Today in History January 16

Today in History - January 16

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1219 Jan 16, Floods followed a storm in Northern Netherlands and thousands were killed.

(MC, 1/16/02)

1493 Jan 16, Columbus aboard the Nina departed Hispaniola along with the Pinta to return to Spain.

(ON, 8/09, p.2)

1547 Jan 16, Ivan IV, popularly known as "Ivan the Terrible," crowned himself the new Czar of Russia in Assumption Cathedral in Moscow. He was the first Russian ruler to assume that title.

(TL-MB, 1988, p.17)(HN, 1/16/99)(AP, 1/16/08)

1581 Jan 16, English parliament passed laws against Catholicism.

(MC, 1/16/02)

1707 Jan 16, Scotland ratified the Treaty of Union by a majority of 110 votes to 69. The Acts created a new state, the Kingdom of Great Britain, by merging the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland together.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acts_of_Union_1707)

1749 Jan 16, Vittorio Alfieri (d.1803), Italian dramatist and tragic poet famous for Cleopatra and Parigi Shastigliata, was born. "Often the test of courage is not to die but to live."

(HN, 1/16/99)

1757 Jan 16, Samuel McIntire, architect of Salem, Massachusetts, was born.

(HN, 1/16/99)

1776 Jan 16, Continental Congress approved the enlistment of free blacks. This led to the all-black First Rhode Island Regiment, composed of 33 freedmen and 92 slaves, who were promised freedom if they served to the end of the war. The regiment distinguished itself at the Battle of Newport.

(SFEC,11/23/97, Par p.19)(MC, 1/16/02)

1786 Jan 16, The Council of Virginia passed the Virginia Act for Establishing Religious Freedom.

(HN, 1/16/99)(WSJ, 12/14/02, p.W17)

1847 Jan 16, US Navy commodore Robert Stockton appointed John C. Fremont (1830-1890), the famed "Pathfinder" of Western exploration, as governor of California. Fremont, explorer, soldier and politician, earned his nickname "The Pathfinder" because of his explorations of the Pacific Northwest, California, and Nevada during the 1840s.

(HN, 1/16/99)(HNQ, 3/11/00)(SSFC, 7/1/07, p.M4)

1853 Jan 16, Andre Michelin, French industrialist and tire manufacturer (Michelin), was born.

(MC, 1/16/02)

1865 Jan 16, General Sherman began a march through the Carolinas. During the march Sherman issued Field Order No. 15 that set aside land, “40 acres and a mule,” in Georgia and South Carolina for freed slaves.

(HN, 1/16/99)(SFC, 6/20/00, p.A6)(SFC, 4/5/02, p.H4)

1865 Jan 16, Charles (19) and Michael de Young (17) started a free theater-program sheet in SF called The Daily Dramatic Chronicle. Early quarters were at Clay and Montgomery. They borrowed a $20 gold piece from Capt. William Hinkley, who owned the building where they lived, to start the paper.

(SFC, 7/18/96, p.A1)(SFEC, 3/8/98, BR p.1)(SFC, 8/7/99, p.A1)(SFC, 1/16/09, Extra p.1)

1868 Jan 16, The refrigerated railroad car was patented by William Davis, a fish dealer in Detroit. [see Nov 26, 1867]

(MC, 1/16/02)

1878 Jan 16, Harry Carey Sr., actor (Aces Wild, Border Cafe, Air Force), was born in Bronx, NY.

(MC, 1/16/02)

1883 Jan 16, The U.S. Civil Service Commission was established. The US Civil Service Reform Act prohibited federal employees from contributing to political campaigns.

(AP, 1/16/98)(SFEC, 10/5/97, p.D9)

1889 Jan 16, An Australian record temperature of 128F, or 53C, was recorded in Cloncurry, Queensland.

(MC, 1/16/02)

1900 Jan 16, The U.S. Senate consented to the Anglo-German treaty of 1899 by which the UK renounced its rights to the Samoan Islands.

(HN, 1/16/99)

1901 Jan 16, Fulgencio Batista (d.1973), later president and dictator of Cuba (1933-44, 1952-59), was born. He was overthrown by Fidel Castro and died in Spain.

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

1906 Jan 16, Marshall Field (71), Chicago department store founder, died in NYC.

(AP, 1/16/06)

1909 Jan 16, Ethel Merman, U.S. singer and actress, was born. She was known as the “Queen of Broadway.” [2nd source says 1908]

(HN, 1/16/99)(MC, 1/16/02)

1909 Jan 16, One of Ernest Shackleton's polar exploration teams reached the Magnetic South Pole.

(HN, 1/16/00)

1910 Jan 16, David McCampbell, US pilot and captain (WW II-Pacific-downed 34 Japanese planes), was born.

(MC, 1/16/02)

1911 Jan 16, Jay Hanna Dean, aka “Dizzy Dean,” one of baseball's greatest pitchers, hall of fame, was born.

(MC, 1/16/02)

1912 Jan 16, British explorer Robert Falcon Scott wrote in his diary after reaching the South Pole on January 16, 1912, "Great God this is an awful place and terrible enough for us to have labored to it without the reward of priority." Robert Scott, attempting to lead the first exploration party to the South Pole, wrote the passage after finding the black flag of Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen. Thoroughly demoralized, the five members of the Scott party died during their 800-mile trek back to their base camp. [see Jan 18]

(HNQ, 7/22/98)

1913 Jan 16, Prof. Thaddeus Lowe (80), balloonist pioneer, died.

(www.militarymuseum.org/Lowe.html)

1914 Jan 16, Maxim Gorky was authorized to return to Russia after an eight year exile for political dissidence.

(HN, 1/16/99)

1919 Jan 16, Nebraska, Wyoming and Missouri became the 36th, 37th and 38th states to ratify Prohibition, which went into effect a year later. Prohibition became law in the US with the passage of the Volstead Act on Oct 28, which enforced and defined the 18th Amendment. It was passed over President Wilson's veto with the necessary two-thirds majority of state ratification.

(WSJ, 8/22/96, p.A14)(AP, 1/16/98)

1920 Jan 16, Prohibition began as the 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution took effect. It was later repealed by the 21st Amendment. Alcohol was outlawed in the US with the passage of the 18th amendment. It was made law on Jan 16,1919, but became effective on this day. At the time US authorities expected few violations of the new law. Over the next fourteen years, Prohibition corrupted all levels of society, swamped the judiciary, killed thousands of people, and gave rise to underworld syndicates that still exist.

(www.browardpalmbeach.com/1997-12-04/news/the-gallows-and-the-deep/)(AP, 1/16/98)(SFC, 4/7/96, p.B-11)

1920 Jan 16, The League of Nations held its first meeting in Paris.

(HN, 1/16/99)

1920 Jan 16, Allies lifted the blockade on trade with Russia.

(HN, 1/16/99)

1924 Jan 16, Katy Jurado (d.2002), Mexican-US film actress, was born as Maria Cristina Jurado Garcia in Guadalajara.

(SFC, 7/6/02, p.A19)

1925 Jan 16, Leon Trotsky was dismissed as CEO of Russian Revolution Military Council. Stalin took power over Trotsky.

(TMC, 1994, p.1925)(MC, 1/16/02)

1928 Jan 16, The 4 Marx Brothers arrived at the Columbia Theater in SF to perform in the Kaufman and Berlin musical “The Cocoanuts.” The farce dealt with the Florida land boom.

