dropped inert bombs over Vieques in what the Navy says will be its last round of training on the island.

            (AP, 1/14/03)

2003                Jan 13, Togo's Pres. Gnassingbe Eyadema, celebrated 36 years in power Monday with a military parade, a display derided by opposition groups as "a sheer waste of time."

            (AP, 1/13/03)

 

2004                Jan 13, The US Supreme Court endorsed the use of police road blocks as an investigational tool for finding witnesses to recent crimes.

            (SFC, 1/14/04, p.A3)

2004                Jan 13, A Human Rights Watch report said more than $4 billion in oil revenue disappeared from Angolan state coffers between 1997 and 2002, even as the country was struggling to recover from 27 years of civil war.

            (AP, 1/13/04)

2004                Jan 13, In Maryland a fiery explosion killed five on the northbound lanes of Interstate 95. A tanker carrying flammable material plunged off an overpass on Interstate 895, landing in the northbound lane of I-95.

            (AP, 1/14/04)

2004                Jan 13, Canada's PM Paul Martin met U.S. President George W. Bush officially for the 1st time. Bush announced that Canada will be allowed into a second round of bidding for contracts to rebuild Iraq.

            (AP, 1/13/04)

2004                Jan 13, The European Commission proposed an initiative aimed at creating a single market for services within the European Union (EU), similar to the single market for goods act of 1986. It came to be known as  Bolkestein Directive after the Dutch Commissioner Frits Bolkestein (b.1933), who launched it. Trade unions opposed it. On 16 February 2006, the European Parliament in plenary session in Strasbourg voted in favor of a compromise proposal that went a long way towards meeting the trade union demands.

            (www.etuc.org/a/499)

2004                Jan 13, A US soldier at Abu Ghraib prison reported US abuses of Iraqi prisoners. Criminal charges were lodged against 6 soldiers on Mar 20. In 2005 Spc. Charles Graner was convicted on 5 counts of assault and sentenced to 10 years in a military stockade. Graner said he had operated under orders from superior officers.

            (SFC, 5/6/04, p.A17)(AP, 1/13/05)(SSFC, 1/16/05, p.A1)

2004                Jan 13, Hostile fire brought down a U.S. Army Apache attack helicopter in Iraq, but the two crew members escaped injury.

            (AP, 1/13/05)

2004                Jan 13, In Mexico the 34-nation Summit of the Americas ended. The United States reached out to its neighbors on free trade and battling corruption, smoothing tense relations with Latin American leaders.

            (AP, 1/13/04)(SFC, 1/14/04, p.A1)

2004                Jan 13, In northern England Dr. Harold Shipman was found hanged in his Wakefield prison cell one day before his 58th birthday. He was convicted in 2000 of killing 15 patients and later was found to have murdered at least 200 more, mostly by lethal injection. He always maintained his innocence.

            (AP, 1/13/04)

2004                Jan 13, A Dutch high school student walked into his school's crowded cafeteria and shot Hans van Wieren (49), an economics teacher, point-blank in the head, fatally wounding him.

            (AP, 1/13/04)

2004                Jan 13, A senior Swaziland aide said King Mswati III has ordered nine palaces built within existing royal compounds to house seven of his 10 wives and two future brides. Some $15 million of his impoverished kingdom's national budget would be used on the project.

            (AP, 1/13/04)

2004                Jan 13, Thai and Malaysian military forces began joint land and air patrols along their jungle border for the first time since the 1970s.

            (AP, 1/14/04)

2004                Jan 13, In Tashkent, Uzbekistan, a domestic airliner crashed on approach to the airport. All 37 people, including the top U.N. official for Uzbekistan, were killed.

            (AP, 1/13/04)

 

2005                Jan 13, US baseball owners and players agreed to a more stringent drug policy. It would suspend first-time offenders for 10 days and randomly tested players year-round.

            (SFC, 1/13/05, p.A1)(AP, 1/13/06)

2005                Jan 13, The FBI said it may have to scrap a costly computer system overhaul.

            (WSJ, 1/14/05, p.A1)

2005                Jan 13, The European-built space probe Huygens entered the atmosphere of Saturn's largest moon, Titan.

            (Reuters, 1/14/05)

2005                Jan 13, A Black Hawk helicopter crashed during a counternarcotics mission in the jungles of southwest Colombia, killing all 20 soldiers aboard.

