Return to home1219
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.
Thomas Jefferson had drafted The Virginia Act for Establishing
Religious Freedom in 1779 three years after he wrote the
Declaration of Independence.
(HN, 1/16/99)(WSJ, 12/14/02,
p.W17)(http://religiousfreedom.lib.virginia.edu/sacred/vaact.html)
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)
1988 Jan 16, Andrija Artukovic
(b.1899), a Croatian Ustasha and a convicted war criminal for the
crimes committed against minorities in the WWII Independent State of
Croatia (NDH), died in a prison hospital in Zagreb.
(SSFC, 4/4/10, Par.
p.4)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrija_Artukovi%C4%87)
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. On march 9, 2010, a German judge sentenced Prince August
to pay a fine of euro200,000 ($270,000) after convicting him for the
decade-old altercation.
(AP, 1/13/10)(SFC, 1/14/10,
p.A2)(www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1P2-6780117.html)(AP, 3/9/10)
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. During his time
in prison Rideau received national fame for his work editing the prison
newspaper, the Angolite. In 2010 Rideau authored “In the Place of
Justice: A Story of Punishment and Deliverance.”
(AP, 1/16/06)(SSFC, 5/2/10, p.F2)
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. On
March 26, 2010, Reyes was convicted in a 2nd jury trial over backdating
employee stock options.
(AP, 1/16/08)(SFC, 3/27/10, p.D1)
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 3rd 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)