(SFC, 1/10/03, p.E6)

1933 Jan 16, Oleg Grigoryevich Makarov (d.2003 at 70), USSR cosmonaut (Soyuz 12, 18A, 27, T-3), was born.

(MC, 1/16/02)(SFC, 5/31/03, p.A21)

1935 Jan 16, US federal agents killed gangsters Ma Barker and Freddy, one of her 4 sons, at Lake Weir, Fla.

(AH, 2/05, p.16)

1938 Jan 16, The Benny Goodman Carnegie Hall Jazz Concert featured an outstanding solo by saxophonist Lester Young. Goodman performed at Carnegie Hall along with Count Basie, Harry James, Lester Young, Gene Krupa, Johnny Hodges, Lionel Hampton and 17 others. The concert was recorded and in 2000 Columbia issued a remastered edition of the performance.

(WSJ, 8/29/96, A11)(WSJ, 1/12/00, p.A20)

1939 Jan 16, The comic strip "Superman" debuted.

(MC, 1/16/02)

1939 Jan 16, Franklin D. Roosevelt asked for an extension of the Social Security Act to more women and children.

(HN, 1/16/99)

1939 Jan 16, Albert Fish, mass murderer, was executed.

(MC, 1/16/02)

1940 Jan 16, Hitler canceled an attack in the West due to bad weather and the capture of German attack plans in Belgium.

(HN, 1/16/99)

1941 Jan 16, US vice admiral Bellinger warned of an assault on Pearl Harbor.

(MC, 1/16/02)

1941 Jan 16, The US War Dept formed the 1st Army Air Corps squadron for black cadets.

(MC, 1/16/02)

1942 Jan 16, William Knudsen became the 1st civilian appointed as general in US army.

(MC, 1/16/02)

1942 Jan 16, Actress Carole Lombard and her mother were among some 20 people killed when their plane crashed near Las Vegas while returning from a tour to promote war bonds.

(AP, 1/16/00)

1942 Jan 16, Japan’s advance into Burma began. [see Jan 19]

(HN, 1/16/99)

1943 Jan 16, A state record of -60F (-51C) was recorded in Island Park Dam, Idaho.

(MC, 1/16/02)

1944 Jan 16, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower assumed supreme command of the Allied Expeditionary Force in London.

(AP, 1/16/98)(HN, 1/16/99)

1944 Jan 16, The U.S. First and Third armies link up at Houffalize, effectively ending the Battle of the Bulge

(HN, 1/16/02)

1944 Jan 16, In Leon Province, Spain, train wrecks in the Torro Tunnel killed more than 500 people.

(AP, 2/18/04)(SFC, 6/4/98, p.A15)

1945 Jan 16, The U.S. First and Third armies linked up at Houffalize, effectively ending the Battle of the Bulge. In 1997 Charles B. MacDonald authored “A Time for Trumpets: The Untold Story of the Battle of the Bulge.”

(HN, 1/16/99)(WSJ, 12/7/04, p.D11)

1948 Jan 16, Anatoli Yakovlevich Solovyov, cosmonaut (TM-5,9,15,26, STS 71), was born in Riga, Latvia.

(MC, 1/16/02)

1951 Jan 16, World's largest gas pipeline opened from Brownsville Tx, to 134th St, NYC.

(MC, 1/16/02)

1951 Jan 16, French forces repulsed a Viet Minh offensive near Hanoi.

(http://experts.about.com/e/f/fi/First_Indochina_War.htm)

1954 Jan 16, "South Pacific" closed at Majestic Theater, NYC, after 1928 performances.

(MC, 1/16/02)

1954 Jan 16, Mexico closed its borders to all farm laborers heading for the US following a breakdown in negotiations with the US over renewal of an annual agreement on labor flow.

(SFC, 1/16/04, p.E5)

1956 Jan 16, Egyptian Pres. Nasser pledged to reconquer Palestine. His government made Islam the state religion.

(HN, 1/16/99)(MC, 1/16/02)

1957 Jan 16, Three B-52's (accompanied at first by two spare aircraft) took off from Castle Air Force Base in California on the first nonstop, round-the-world flight by jet planes, which lasted 45 hours and 19 minutes.

(AP, 1/16/07)

1957 Jan 16, Arturo Toscanini (b.1867), Italian-US conductor (NBC), died in NYC. He led the NBC Symphony from 1937-1954. In 1978 Harvey Sachs wrote his biography. In 2002 Sachs edited "The Letters of Arturo Toscanini," his correspondence with Ada Mainardi.

(www.britannica.com/eb/article-9073009/Arturo-Toscanini)(HN, 3/25/01)(WSJ, 4/30/02, p.D7)

1963 Jan 16, Nikita Khrushchev claimed the USSR had a 100-megaton nuclear bomb.

(MC, 1/16/02)

1964 Jan 16, The musical "Hello, Dolly!," starring Carol Channing, opened on Broadway at the St. James Theater, beginning a run of 2,844 performances.

(AP, 1/16/98)

1964 Jan 16, Pres. Johnson approved OPLAN 34A-64, calling for stepped up infiltration and covert operations against North Vietnam to be transferred from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to the military."

(http://millercenter.org/academic/americanpresident/lbjohnson)

1965 Jan 16, "Outer Limits" last aired on ABC-TV.

(MC, 1/16/02)

1965 Jan 16, Eighteen were arrested in Mississippi for the murder of three civil rights workers.

(HN, 1/16/99)

1967 Jan 16, Alan S. Boyd was sworn in as the first US secretary of transportation.

(AP, 1/16/98)

1967 Jan 16, Gov. Reagan met with FBI agents at his governor’s mansion in Sacramento, Ca., for information on UC campus radicals.

(SSFC, 6/9/02, p.F1)

1973 Jan 16, NBC presented the 440th and final showing of "Bonanza."

(www.tv.com/Bonanza/show/228/summary.html)

1974 Jan 16, NY Yankees Mickey Mantle and Whitey Ford were elected to Hall of Fame.

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

1975 Jan 16, The Irish Republican Army called an end to a 25-day cease fire in Belfast.

(HN, 1/16/99)

1978 Jan 16, NASA named 35 candidates to fly on the space shuttle, including Sally K. Ride, who became America's first woman in space, and Guion S. Bluford Jr., who became America's first black astronaut in space. Six women, out of some 3,000 original applicants, graduated from NASA's rigorous training program to become the 1st female astronauts in the space program.

(AP, 1/16/98)(www.astronautix.com/astrogrp/nas81978.htm)

1979 Jan 16, Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlevi fled Iran for Egypt as millions united with Ayatollah Khomeini calling for his death. The Shah of Iran was overthrown in a revolution led from exile by the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who established a Muslim Theocracy. Iran was overwhelmingly Shiite, which believes that authority is invested only in descendants of Muhammad’s son-in-law, Ali, who is buried in An Najaf, Iraq. The Shah of Iran fled and the Ayatollah Khomeini took charge.

(NG, 5/88, p.653)(TMC, 1994, p.1979)(HN, 1/16/99)(AP, 1/16/05)

1980 Jan 16, Paul McCartney was arrested in Tokyo for marijuana possession. He was released and deported on Jan 25.

(www.taima.org/en/hemplib3.htm#mccartney)

1981 Jan 16, Leon Spinks b.1953), former heavyweight boxing champion (1978), was mugged. His assailants even took his gold teeth.

(http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9402E4D9143BF935A25752C0A967948260)

1981 Jan 16, In Northern Ireland, Protestant gunmen shot and wounded Irish nationalist leader Bernadette Devlin McAliskey and her husband.

(AP, 1/16/01)

1987 Jan 16, China’s Communist Party chief Hu Yaobang became the scapegoat for student protests and was forced to resign. He was succeeded by Zhao Ziyang.

(SFC, 2/20/96, p.A4)

1987 Jan 16, In Spain Jose Ignacio De Juana Chaos (b.1955), a former police officer who joined one of ETA's most active commando units, was arrested. In 1989 he was convicted of killing 25 people in a string of attacks, including the Madrid car bombing that killed 12 Civil Guard policemen on July 14, 1986. In 2008 De Juana Chaos (52) was released from prison after serving 21 years.