            (AP, 1/13/05)

2005                Jan 13, Sir Mark Thatcher pleaded guilty to unwittingly helping to finance a foiled coup plot in oil-rich Equatorial Guinea, accepting a $506,000 fine and suspended jail sentence.

            (AP, 1/13/05)

2005                Jan 13, In Iran a malfunctioning heater in an Iranian school ignited a barrel of kerosene, touching off a blaze that killing 13 children.

            (AP, 1/13/05)

2005                Jan 13, In Iraq gunmen opened fire on a minibus picking up a Turkish businessman from the Bakhan Hotel in central Baghdad, killing six Iraqis and kidnapping the Turk, who reportedly ran a construction company that worked with U.S.-led occupation authorities.

            (AP, 1/13/05)

2005                Jan 13, In Iraq's western Anbar province 2 U.S. Marines were killed in action, and a soldier died near the restive northern city of Mosul. Gunmen killed three officials of a leading Kurdish political party in an ambush in the volatile northern city of Mosul.

            (AP, 1/14/05)

2005                Jan 13, In Iraq 28 prisoners held by Iraqi authorities for common crimes escaped as they were being transported by bus from the Abu Ghraib prison to another facility. 10 were quickly recaptured.

            (AP, 1/14/05)

2005                Jan 13, Israel's foreign minister said the planned sale of advanced Russian missiles to Syria will disrupt regional stability and Moscow should call off the deal.

            (AP, 1/13/05)

2005                Jan 13, Nepal's PM Sher Bahadur Deuba said he would call elections and intensify a crackdown against Maoist rebels after they turned down his offer of peace talks.

            (AP, 1/13/05)

2005                Jan 13, Palestinian militants killed six Israeli workers at a Gaza crossing. 3 Palestinian attackers were also killed.

            (AP, 1/14/05)(SFC, 1/14/05, p.A3)

2005                Jan 13, In Poland an anti-terrorism law that allows authorities to shoot down hijacked planes as a last resort took effect, part of efforts to protect the country from attacks similar to those of Sept. 11.

            (AP, 1/13/05)

2005                Jan 13, A Russian passenger plane with 10 people on board went missing on a flight over Siberia.

            (AP, 1/13/05)

2005                Jan 13, Saudi judicial officials said a religious court has sentenced 15 Saudis, including a woman, to as many as 250 lashes each and up to six months in prison for participating in a protest against the monarchy.

            (AP, 1/14/05)

2005                Jan 13, In Spain an explosion killed seven workers at a warehouse in the northern city of Burgos. A gas leak was suspected.

            (AP, 1/13/05)

 

2006                Jan 13, President Bush met with Germany's new chancellor, Angela Merkel, at the White House. German's security services faced the prospect of a parliamentary inquiry, triggered by reports that German agents in Baghdad had helped the United States pinpoint bombing targets on April 7, 2003. Foreign Minister Walter Steinmeier confirmed that Germany had 2 agents in Baghdad, who helped American with coordinates for non-targets.

            (Reuters, 1/13/06)(WSJ, 1/13/06, p.A1)(Econ, 1/21/06, p.49)(AP, 1/13/07)

2006                Jan 13, US attorneys general in 12 states said that the Bush administration's plan to ease rules on reporting legal toxin releases would compromise the public's right to know about possible health risks in their neighborhoods.

            (AP, 1/13/06)

2006                Jan 13, NBC's Nashville affiliate closed "The Book of Daniel" after the show, whose main character is a pill-popping Episcopal priest with a gay son and a pot-dealing daughter, drew thousands of complaints.

            (AP, 1/13/06)

2006                Jan 13, North Dakota State University's North Central Research Center, Basin Electric Power Cooperative and other partners described plans for a station in Minot to refuel hydrogen-powered vehicles using wind power.

            (AP, 1/13/06)

2006                Jan 13, The population of New Orleans was estimated at 40% of its original 460,000.

            (WSJ, 1/13/06, p.A1)

2006                Jan 13, Eldon Dedini, cartoonist, died in Carmel, California. His ribald drawings appeared in the New Yorker and Playboy magazines.

            (SFC, 1/19/06, p.B7)

2006                Jan 13, In the Bahamas the Compleat Angler Hotel on North Bimini Island was destroyed by fire. The hotel's owner Julian Brown helped the guests escape before disappearing in the flames to fight the fire. The hotel claimed to be a one-time writing headquarters for Ernest Hemingway and advertised room No. 1 as the place where Hemingway worked on "To Have and Have Not."