(AP, 8/2/08)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I%C3%B1aki_de_Juana_Chaos)

1988 Jan 16, Jimmy "The Greek" Snyder was fired as a CBS Sports commentator one day after telling a TV station in Washington, D.C., that, during the era of slavery, blacks had been bred to produce stronger offspring.

(AP, 1/16/98)

1989 Jan 16, Three days of rioting erupted in Miami when a police officer fatally shot a black motorcyclist, causing a crash that also claimed the life of a passenger.

(AP, 1/16/99)

1990 Jan 16, Two Bank of Credit and Commerce (BCCI) members pleaded guilty to money laundering.

(MC, 1/16/02)

1990 Jan 16, The Soviet Union sent more than 11,000 reinforcements to the Caucasus to halt a civil war between Armenians and Azerbaijanis.

(AP, 1/16/00)

1991 Jan 16, The White House announced the start of Operation Desert Storm to drive Iraqi forces out of Kuwait. President Bush said in a nationally broadcast address “the battle has been joined” as fighter bombers pounded Iraqi targets. Because of the time difference, it was early January 17th in the Persian Gulf when the attack began. At 4:30 P.M. EST, the first fighter aircraft are launched from Saudi Arabia and off of U.S. and British aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf on bombing missions over Iraq.

(AP, 1/16/01)(MC, 1/16/02)

1992 Jan 16, Officials of the government of El Salvador and rebel leaders signed a pact in Mexico City ending 12 years of civil war that had left at least 75,000 people dead.

(AP, 1/16/98)

1993 Jan 16, US Attorney General-designate Zoe Baird and her husband paid a $2,900 fine for employing illegal aliens in their home. Controversy over the hirings derailed her nomination.

(AP, 1/16/98)

1993 Jan 16, Glenn Corbett (63), US actor (Shenandoah, Chisum, Midway), died.

(MC, 1/16/02)

1994 Jan 16, President Clinton held marathon talks in Geneva with Syrian President Hafez Assad, who offered Israel "normal, peaceful relations" in exchange for land.

(AP, 1/16/99)

1994 Jan 16, In Moscow, Yegor Gaidar, first deputy prime minister and architect of Russia's market reforms, announced his resignation.

(AP, 1/16/99)

1995 Jan 16, In Union, S.C., a prosecutor announced he would seek the death penalty for Susan Smith, the woman accused of drowning her sons, 3-year-old Michael and 14-month-old Alex. Smith was later convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison.

(AP, 1/16/00)

1996 Jan 16, Chechens hijacked a ferry with 165 passengers and crew from the Turkish port of Trabzon bound for the Russian city of Sochi. Gunmen in Trabzon, Turkey, hijacked a Black Sea ferry with more than 200 people on board, and demanded that Russian troops stop fighting Chechen rebels in Pervomayskaya. The hostages were released three days later after the Russian troops stormed Pervomaiskoye.

(WSJ, 1/17/96, p.A-1)(AP, 1/16/01)

1997 Jan 16, Enis Cosby (27), son of Bill Cosby, was murdered in Los Angeles while changing a tire in an apparent roadside robbery. A Ukrainian émigré teenager, Mikail Markhasev, was picked up and charged for the murder in March. Eli Zakaria and girlfriend Sara Peters were in a car with Markhasev. Markhasev was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. Markhasev admitted his guilt in 2001 and made a public apology.

(SFC, 2/1/97, p.E4)(WSJ, 3/14/97, p.A1)(SFC, 3/15/97, p.A3)(AP, 1/16/98)(SFC, 6/27/98, p.A5)(WSJ, 8/12/98, p.A1)(WSJ, 2/12/00, p.A1)

1997 Jan 16, In Atlanta, two bomb blasts an hour apart rocked a building containing an abortion clinic, injuring six people.

(SFC, 1/17/97, p.A1)(AP, 1/16/98)

1997 Jan 16, Maurice Strong, Canadian millionaire businessman and environmentalist, was appointed by Kofi Annan to coordinated UN reform for a salary of $1 per year.

(SFC, 1/17/97, p.A14)

1997 Jan 16, In the SF Bay Area Peninsula Open Space Trust negotiated an agreement to purchase 1,626 acres of Bair Island for $15 million from Redwood Shores Properties. The land would be restored to marshland with no billboards. The Peninsula Open Space Trust was formed in this year to purchase and set aside land for open space.

(SFC, 1/16/96, p.A1)(SFC, 4/8/99, p.A19)(SFC, 3/15/07, p.A11)

1997 Jan 16, In Haiti strikes swept the country and protestors demanded the resignation of premier Rosny Smarth and an end to IMF-backed austerity measures..

(WSJ, 1/17/97, p.A1)

1997 Jan 16, Israeli soldiers dismantled their military headquarters in Hebron, marking the beginning of the end of Israel's 30-year-old rule in the West Bank city. A 5th of the city where 500 militant settlers live will maintain a force of some 2,500.

(SFC, 1/17/97, p.A12)(AP, 1/16/98)

1998 Jan 16, Texas settled with the tobacco industry for $15.3 billion.

(SFC, 1/17/98, p.A6)(AP, 1/16/99)

1998 Jan 16, NASA officially announced that John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth, would fly aboard the space shuttle later in the year.

(AP, 1/16/99)

1998 Jan 16, Baltic leaders signed an agreement, the US-Baltics Charter of Partnership, at the White House strengthening US and NATO ties with Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia. The leaders also established a $15 million fund with equal contributions from the Agency for Int’l. Development and George Soros to promote nongovernmental organizations (NGOs).

(WSJ, 1/16/98, p.A1)(SFC, 1/17/98, p.A8)

1998 Jan 16, In El Salvador Israel Job Pineda, a fisherman in La Herradura, was shot and killed by a pirate intruder. Pirates had become a growing threat to the local shrimp fisherman. Police later arrested nine fishermen linked to the attack.

(SFEC, 2/8/98, p.A26)

1998 Jan 16, In Germany the Bonn Parliament took steps to allowing private phones to be bugged. The Bundestag (lower house) voted to secure a 2/3 majority needed to change the constitution to give police greater powers.

(SFC, 1/17/98, p.A8)

1998 Jan 16, In Guatemala 13 college students and 3 faculty members from St. Mary's College of Maryland were robbed and 5 women were raped after their bus was ambushed near Santa Lucia. 4 suspects were later arrested and 3 more were sought by police. In 1999 three men, Cosbi Gamaliel Ortiz (38), Rony Leonel Polanco Sil (29) and Reyes Guch Ventura (25), were convicted and sentenced to 28 years in prison.

(SFC, 1/19/98, p.A8)(SFC, 2/9/99, p.A8)

1998 Jan 16, From Indonesia it was reported that Pres. Suharto and his six children have an estimated net worth of $40 billion, equal to about half the country’s gross domestic product.

(SFC, 1/16/98, p.B3)

1998 Jan 16, In Kenya the WHO recommended that travelers take precautions against Rift Valley Fever, a mosquito born disease that has killed 300 people.

(SFC, 1/17/98, p.A10)

1998 Jan 16, It was reported that Nevis planned to withdraw from St. Kitts if 2/3 of the voters approved a midyear referendum. The 9,000 citizens of Nevis lived on 36 square miles, while the 35,000 people of St. Kitts lived on 65 square miles. Nevisians were particularly upset about drug barons on St. Kitts, especially Charles “Little Nut” Miller.

(SFC, 1/16/98, p.B2)

1998 Jan 16, In Turkey the Islamist Welfare Party was banned by the Constitutional Court for “activities against the secular regime.” Former Welfare deputies created the Virtue Party.

(SFC, 1/17/98, p.A1)(AP, 11/4/02)

1999 Jan 16, Closing three days of opening arguments, House prosecutors demanded President Clinton's removal from office, telling a hushed Senate that otherwise the presidency itself may be "deeply and perhaps permanently damaged."

(AP, 1/16/00)

1999 Jan 16, Methodist ministers in Sacramento, Ca., blessed the union of 2 lesbians in contradiction to Church law.

(SFEC, 1/17/99, p.C1)

1999 Jan 16, The US and North Korea opened talks on inspections of a suspected underground nuclear facility.

(SFEC, 1/17/99, p.A10)

1999 Jan 16, In Kosovo 45 ethnic Albanians were found massacred at Racak. It was later reported that the killing was ordered by senior Serbian officials, who attempted to orchestrate a cover-up.

(SFEC, 1/17/99, p.A1)(SFC, 1/22/99, p.A10)(SFC, 1/28/99, p.A1)

2000 Jan 16, In Kosovo an American soldier, Staff Sgt. Frank J. Ronghi (35), was charged with the rape and murder of an 11-year-old Albanian girl.

(SFC, 1/17/00, p.A10)(WSJ, 1/17/00, p.A1)

2000 Jan 16, Nelson Mandela addressed peace talks in Arusha, Tanzania, and admonished the leaders of Burundi for having failed their people and all of Africa.

(SFC, 1/20/00, p.A12)

2000 Jan 16, In Chechnya Russian warplanes bombarded the area around Grozny and federal forces reported 120 rebels killed. Islamic militants reported at least 18 civilians killed.

(SFC, 1/17/00, p.A10)

2000 Jan 16, In Chile Socialist Ricardo Lagos (61) won the presidential elections in a 51.3% to 48.7% vote over Joaquin Lavin, a former aide to Gen. Pinochet.

(SFC, 1/17/00, p.A10)(WSJ, 1/17/00, p.A1)

2000 Jan 16, In Colombia at least 13 guerrillas were killed in Bolivar state. Rebel bombings of power lines left Medellin out of power for several hours. Rebels blew up 22 high-voltage pylons that took out power in Antioquia, Choco and Cordoba provinces.

(SFC, 1/18/00, p.A9)(WSJ, 1/18/00, p.A1)

2000 Jan 16, Prince Ernst August of Hannover (b.1954), a great-grandson of the last German emperor, Wilhelm II, slapped hotel owner Josef Brunlehner on Lamu Island, Kenya, allegedly as a symbolic reproach over noise from a disco. He was pursued in Germany where the law allows prosecutors to charge citizens who commit crimes abroad. August was convicted in 2004 and fined $633,000. In 2010 August was retried on charges of causing serious bodily harm.

(AP, 1/13/10)(SFC, 1/14/10, p.A2)(www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1P2-6780117.html)

2000 Jan 16, In Lhasa, Tibet, Soinam Puncog (2), was designated the 7th Reting Lama in a ceremony presided over by Chinese authorities.

(SFC, 1/18/00, p.A8)

2000 Jan 16, In Uganda a weekend rebel attack by Allied Democratic Forces killed 25 civilians and 3 soldiers at the Kirindi camp, 186 miles west of Kampala.

(SFC, 1/18/00, p.A12)

2001 Jan 16, Dave Winfield and Kirby Puckett were elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame on their first try.

(AP, 1/16/02)

2001 Jan 16, Confirmation hearings for Attorney General-designate John Ashcroft opened in Washington with Senate Democrats throwing jabs at him over abortion and civil rights.

(AP, 1/16/02)

2001 Jan 16, Leonard Woodcock, former head of the United Auto Workers union, died in Ann Arbor, Mich., at age 89.

(AP, 1/16/02)

2001 Jan 16, In China the Shenzhou II unmanned space craft landed after 108 orbits.

(WSJ, 1/17/01, p.A1)

2001 Jan 16, In Congo Pres. Kabila was assassinated by one of his bodyguards, Rashidi Kasereka, who was immediately killed. In 2003 a military court sentenced 26 people to death for the assassination.

(SFC, 1/17/01, p.A1)(SFC, 1/24/01, p.A12)(SFC, 1/8/03, p.A16)

2001 Jan 16, The Ecuadoran tanker Jessica with 243,000 gallons of fuel, ran aground on San Cristobal island in the Galapagos and began leaking fuel 3 days later.

(SFC, 1/20/01, p.A11)(SFC, 1/22/01, p.A10)

2001 Jan 16, In Kashmir 11 people died when militants attacked the airport at Srinagar. The Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba guerrillas claimed responsibility. The group was later banned in Pakistan but reappeared under the name Jamaat-ud-Dawa.

(SFC, 1/17/01, p.A11)(Econ, 7/29/06, p.39)

2001 Jan 16, Luther and Johnny Htoo, twin adolescent leaders of an ethnic Karen rebel group in Myanmar, surrendered to Thai border police.

(WSJ, 1/17/01, p.A1)

2001 Jan 16, In the Philippines the prosecution against Pres. Estrada quit after the Senate voted to deny access to crucial evidence.

(SFC, 1/17/01, p.A10)

2001 Jan 16, In Sri Lanka a government offensive left 41 people dead including 22 rebels and 18 soldiers.

(SFC, 1/17/01, p.A11)

2002 Jan 16, Richard Reid, the al Qaeda trained shoe-bomber, was indicted on 9 counts in Boston. Reid pleaded guilty Oct 4.

(SFC, 1/17/02, p.A1)(AP, 10/4/02)

2002 Jan 16, Mokhtar Haouari was sentenced to 24 years in prison for providing fake ID and $3,000 to Ahmed Ressam in 1999. Ressam planned to detonate explosives at the LA Int’l. Airport during millennium celebrations.

(SFC, 1/17/02, p.A12)

2002 Jan 16, Four former SLA members, Sara Jane Olson, William Harris, Emily Harris and Michael Bortin, were arrested in California for the 1975 slaying of Myrna Lee Opsahl.

(SFC, 1/17/02, p.A1)

2002 Jan 16, In Grundy, Va., Peter Odighizuwa shot and killed the dean, a professor and a student at the Appalachian School of Law following suspension due to low grades. He was later found incompetent to stand trial.

(SFC, 1/17/02, p.A3)(AP, 1/16/03)

2002 Jan 16, In Afghanistan Hamid Karzai issued a decree that banned the cultivation of opium poppies.

(SFC, 1/17/02, p.A12)

2002 Jan 16, In Cyprus rival leaders, Glafcos Clerides and Rauf Denktash, met on the border in Nicosia in the 1st formal negotiation in 4 years.

(SFC, 1/17/02, p.A8)

2002 Jan 16, In Indonesia a Boeing 737-300 with 60 people crash-landed on a river in Java. One person was killed and 23 injured.

(SFC, 1/17/02, p.A10)

2002 Jan 16, In Pakistan the government announced electoral reforms and freed non-Muslims to vote along with the Islamic majority. Lower house seats were increased to 350 from 237 and college graduation was made a requirement for candidates.

(SFC, 1/17/02, p.A13)

2002 Jan 16, Pakistan police arrested 5 al Qaeda members in Punjab province as they attempted to flee disguised under burqas.

(SFC, 1/18/02, p.A18)

2002 Jan 16, In the West Bank a Palestinian killed another Palestinian, who was mistaken for an Israeli.

(SFC, 1/17/02, p.A11)

2003 Jan 16, The Bush administration urged the Supreme Court to strike down admissions policies at the University of Michigan and its law school, arguing that university admissions programs that gave an edge to minority students were unconstitutional.

(AP, 1/16/04)

2003 Jan 16, The US government announced that men from Bangladesh, Egypt, Jordan, Indonesia and Kuwait will be subject to fingerprints, photographs and interviews in addition to men from 18 other Arab and Muslim countries.