            (AP, 1/13/06)

2006                Jan 13, Bolivia's president-elect ended an around-the-world tour with a promise to respect foreign investments and vowed not to nationalize the Bolivian operations of Brazil's state oil company Petrobras SA.

            (AP, 1/13/06)

2006                Jan 13, A battle for livestock between Ethiopian and Kenyan nomads left 38 people dead in drought-stricken northern Kenya, in the remote village of Lokamarinyang, along the Kenya-Ethiopia border. The fighting killed 30 of the Dongiro raiders and eight Kenyans, all of them women and children. A drought that has impoverished some 11.5 million people in the area, most of them nomads, has exacerbated tensions between the tribes.

            (AP, 1/19/06)

2006                Jan 13, Maimuma Taal-Ndure, Gambia’s director of aviation, was arraigned on charges of economic crime, mostly related to the improvement of Banjul Airport. Taal-Ndure had resisted efforts transfer aviation agency funds to another government agency. Her case was dismissed following a trial that stretched over 18 months.

            (WSJ, 12/24/07, p.A8)

2006                Jan 13, Iran threatened to block inspections of its nuclear sites if confronted by the UN Security Council over its atomic activities. The hard-line president reaffirmed his country's intention to produce nuclear energy.

            (AP, 1/13/06)

2006                Jan 13, A US Army reconnaissance helicopter was shot down by insurgents in the northern city of Mosul, killing its two pilots.

            (AP, 1/13/06)(SFC, 1/14/06, p.A6)

2006                Jan 13, In Lithuania Mykolas Burokevicius (78), former Communist Party leader, was freed from Lukiskes Prison after serving 12 years for murder and other crimes.

            (AP, 1/13/06)

2006                Jan 13, Raul Anguiano (b.1915), Mexican painter, sculptor and muralist, died in Mexico City.

            (SFC, 1/17/06, p.B5)

2006                Jan 13, Mongolia’s Parliament voted to dissolve the government of PM Tsakhilganiin Elbegdorj.

            (AP, 1/14/06)

2006                Jan 13, A Hong Kong newspaper reported that North Korea's secretive leader Kim Jong Il is on a two-day visit to the southern Chinese province of Guangdong.

            (AP, 1/13/06)

2006                Jan 13, A local lawmaker said a US airstrike on a Pakistani village near the border with Afghanistan killed at least 17 people, including women and children. The American military said it had no reports of an attack. The provincial government said at least four foreign terrorists died in the purported US airstrike aimed at al-Qaida's No. 2 leader in Damadola. The strike destroyed three houses and killed 18 people. The US missile strike in Pakistan killed a relative of al-Qaida's No. 2 leader Ayman al-Zawahri and a terror suspect.

            (AP, 1/17/06)(AP, 1/13/07)

2006                Jan 13, A Philippine judge issued arrest warrants for four US Marines charged with rape, putting pressure on the United States to hand them over to Philippine authorities.

            (AP, 1/13/06)

2006                Jan 13, In southern Russia a bus transporting workers after their shift at a local factory collided with a train, killing at least 21 people and severely injuring five.

            (AP, 1/13/06)

2006                Jan 13, South Korea agreed to resume imports of some American beef, banned two years ago over fears of mad cow disease. The US government pressed South Korea to accept all US beef imports.

            (AFP, 1/13/06)

2006                Jan 13, Sudan rejected a suggestion by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan that the United States and Europe help set up a possible mobile force in Darfur to supplement African troops now on the ground.

            (AP, 1/13/06)

2006                Jan 13, Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko said that his country should produce its own nuclear fuel for power plants.

            (AP, 1/13/06)

2006                Jan 13, Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez on blasted an attempt by the US to block Spain from selling Venezuela 12 military planes with American parts.

            (AP, 1/13/06)

 

2007                Jan 13, The North Carolina state attorney general's office agreed to take over the sexual assault case against three Duke University lacrosse players at the request of embattled Durham County District Attorney Mike Nifong. All three players were later exonerated.

            (AP, 1/13/08)

2007                Jan 13, In SF the Muni Metro T-Third line began operations.

            (SFC, 1/13/07, p.B1)

2007                Jan 13, It was reported that Kink, a Web-based pornography distributor, had purchased the 1912 old armory building on Mission St. in San Francisco for $14.5 million.