(SFC, 1/16/03, p.A6)

2003 Jan 16, AOL Time Warner chief executive Dick Parsons was tapped to be the media conglomerate's new chairman, succeeding Steve Case.

(AP, 1/16/04)

2003 Jan 16, Microsoft announced its 1st dividend along with a stock split.

(SFC, 1/17/03, p.A1)

2003 Jan 16, The shuttle Columbia carried a crew of 7 for a 16-day mission. Col. Ilan Ramon was aboard as Israel's 1st astronaut. The mission ended in tragedy on Feb. 1, when the shuttle broke up during its return descent, killing all seven crew members.

(SFC, 1/17/03, p.A2)(AP, 1/16/04)

2003 Jan 16, Argentina reached a preliminary agreement with the International Monetary Fund to avoid default.

(AP, 1/17/03)

2003 Jan 16, In Brazil mudslides killed at least 36 people in Minas Gerais and Espirito Santo states.

(SFC, 1/17/03, p.A10)(AP, 1/18/03)

2003 Jan 16, In Colombia a car bomb exploded outside the attorney general's office in Medellin, killing three people and wounding at least 19. Gunmen entered the tiny village of Dos Quebradas and killed a dozen people, leaving surviving villagers terrified and waiting for government forces to arrive. At least 16 people were killed by FARC rebels in villages around San Carlos.

(AP, 1/16/03)(AP, 1/18/03)(AP, 1/19/03)

2003 Jan 16, The European Union's Court of Justice ordered Spain and Italy to drop national rules on what constitutes chocolate, saying they can no longer bar British and Irish confections made with vegetable fats instead of cocoa butter.

(AP, 1/16/03)

2003 Jan 16, In Greenland Premier Hans Enoksen, head of the social democratic Siumut party, struck a deal with the island's liberal Atassut party. 2 days earlier Enoksen evicted the left-wing Inuit Ataqatigitt party, leaving the Arctic island of 56,000 without a government. A spat had developed over the use of a healer to chase away evil spirits from government offices.

(AP, 1/17/03)

2004 Jan 16, Pres. Bush sidestepped Congress and installed Mississippi judge Charles Pickering to the federal appeals court after a two-year battle filled with racial, religious and regional argument.

(AP, 1/16/04)

2004 Jan 16, Paul Bremmer, the U.S. administrator in Iraq, said the US will revise its plan to create self-rule in Iraq, following consultations with President Bush.

(AP, 1/16/04)

2004 Jan 16, The US Army awarded Halliburton a 2-year contract worth up to $1.2 billion to rebuild the oil industry in southern Iraq.

(SFC, 1/17/04, p.A8)

2004 Jan 16, Pop star Michael Jackson pleaded innocent to child molestation charges during a court appearance in Santa Maria, Calif. The judge scolded Jackson for being 21 minutes late.

(AP, 1/16/05)

2004 Jan 16, Starbucks opened its 1st coffee shop in France.

(Econ, 1/17/04, p.67)

2004 Jan 16, Bone-chilling arctic winds and record low temperatures swept the US Northeast.

(WSJ, 1/16/04, p.A1)

2004 Jan 16, NASA said it would not send another shuttle mission to service and repair the Hubble Space Telescope.

(SFC, 1/17/04, p.A1)

2004 Jan 16, A Canadian regulator ruled that a song lauding the joys of an "enormous penis" is not obscene because the object of the lyric's affection isn't necessarily sexual.

(AP, 1/16/04)

2004 Jan 16, Kalevi Sorsa (73), Finland's longest serving prime minister, died. Sorsa headed four coalition governments from 1972 to 1987 and led the Social Democrats, Finland's largest party, for 12 years.

(AP, 1/17/04)

2004 Jan 16, In Bombay, India, activists gathered for the 6-day World Social Forum. The meeting, which attracts activists, political workers and intellectuals from around the world, is meant to be a counterpoint to the World Economic Forum in Switzerland later this month.

(AP, 1/17/04)

2004 Jan 16, Hamas founder Ahmed Yassin brushed off warnings by a top Israeli official that he is "marked for death" and, in a defiant appearance at a Gaza City mosque, and said his Islamic militant group will continue to attack Israelis.

(AP, 1/16/04)

2005 Jan 16, At the 62nd annual Golden Globe Awards winners included “The Aviator” for best drama picture with Leonardo DiCaprio as best actor. Hillary Swank won the best actress award for her role in “Million Dollar Baby.”

(SFC, 1/17/05, p.D2)

2005 Jan 16, Acclaimed prison journalist Wilbert Rideau spent his first full day of freedom after being released from prison, where he'd spent nearly 44 years for the 1961 killing of Louisiana bank teller Julia Ferguson.

(AP, 1/16/06)

2005 Jan 16, Marjorie Williams (b.1958), American journalist and political writer, died of liver cancer. In 2008 her husband Timothy Noah published “Reputation: Portraits in Power,” an anthology of her work.

(WSJ, 10/3/08, p.W5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marjorie_Williams)

2005 Jan 16, The US military freed 81 Afghan prisoners, and the Afghan government was negotiating the release of hundreds more from American custody.

(AP, 1/16/05)(WSJ, 1/17/05, p.A1)

2005 Jan 16, Algeria's government signed an agreement to end years of conflict with the restive Berber minority, pledging to accept long-standing demands including greater recognition of the Berber language.

(AP, 1/16/05)

2005 Jan 16, Australian born and bred Charlie Bell (44), the first non-American to head the McDonald's chain of 30,000 burger restaurants in 119 countries, died in Sydney from cancer.

(AP, 1/17/05)

2005 Jan 16, Croatians returned to the polls for presidential runoff. Pres. Stipe Mesic won a 2nd term in the runoff election with 66% of the vote.

(AP, 1/17/05)

2005 Jan 16, Indonesia increased its tsunami death toll by 5,000, raising the overall number of people who died in the Dec. 26 disaster to more than 162,000.

(AP, 1/16/05)

2005 Jan 16, In Iraq a total of 17 people were killed in the Baghdad area, including three Iraqi policemen and three Iraqi National Guard soldiers killed in separate attacks. As mourners gathered for the policemen's funeral, a suicide bomber killed another seven people.

(AP, 1/17/05)

2005 Jan 16, A 25-hour stand-off between Islamic guerrillas and Indian forces in Srinagar, Kashmir, ended after two militants holed up inside an indoor stadium were killed by troops.

(AP, 1/16/05)

2005 Jan 16, The first Kuwaiti released from Guantanamo Bay was taken into government custody after he arrived home.

(AP, 1/16/05)

2005 Jan 16, A top PLO decision-making body called on Palestinian militants to halt attacks against Israel, charging that the violence gives Israel an excuse to carry out military operations.

(AP, 1/16/05)

2005 Jan 16, Qatar Gas Transport planned the country’s largest share flotation. They recently unveiled a large LNG project with Exxon.

(Econ, 1/8/05, p.54)

2005 Jan 16, A 66-year-old Romanian woman became the world's oldest woman recorded to give birth when she delivered a daughter by cesarean section.

(AP, 1/17/05)

2005 Jan 16, In Russia protests by retirees against the loss of welfare benefits swept President Vladimir Putin's home city for the second straight day.

(AP, 1/16/05)

2005 Jan 16, The armed Basque separatist group ETA threw its weight behind an initiative by its political wing to open dialogue with the Spanish government on solving the Basque problem.

(AP, 1/16/05)

2005 Jan 16, The Sudanese government and an alliance of opposition groups reached a tentative agreement on Sudan's political future that builds on a peace accord already signed with southern rebels.