            (SFC, 1/13/07, p.B1)

2007                Jan 13, In Huntington, W.Va, 9 people were killed in an apartment building fire.

            (AP, 1/13/08)

2007                Jan 13, In McDowell County, W.Va., 2 miners were killed when a roof collapsed inside the Brooks Run Mining Company's Cucumber coal mine.

            (AP, 1/13/08)

2007                Jan 13, It was reported that the Asian vulture had declined by up to 99% in the last decade due to poisoning from diclofenac, an anti-inflammatory drug for cattle. In 2006 India, Pakistan and Nepal banned the making and importing of the drug.

            (Econ, 1/13/07, p.39)

2007                Jan 13, In Afghanistan British marines, supported by Dutch and British attack helicopters, staged a pre-dawn attack on a mud-brick compound atop a barren hill where insurgents were thought hiding, setting off a battle that killed 16 suspected militants and one marine in Helmand province. US warplanes dropped 500-pound bombs.

            (AP, 1/14/07)

2007                Jan 13, ASEAN leaders meeting in the Philippines signed an agreement to regulate migrant workers.

            (Econ, 1/20/07, p.54)

2007                Jan 13, It was reported that thousands of birds had dropped dead over the past 3 weeks in Western Australia.

            (SFC, 1/13/07, p.B8)

2007                Jan 13, Bangladeshi police and soldiers arrested more than 2,500 people overnight and raided the homes of several political leaders after a new caretaker government was sworn in to quell unrest ahead of elections.

            (AP, 1/13/07)

2007                Jan 13, A Bolivian air force plane crashed in a southern state, killing all eight people on board.

            (AP, 1/14/07)

2007                Jan 13, In Canada groundbreaking took place in Calgary on the 58-story Encana tower, The Bow. In Dec 2008 construction was halted due to falling oil prices.

            (Econ, 1/17/09, p.40)(http://highriseconstruction.wordpress.com/2008/07/)

2007                Jan 13, China said Wang You-theng, founder of the Rebar Asia Pacific Group, left China for the US. You-theng had vanished earlier this month amid accusations he stole millions of dollars from his Taiwan company.

            (Reuters, 1/19/07)

2007                Jan 13, Pranab Mukherjee, India’s foreign minister, visited Islamabad to discuss Sir Creek and other disputes. 2 days later Indian and Pakistani surveyors began mapping the creek in preparation for settling their maritime border there.

            (Econ, 1/20/07, p.52)

2007                Jan 13, In Iraq at least 11 people were killed or found dead, including a Sunni cleric who was shot to death near his home in Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad and five who were slain in separate attacks in northern Iraq.

            (AP, 1/13/07)

2007                Jan 13, An Italian military tribunal gave life sentences in absentia to 10 German former SS men for massacring about 800 Italian villagers in 1944. They had laid waste to the villages of Marzabotto, Grizzana and Vado di Monzuno near Bologna, as the Germans retreated before Allied troops.

            (Reuters, 1/14/07)

2007                Jan 13, It was reported that swarms of locusts had descended on the Mexican state of Yucatan and threatened over 12,000 acres of vegetation.

            (SFC, 1/13/07, p.B8)

2007                Jan 13, Suspected avian influenza was recorded in northern Nigeria's Sokoto State, a day after the disease reportedly infected 5,000 birds in nearby Kastina state.

            (AP, 1/14/07)

2007                Jan 13, Somali lawmakers authorized the government to declare martial law as the country's internationally recognized leaders struggled to assert their authority after battling an Islamic movement that had controlled much of southern Somalia.

            (AP, 1/13/07)

2007                Jan 13, In southern Thailand a Buddhist man and his wife were working at a rubber plantation in Yala province when a group attacked them, shooting the man three times in the chest before beheading him and killing his wife. Another Buddhist was killed in a drive-by shooting in a separate attack in Yala. The Islamic insurgency, that flared in January 2004, has killed more than 1,900 people.

            (AP, 1/14/07)

 

2008                Jan 13, The NY Times reported that at least 121 Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans have committed a killing or been charged in one in the US after returning from combat.

            (AP, 1/13/08)

2008                Jan 13, Ken Kelley (58), former editor of the Ann Arbor Argus and the SF-based SunDance magazine, died in Pleasanton, Ca.

            (http://hotweir.blogspot.com/2008/01/goodbye-to-my-friend-ken-kelley.html)(SFC, 4/22/08, p.B3)(http://bentley.umich.edu/exhibits/sinclair/)

2008                Jan 13, In Abu Dhabi, UAR, President Bush said that Iran is threatening the security of the world, and that the United States and Arab allies must join together to confront the danger "before it's too late."

            (AP, 1/13/08)

2008                Jan 13, William Wood, US ambassador to Afghanistan, flew to Musa Qala, previously held by the Taliban in the heart of the world's largest poppy-growing region, and told with Mullah Abdul Salaam, the ex-militant commander now in charge there, that Afghans must stop "producing poison." In southern Afghanistan Taliban militants killed eight officers in an attack on a police checkpoint in Kandahar province. A suicide bomber killed another policeman and wounded eight other people when he blew himself up in a housing compound in the town of Lashkar Gah in neighboring Helmand province.

            (AP, 1/13/08)(AP, 1/14/08)

2008                Jan 13, Two young adventurers completed a 62-day paddle of more than 2,000 miles to become the first people to travel from Australia to New Zealand by kayak.

            (AP, 1/13/08)

2008                Jan 13, In Chile Patricia Troncoso (39), an imprisoned Indian-rights activist who has been on a hunger strike for 93 days, was sent to a hospital because of her deteriorating condition. Troncoso, imprisoned in 2002, is serving a 10-year sentence for participating in a group that set a fire on a farm claimed by Mapuche Indian activists who say the property belonged to their ancestors.

            (AP, 1/13/08)

2008                Jan 13, China took aim at price manipulators and hoarders of goods, as Beijing ramped up its campaign to rein in inflation which is running at its highest level in more than a decade. The government said it has closed more than 11,000 small coal mines as part of a two-year-old safety crackdown aimed at stemming the industry's high death toll.

            (Reuters, 1/13/08)(AP, 1/13/08)

2008                Jan 13, Delegation chief Kambasu Ngeze said at a Congolese peace conference that renegade general Laurent Nkunda's Kivu movement vowed to continue its armed struggle "with neither remorse nor regret."

            (AP, 1/13/08)

2008                Jan 13, French President Nicolas Sarkozy confirmed plans to sign a nuclear cooperation agreement with the United Arab Emirates amid reports French firms could construct up to two nuclear reactors there.

            (AP, 1/13/08)

2008                Jan 13, In Georgia tens of thousands of opposition supporters rallied in Tbilisi to protest what they denounced as massive vote fraud that helped US-allied Mikhail Saakashvili win a second presidential term.

            (AP, 1/13/08)

2008                Jan 13, Indian PM Manmohan Singh arrived in Beijing for a three-day visit aimed at boosting sometimes strained relations between the two Asian giants.

            (AP, 1/13/08)

2008                Jan 13, In Iraq several Shiite and Sunni political factions united to pressure Kurds over control of oil and the future of Kirkuk, which the Kurds wished to annex.

            (SFC, 1/14/08, p.A19)

2008                Jan 13, Irish PM Bertie Ahern arrived in Cape Town as part of a five-day visit to South Africa and Tanzania.

            (AP, 1/13/08)

2008                Jan 13, King Abdullah II of Jordan arrived on a three-day official visit to Morocco. Talks between King Abdullah II and Morocco's King Mohammed VI focused on revitalizing trade between Amman and Rabat.

            (AFP, 1/13/08)

2008                Jan 13, A UN humanitarian agency said floods in Mozambique have killed about 50 people and displaced tens of thousands.

            (AP, 1/13/08)

2008                Jan 13, In Sri Lanka Japan's peace envoy opened talks, hinting international donors may hold back much-needed foreign aid if the island's decades-long ethnic conflict escalates. Government soldiers crossed the front lines, destroying three bunkers and killing six rebels. Troops killed a 7th insurgent when he went to inspect the front lines north of rebel-held territory.

            (AP, 1/13/08)(AP, 1/15/08)

2008                Jan 13, In Thailand six suspected militants escaped in a jailbreak.

            (AP, 1/15/08)

 

2009                Jan 13, President George W. Bush declared his administration had achieved "a good, solid" record and gave thanks to both his closest aides and Americans across the country.

            (AP, 1/13/09)

2009                Jan 13, The Pentagon said that 61 former detainees from its military prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, appear to have returned to terrorism since their release from custody.