(Reuters, 1/16/05)

2006 Jan 16, The Palestinian film "Paradise Now," which explores the lives of a pair of suicide bombers, won the Golden Globe for best foreign film. "Brokeback Mountain" won four Golden Globes, including best motion picture drama; "Lost" won best dramatic television series while "Desperate Housewives" won for best musical or comedy series.

(AP, 1/17/06)(AP, 1/16/07)

2006 Jan 16, A suicide bomber on a motorbike drove up to a crowd watching a wrestling match in Spin Boldak, an Afghan border town, killing 23 people and wounding at least 30 others. A bomb hit a convoy of Afghan army trucks loaded with troops as they were driving through Kandahar, killing four people and wounding 16.

(AP, 1/16/06)(SSFC, 7/30/06, p.A18)

2006 Jan 16, A lawyer told a government inquiry that Australia's wheat exporter, AWB Ltd., knowingly provided hundreds of millions of dollars in kickbacks to Saddam Hussein's regime and deceived the United Nations about the payments under the oil-for-food program.

(AP, 1/16/06)

2006 Jan 16, Chinese state media reported that foreign currency reserves rose 34% last year to a record $818.9 billion.

(SFC, 1/17/06, p.C5)

2006 Jan 16-2006 Jan 18, In southwestern China workers protesting the sale of a factory in Chengdu clashed for three days with baton-wielding police. According to Boxun.com, an overseas-hosted Chinese-language Web site, the factory was worth $37 million, but was going to be sold for $9.9 million.

(AP, 1/23/06)

2006 Jan 16, Colombia's president ordered an investigation into allegations that outlawed paramilitary groups have infiltrated congressional campaigns using illegal drug money.

(AP, 1/16/06)

2006 Jan 16, In Strasbourg, France, demonstrators fought with police and smashed windows at the European Parliament building during a protest over a proposal to make port operations in the European Union more competitive.

(AP, 1/16/06)

2006 Jan 16, A US-registered private jet crashed in the French Alps outside Bourdeau and 4 people were killed.

(AP, 1/17/06)

2006 Jan 16, State radio reported that Iran has allocated the equivalent of $215 million for the construction of what would be its second and third nuclear power plants.

(AP, 1/16/06)

2006 Jan 16, In Baghdad, Iraq, a car bomb detonated next to a police convoy, killing a 6-year-old child and five police officers. A US military helicopter crashed north of Baghdad killing the two crew members. It was the third American chopper to go down in 10 days.

(AP, 1/16/06)

2006 Jan 16, Israeli police seized buildings and rooftops in a Jewish settler enclave in Hebron, restoring order after three days of riots sparked by plans to evict Israeli squatters from an abandoned Palestinian market.

(AP, 1/16/06)

2006 Jan 16, Galymzhan Zhakiyanov (41), a Kazakh opposition leader jailed for more than three years, returned home, to the cheers of hundreds of supporters. The leader of the now-disbanded Democratic Choice party, was sentenced to seven years in prison in 2002 on abuse-of-office charges.

(AP, 1/16/06)

2006 Jan 16, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf pledged a "fundamental break" with Liberia's violent past as she was sworn in as president, carving her name into history as Africa's first elected female head of state.

(AP, 1/16/06)

2006 Jan 16, In Mongolia some 2,000 people gathered in the main square of Ulan Bator, demanding their president resign.

(AP, 1/16/06)

2006 Jan 16, Deputy PM Alexander Zhukov said more money entered Russia than left it last year for the first time in the country's post-Soviet history.

(AP, 1/16/06)

2006 Jan 16, Turkish health officials said preliminary tests have confirmed that a girl (12) who died was infected with the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu, raising Turkey's death toll to four.

(AP, 1/16/06)

2007 Jan 16, The US Senate voted to shine more light on thousands of expensive pet projects buried in legislation after the new Democratic majority bowed to a successful push by Republicans to make new disclosure rules even tougher than originally planned.

(AP, 1/16/07)

2007 Jan 16, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) launched his bid for the White House.

(AP, 1/16/08)

2007 Jan 16, Ron Carey (b.1935), TV and film actor, died in Los Angeles. He played Officer Carl Levitt in the Barney Miller (1976-1982) TV sitcom. His 15 movies included “High Anxiety” (1977) and “History of the World: Part I” (1981), both with Mel Brooks.

(SFC, 1/23/07, p.B4)

2007 Jan 16 Pookie Hudson (72), lead singer for the Spaniels doo-wop group, died in Capitol Heights, Md.

(AP, 1/16/08)

2007 Jan 16, In southern Afghanistan NATO-led troops and Afghan forces detained a prominent Taliban commander during a raid on a compound.

(AP, 1/17/07)

2007 Jan 16, Canadian Trade Minister David Emerson signed a technology deal with China, on a visit aimed at reinvigorating relations with the Asian superpower that have been dented by Canada's blunt talk on human rights.

(Reuters, 1/16/07)

2007 Jan 16, Chinese search engine Baidu.com and EMI Music launched an Internet venture that will let users listen to streaming music for free, adding to Baidu's growing entertainment business.

(AP, 1/16/07)

2007 Jan 16, Colombian police found about $19 million belonging to a drug trafficking group buried under a house in the southwestern city of Cali. On Jan 12 police found $16 million hidden in a modest house in Cali.

(AP, 1/16/07)

2007 Jan 16, The European Parliament elected German conservative Hans-Gert Poettering as president of the chamber to replace outgoing Spanish Socialist Josep Borrell.

(AFP, 1/16/07)

2007 Jan 16, Indian PM Manmohan Singh reiterated his government's offer for talks with separatist rebels in restive northeast Assam state after recent violence left 73 people dead.

(AFP, 1/16/07)

2007 Jan 16, An Indonesian passenger train jumped its tracks, sending a crowded rail car plunging nearly 20 feet near the central Javanese town of Purwokerto. Five people were reported killed and more than 250 injured.

(AP, 1/16/07)

2007 Jan 16, Baghdad was struck by two bombings apparently targeting Shiite neighborhoods one near a university as students were leaving classes for the day that killed at least 31, and another at a used motorcycle marketplace that killed at least 15 people. The death toll across Iraq approached 150 including four who died when a roadside bomb struck a police patrol in a predominantly Shiite area of downtown Baghdad. Gianni Magazzeni, the chief of the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq in Baghdad, said 34,452 civilians were killed and 36,685 were wounded last year.

(AP, 1/16/07)(WSJ, 1/17/07, p.A1)

2007 Jan 16, In Kenya deaths due to Rift Valley fever (hemorrhagic fever) had climbed to at least 95 for the past month.

(AFP, 1/16/07)

2007 Jan 16, Pedro Diaz Parada, a drug cartel leader, was arrested in the southern state of Oaxaca and taken to Mexico City. This was the first major drug arrest under the administration of President Felipe Calderon.

(AP, 1/18/07)

2007 Jan 16, King Mohammed VI of Morocco launched work on a major road linking Fez to the Algerian border as part of construction on a north African highway stretching from Mauritania to Libya. Construction of the 328-kilometer road (204-mile) from Fez to the eastern city of Oudja, on the border with Algeria, is expected to cost 820 million euros (one billion dollars).

(AFP, 1/17/07)

2007 Jan 16, Royal Dutch Shell evacuated staff from two oil installations in southern Nigeria and the military boosted troop levels in the volatile area after a dozen village elders were killed in a riverboat attack.

(AP, 1/16/07)

2007 Jan 16, Pakistan's army destroyed suspected al-Qaida hideouts in an airstrike near the Afghan border, killing 10 people. A resident said the slain men were Afghan laborers.

(AP, 1/16/07)

2007 Jan 16, In the Philippines Jainal Antel Sali Jr. (41), popularly known as Abu Sulaiman, a top al-Qaida-linked militant, was killed. He was accused of kidnapping three Americans in 2001 and of masterminding one of Southeast Asia's worst terror attacks three years later. DNA evidence soon confirmed Sulaiman’s death.

(AP, 1/17/07)(AP, 1/20/07)

2007 Jan 16, Russia said it had delivered new anti-aircraft missile systems to Iran and would consider further requests by Tehran for defensive weapons.

(Reuters, 1/16/07)

2007 Jan 16, Spanish court officials said Spain has issued an international arrest warrant for three US soldiers after reopening a murder investigation into the killing of Spanish television cameraman Jose Couso in Iraq on Apr 18, 2003.

(Reuters, 1/16/07)

2007 Jan 16, In Sri Lanka fierce clashes for control of a stretch of rebel-held-land in eastern Batticaloa district left at least 16 dead. The military said it lost four soldiers and that 29 more were wounded during the battle. A pro-rebel Web site said only 12 guerrillas died. TamilNet said 40 Sri Lankan soldiers were killed.

(AP, 1/17/07)

2007 Jan 16, Rebels said Sudanese government planes bombed Darfur rebel areas despite a declared truce.

(AP, 1/16/07)

2007 Jan 16, Benon Sevan (69) of Cyprus, former UN oil-for-food chief, was charged with taking a $160,000 bribe to influence who could buy Iraqi oil during the $64 billion program that ran from 1996-2003. This brought to 14 the number of people charged in the case.

(WSJ, 1/17/07, p.A6)

2008 Jan 16, CIA analyst Tom Donahue disclosed that criminals have been able to hack into computer systems via the Internet and cut power to several cities outside the US. He offered few specifics on what actually went wrong.

(www.pcworld.com/article/id,141564-c,hackers/article.html)

2008 Jan 16, US District Judge Charles Breyer sentenced Gregory Reyes, former CEO of Brocade Communications Systems Inc., to 21 months in prison and fined him $15 million for ordering options grants to employees to be changed to look as though they were made on days when the stock's value was lower.

(AP, 1/16/08)

2008 Jan 16, A US District court in Kansas City, Mo., unsealed a 42-count indictment that accused the Islamic Relief Agency of paying Mark Deli Siljander, a former Michigan congressman (1981-1987), $50,000 for lobbying funds that were sent to terrorists.

(SFC, 1/17/08, p.A4)

2008 Jan 16, In Georgia 2 off-duty DeKalb County police officers were killed in what appeared to be an ambush at an apartment complex in what residents described as a high-crime neighborhood.

(AP, 1/16/08)

2008 Jan 16, BEA Systems accepted an $8.5 billion offer to be acquired by Oracle Corp.

(SFC, 1/17/08, p.C1)

2008 Jan 16, Sun Microsystems agreed to buy MySQL AB, a Swedish-based database firm, for $1 billion.

(SFC, 1/17/08, p.C3)

2008 Jan 16, Texas was ranked as the biggest polluter in the US, making it the 7th worst in the world if it were its own nation.

(WSJ, 1/17/08, p.A1)

2008 Jan 16, A British cultural organization accused Russian authorities of harassing its staff and said it had temporarily closed its offices in St. Petersburg.

(AP, 1/17/08)

2008 Jan 16, Chile's congress backed a pension reform bill to ensure the country's landmark social security program for the first time covers every citizen.

(AP, 1/17/08)

2008 Jan 16, Pres. Bush visited Egypt. Stalled reforms and bitterness over the jailing of hundreds of dissidents haunted his visit. Bush promised to stay engaged in pulling Israelis and Palestinians toward a peace pact by the end of his term.

(AP, 1/16/08)

2008 Jan 16, In Iraq a woman wearing a vest lined with explosives blew herself up near a popular market and Shiite mosque in turbulent Diyala province, killing eight civilians. Small arms fire killed 3 US soldiers conducting operations in Salahuddin province.

(AP, 1/16/08)

2008 Jan 16, In Israel a hawkish faction in PM Ehud Olmert's coalition pulled out of the government, weakening him at a time when he needs broad support to reach a peace deal with the Palestinians by the end of the year. Israeli forces evacuated two makeshift settlement outposts in the West Bank. Israeli aircraft targeting Palestinian rocket squads hit a wrong vehicle killing a boy (12), along with his father and uncle.

(AP, 1/16/08)(SFC, 1/17/08, p.A10)

2008 Jan 16, Italian police arrested scores of suspected mobsters in Palermo in the latest raid on suspected Sicilian Mafia hideouts.

(AP, 1/16/08)

2008 Jan 16, Japan's whaling fleet in the Antarctic halted its operations and scrambled to arrange the turnover of two activists who boarded one of its harpoon ships after a tense, high-seas chase, accusing the Sea Shepherd conservation group of piracy.

(AP, 1/16/08)

2008 Jan 16, In Kenya police fired tear gas and bullets to disperse thousands of protesters in several cities at the start of three days of opposition rallies that reignited post-election violence. At least one person was fatally shot by police.

(AP, 1/16/08)

2008 Jan 16, In Morocco 16 people were killed and 30 injured when an apartment block being built in Kenitra collapsed.

(AFP, 1/17/08)

2008 Jan 16, In New Zealand Hone Tuwhare (86), the first Maori poet to be published in English and one of New Zealand's most celebrated verse writers, died.

(AP, 1/17/08)

2008 Jan 16, Niger authorities formally charged two French journalists with threatening state security for attempting to report on rebel groups in Niger's volatile north, a crime punishable by death in the West African country.

(AP, 1/16/08)

2008 Jan 16, Russia warned Kosovo's leaders that if they declare independence the territory will never become a member of the UN or other international political institutions.

(AP, 1/16/08)

2008 Jan 16, South Korea's conservative president-elect Lee Myung-bak revealed plans to scrap the government ministry that has preached reconciliation with North Korea, after pledging to be tougher on Pyongyang than his liberal predecessors.

(AP, 1/16/08)

2008 Jan 16, In southeastern Sri Lanka a bomb and shooting attack blamed on Tamil separatists ripped through a packed civilian bus, killing 27 people as the government officially withdrew from a cease-fire with the rebels. Commandoes advanced into rebel territory in Mannar and destroyed a bunker, killing 4 female rebels. 9 rebels were killed in a clash elsewhere in Mannar.

(AP, 1/16/08)(AP, 1/17/08)

2008 Jan 16, Turkey's PM Erdogan challenged a ban on women wearing head scarves in universities and public offices, saying there is no need to wait for a constitutional change to remove the ban.

(AP, 1/16/08)

2008 Jan 16, Uzbekistan's President Islam Karimov was sworn in for a third presidential term, despite a constitutional two-term limit. Freedom House, a US-based democracy watchdog, said in its annual report that Uzbekistan remains among the world's most repressive societies.

(AP, 1/16/08)

2008 Jan 16, The UN Security Council imposed sanctions on three Kuwaitis who allegedly help finance al-Qaida operations and recruit fighters for the terrorist network. The three men, Hamid Al-Ali, Jaber Al-Jalamah and Mubarak Mushakhas Sanad Al-Bathali, will be added to a list of some 480 individuals and businesses with purported links to al-Qaida and the Taliban.

(AP, 1/16/08)

2008 Jan 16, The Venezuelan Observatory of Prisons said more than an inmate a day died violently in Venezuela's crowded prisons last year. Some 498 prisoners were killed in riots and other violent acts in 2007, up from 412 in 2006.

(AP, 1/17/08)

2009 Jan 16, A US government watchdog said 83 of the nation's 100 largest corporations, including Citigroup, Bank of America and News Corp., had subsidiaries in offshore tax havens in 2007, and some of the companies received federal bailout funding.