            (Reuters, 1/14/09)

2009                Jan 13, The city of Los Angeles, plagued by 23,000 violent gang crimes since 2004, including 784 murders and 12,000 felony assaults, announced that it had won its first civil judgment, for $5 million, against a criminal gang that had dominated the heroin trade downtown for decades.

            (CSM, 1/15/09)(http://tinyurl.com/85n3cl)

2009                Jan 13, Citigroup announced that it will spin off its SmithBarney retail brokerage into a joint venture with Morgan Stanley. Plans were also afoot for Citigroup to shrink by a third.

            (WSJ, 1/14/09, p.A1)

2009                Jan 13, Patrick McGoohan (b.1928), Emmy winning TV and film actor, died. He created and starred in the cult classic TV show “The Prisoner” (1967). The British show premiered in the US in 1968.

            (SFC, 1/15/09, p.A2)

2009                Jan 13, Nancy Bird-Walton (93), Australian aviation pioneer, died from natural causes. She was the first woman in Australia to operate a commercial aircraft. Sir Charles Kingsford-Smith, the first man to fly across the mid-Pacific, taught Watson how to fly in 1933, when she was just 17 years old. Two years later, she obtained a commercial pilot's license and began taking paying passengers for joyrides around the country.

            (AP, 1/13/09)

2009                Jan 13, In Austria Umar Israilov (27), a Chechen refugee, was shot dead on a Vienna street. Officials said they had no proof the killing was political, but human rights activists said his death was linked to his opposition to Chechnya's pro-Moscow president. On Jan 28 Austrian authorities arrested seven suspects, all Chechens, in the killing. On February 19 Polish police arrested Turpal Ali J. (31), a man suspected of killing Israilov.

            (AP, 1/28/09)(AP, 2/22/09)

2009                Jan 13, China's government reported that exports fell at their fastest rate in a decade as the country's trade slump worsened again in December, a decline that's led to masses of layoffs and growing fears of social unrest.

            (AP, 1/13/09)

2009                Jan 13, Ethiopia handed over security duties in neighboring Somalia to a joint force of Somali government security forces and Islamic militiamen, a shift some fear will leave a power vacuum in the lawless African nation.

            (AP, 1/13/09)

2009                Jan 13, Iran’s judiciary announced that 2 men were stoned to death last month for adultery.

            (WSJ, 1/14/09, p.A1)

2009                Jan 13, Israeli ground troops closed in on downtown Gaza City, battling Palestinian militants in the streets of a densely populated neighborhood, destroying dozens of homes and sending terrified residents running for cover as gunfire and explosions echoed in the distance. Some 15 rockets and mortar shells were fired toward Israel, causing no injuries. Egyptian mediators pushed the militant Palestinian Hamas group to accept a truce proposal for the embattled Gaza Strip in talks. The UN secretary-general headed to the region to join the multitrack diplomatic efforts for a cease-fire in Israel’s 18-day offensive, in which more than 900 Palestinians have been killed, half of them civilians.

            (AP, 1/13/09)

2009                Jan 13, In Latvia a protest against economic reforms that drew thousands in Riga turned violent as small pockets of rioters clashed with police and attacked government buildings.

            (AP, 1/13/09)

2009                Jan 13, Pirates attacked a Norwegian cable ship off the coast of Nigeria but failed to seize the boat despite gunfire, leaving the crew of 52 unhurt.

            (AFP, 1/13/09)

2009                Jan 13, Russia and Ukraine hotly blamed each other as Russia restarted natural gas supplies but little or no gas flowed toward Europe. EU officials watched in dismay and criticized both nations for their intransigence.

            (AP, 1/13/09)

2009                Jan 13, A Russian warship helped foil an attack on a Dutch container ship by suspected Somali pirates in the dangerous Gulf of Aden.

            (AP, 1/14/09)

2009                Jan 13, Sudanese army planes bombed near Muhajiriya in south Darfur, targeting rebels who had rejected a 2006 peace agreement and the unconditional ceasefire declared by Bashir last year.

            (AP, 1/14/09)

2009                Jan 13, Swedish truck maker AB Volvo said it will lay off more than 1,600 employees in Sweden as it slows production amid falling demand for trucks.

            (AP, 1/13/09)

2009                Jan 13, The WHO said Zimbabwe's cholera epidemic has killed more than 2,000 people and almost 40,000 have contracted the normally preventable disease in Africa's worst outbreak in nearly a decade.

            (Reuters, 1/13/09)

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