(AP, 1/16/09)

2009 Jan 16, The US Treasury Dept. froze the assets of 4 key al-Qaida operatives including Saad bin Laden, Osama bin Laden’s 3^rd son. Mike McConnell, US Director of National Intelligence, said Saad bin Laden is no longer under arrest in Iran and is probably in Pakistan.

(WSJ, 1/17/09, p.A2)

2009 Jan 16, Citigroup said it is splitting into two businesses as it reported a fourth-quarter net loss of $8.29 billion, its fifth straight quarterly loss.

(AP, 1/16/09)

2009 Jan 16, Bank of America Corp , posted its first quarterly loss in 17 years and slashed its dividend, hours after winning a multibillion-dollar lifeline from the US government to help absorb Merrill Lynch, which lost a record $15.31 billion in the quarter.

(AP, 1/16/09)

2009 Jan 16, Kellogg Co. of Battle Creek, Mich., recalled 16 products containing peanut butter due to possible salmonella contamination as federal officials confirmed contamination at a Georgia facility that ships peanut products to 85 food companies.

(SFC, 1/17/09, p.A2)

2009 Jan 16, Circuit City, a bankrupt electronics retailer based in Richmond, Va., said it failed to find a buyer and will liquidate its 567 US stores resulting in the loss of some 30,000 jobs. Circuit city’s last day of sales was on March 8.

(SFC, 1/17/09, p.C1)(SFC, 3/9/09, p.B1)

2009 Jan 16, Artist Andrew Wyeth (b.1917), American artist, died at his home in the Philadelphia suburb of Chadds Ford. He had portrayed the hidden melancholy of the people and landscapes of Pennsylvania's Brandywine Valley and coastal Maine in works such as "Christina's World."

(AP, 1/16/09)

2009 Jan 16, In Afghanistan 10 people were killed and more than 30 others had to be rescued when avalanches buried their vehicles in the Salang pass north of Kabul.

(AFP, 1/18/09)

2009 Jan 16, An Algerian customs officer was killed by armed Islamists west of Algiers. The 35-year-old official had his throat slit after being stopped at a fake barricade put up and manned by about 10 armed Islamists at Miliana near Ain Defla.

(AFP, 1/17/09)

2009 Jan 16, Australia granted asylum to 28 people from Afghanistan and Iran, in the first such move since relaxing tough rules on asylum seekers.

(AFP, 1/17/09)

2009 Jan 16, British pop star Boy George (47) was sentenced to 15 months in jail for imprisoning a Norwegian male escort (29) after a nude photoshoot. The singer and disc jockey, who stood trial under his real name George O'Dowd, admitted to police to handcuffing Audun Carlsen to his bed on April 28, 2007, as he investigated the Norwegian's alleged tampering with his computer.

(AFP, 1/16/09)

2009 Jan 16, Farhad Hakimzadeh, a wealthy US businessman with a passion for books about the Middle East, was sentenced to two years in jail for stealing pages from rare texts at two of Britain's most venerable libraries.

(AP, 1/16/09)

2009 Jan 16, John Mortimer (b.1923), British lawyer and writer, died. He was the creator of the curmudgeonly criminal lawyer Rumpole of the Bailey.

(AP, 1/16/09)

2009 Jan 16, In eastern Congo the leader of a splinter rebel faction said his forces would stop fighting the government and the two sides would work together to battle Rwandan militias at the heart of the conflict. Ugandan rebels, according to the UN, massacred 100 civilians in Tora, a village in northeast Congo, the latest atrocity blamed on the insurgents.

(AP, 1/16/09)(AP, 1/29/09)

2009 Jan 16, The EU threatened new sanctions against Robert Mugabe's government in Zimbabwe, blamed for political deadlock, a surging cholera epidemic and runaway inflation. The UN said the death toll from the cholera outbreak had risen to 2,201 and that the epidemic is still not under control.

(AP, 1/16/09)

2009 Jan 16, Frenchman Lluis Colet broke the world record for the longest speech after rambling nonstop for 124 hours about Spanish painter Salvador Dali, Catalan culture and other topics.

(AFP, 1/17/09)

2009 Jan 16, In India a herd of nearly 150 hungry elephants rampaged through a village in the remote northeast, trampling to death a young family as they slept in their hut.

(AP, 1/17/09)

2009 Jan 16, In Iraq a Shiite candidate for provincial elections was assassinated while campaigning south of Baghdad, underscoring fears that political rivalries will lead to a spike in violence ahead of a Jan. 31 vote.

(AP, 1/16/09)

2009 Jan 16, Israel said it was close to winding up its offensive against Hamas, and diplomats in Washington said the US will provide assurances on ending weapons smuggling into Gaza as part of a cease-fire. More than 1,100 Palestinians have been killed since the war began on Dec. 27, including 346 children. Khaled Mashaal, Hamas' political chief, rejected Israeli conditions for a Gaza cease-fire and demanded an immediate opening of the besieged territory's borders. Dr. Ezzeldeen Abu al-Aish told Channel 10 that his house in the northern Gaza strip town of Jebalia had been hit by Israeli shells and his daughters, ages 22, 15 and 14, were killed.

(AP, 1/16/09)(AP, 2/5/09)

2009 Jan 16, Kenya's president declared the country's food crisis a national disaster and asked international donors to contribute $406 million toward emergency food aid. The US and Britain signed legal agreements with Kenya, essentially extradition treaties, in which Kenya agreed to try suspected pirates.

(AP, 1/16/09)(WSJ, 2/17/09, p.A8)

2009 Jan 16, In Lithuania police used tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse some 7,000anti-government protesters throwing rocks and eggs at the Parliament building. They had gathered to demonstrate against unpopular reforms aimed at combating the Baltic state's deepening economic crisis. The Finance Ministry announced it intended to borrow 1 billion euros (US$1.3 billion) from the European Investment Bank to help plug a yawning budget gap.

(AP, 1/16/09)

2009 Jan 16, Mauritania and Qatar suspended contacts with Israel to protest the Gaza bloodshed at an Arab summit that deepened the divisions between pro-US Arab nations and their rivals in the Middle East.

(AP, 1/17/09)

2009 Jan 16, Mexico’s central bank, the Bank of Mexico, cut its benchmark interest rate a half point to 7.75%.

(Econ, 1/24/09, p.42)

2009 Jan 16, Nicaragua’s Supreme Court overturned former President Arnoldo Aleman's conviction and 20-year prison sentence for money laundering, ending a long-running legal saga that has been colored by Nicaragua's political landscape. Hours later Mr. Aleman’s Liberal Constitutional Party ended a filibuster in the National Assembly and voted to let the Sandinistas run the legislature’s affairs.

(AP, 1/16/09)(Econ, 2/21/09, p.40)

2009 Jan 16, South African police and game park rangers said they have arrested 11 suspects in an international rhinoceros poaching ring. Some of the rhinos had their horns hacked from them while they were still alive.

(AP, 1/16/09)

2009 Jan 16, In South Korea Yonhap news agency said Busan District Court handed a man named Lim (42) a suspended 30-month sentence for raping his wife (25) at knifepoint. It was the first time a man in traditionally male-dominated South Korea has been convicted of marital rape. Lim was found dead of apparent suicide on Jan 20.

(AP, 1/16/09)(AP, 1/20/09)

2009 Jan 16, The UN Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution expressing its intention to establish a UN peacekeeping force in Somalia, but putting off a decision for several months in order to assess the volatile situation in the Horn of Africa nation.

(AP, 1/17/09)

2009 Jan 16, In Venezuela a takeover of the Caracas City Hall began violently when dozens of armed Chavez supporters wearing ski masks stormed in after shooting at the building and tying up security guards. Chavez backers occupied the civil registry and other municipal buildings to protest Ledezma's decision to cut them off the city payroll. Caracas Mayor Antonio Ledezma took to working from an undisclosed friend's office.

(AP, 1/31/09)

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