Today in History - January 21
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1189 Jan 21,
Philip Augustus, Henry II of England and Frederick Barbarossa
assembled the troops for the Third Crusade.
(V.D.-H.K.p.109)(HN, 1/21/99)
1268 Jan 21, Pope Clement IV
gave permission to Poland’s King Premislus II to take over Lithuania
and establish Catholicism.
(LHC, 1/18/03)
1337 Jan 21, Charles V, the
Wise, king of France (1364-80), was born.
(MC, 1/21/02)
1407 Jan 21, Duke Vytautas led
Polish and German forces for a 2nd time against the Duchy of Moscow.
(LHC, 1/18/03)
1629 Jan 21, Abbas I (b.1571),
Shah of Persia (1588-1629), died.
(http://4dw.net/royalark/Persia/safawi3.htm)
1648 Jan 21, In Maryland, the
first woman lawyer in the colonies, Margaret Brent, was denied a
vote in the Maryland Assembly. [see Jun 24, 1647]
(HN, 1/21/99)
1664 Jan 21, Count Miklos of
Zrinyi set out to battle the Turkish invasion army.
(MC, 1/21/02)
1737 Jan 21, Ethan Allen,
American Revolutionary commander of the "Green Mountain Boys" who
captured Fort Ticonderoga in 1775, was born.
(HN, 1/21/99)
1743 Jan 21, John Fitch,
inventor (had a working steamboat years before Fulton), was born.
(MC, 1/21/02)
1785 Jan 21, Chippewa,
Delaware, Ottawa and Wyandot Indians signed a treaty of Fort
McIntosh, ceding present-day Ohio to the United States.
(HN, 1/21/99)
1790 Jan 21, Joseph Guillotine
proposed a new, more humane method of execution: a machine designed
to cut off the condemned person's head as painlessly as possible.
(HN, 1/21/99)
1793 Jan 21, Louis XVI (38),
last of the French Bourbon dynasty, was executed on the guillotine.
The vote in the National Convention for execution for treason won by
a margin of one vote. The Great Terror followed his execution.
(WUD, 1994, p.1677)(V.D.-H.K.p.231)(NH, 6/97,
p.23)(AP, 1/21/98)
1815 Jan 21, Horace Wells
(d.1845), dentist, was born. He pioneered the use of medical
anesthesia and was the 1st to use nitrous oxide as a pain killer.
(Dr, 7/17/01, p.2)(MC, 1/21/02)
1821 Jan 21, John Breckinridge
(d.1875), 14th U.S. Vice President, was born. He served under James
Buchanan (1857-1861). Breckenridge was a Confederate General in the
Civil War. [His brother-in-law was Lloyd Tevis, founder of Wells
Fargo]
(WUD, 1994, p.183)(HN, 1/21/99)
1824 Jan 21, Thomas "Stonewall"
Jackson, Confederate General, was born.
(HN, 1/21/99)
1846 Jan 21, 1st edition of
Charles Dickens' "Daily News."
(MC, 1/21/02)
1855 Jan 21, John M. Browning,
US weapons manufacturer, was born.
(MC, 1/21/02)
1858 Jan 21, Felix Marma
Zuloaga became president of Mexico upon the ouster of Ignacio
Comonfort.
(AP, 1/21/08)
1861 Jan 21, U.S. Senator
Jefferson Davis of Mississippi and four (five) other Southern
senators made emotional farewell speeches. Just weeks after his home
state of Mississippi seceded from the Union, Davis prepared to leave
Washington, D.C., and the country he had served as a soldier,
cabinet member and member of Congress. One more time, Davis
enumerated the reasons why the South felt secession was its only
recourse: "...when you deny to us the right to withdraw from a
Government which...threatens to be destructive to our rights, we but
tread in the path of our fathers when we proclaim our
independence...." Davis then apologized to any senators he may have
offended, and finished his address by saying, "...it only remains
for me to bid you a final adieu."
(AP, 1/21/01)(HNPD, 1/21/99)
1862 Jan 21, In San Francisco
Fr. Maraschi stepped down as the first president-rector of St.
Ignatius. Fr. Nicolas Congiato took over.
(GenIV, Winter 04/05)
1880 Jan 21, 1st US sewage
disposal system, separate from storm drains, was established in
Memphis.
(MC, 1/21/02)
1892 Jan 21, Samuel Marsden
Brookes, English-born artist, died in SF. He emigrated to the US in
1833, settled in Chicago and moved to SF in 1862. He was a founder
of the SF Art Association and the Bohemian Club.
(SFCM, 10/28/01, p.20)
1899 Jan 21, Alexander
Tcherepnin (d.1977), composer, was born in St Petersburg, Russia.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Tcherepnin)
1903 Jan 21, International
Theater (Majestic, Park) opened at 5 Columbus Circle in NYC.
(MC, 1/21/02)
1903 Jan 21, Harry Houdini
escaped from police station Halvemaansteeg in Amsterdam.
(MC, 1/21/02)
1905 Jan 21, Christian Dior,
fashion designer (long-skirted look), was born in Normandy, France.
(MC, 1/21/02)
1908 Jan 21, New York City's
Board of Aldermen passed the Sullivan Ordinance that effectively
prohibited women from smoking in public. Two weeks later the measure
was vetoed by Mayor George B. McClellan Jr.
(AP, 1/21/08)(http://tinyurl.com/2zvwkc)
1909 Jan 21-22, An earthquake
in Morocco's northern region, near Tetouan, killed up to 100.
(AP, 2/25/04)
1910 Jan 21, Angel Island
opened as an immigration processing and detention center and became
known as the Ellis Island of the West. It processed some 1 million
people until 1940. 50,000 Chinese entered the US through Angel
Island. It closed after a fire in 1940.
(SFEC, 3/1/98, p.W37)(SFEC, 2/6/00, Rp.10)(SFC,
1/21/10, p.A12)
1910 Jan 21, A British-Russian
military intervention took place in Persia.
(MC, 1/21/02)
1910 Jan 21, Japan rejected the
American proposal to neutralize ownership of the Manchurian Railway.
(HN, 1/21/99)
1913 Jan 21, Aristide Briand
formed a French government.
(MC, 1/21/02)
1915 Jan 21, The first Kiwanis
Club was formally founded, in Detroit, Mich. Allen Browne in Dec,
1914, had proposed a fraternal club for business and professional
men. Kiwanis was established as an organization devoted to the
principle of service and to the advancement of individual,
community, and national welfare, and to the strengthening of
international goodwill.
(AP, 1/21/98)(www.tcfn.org/kiwanistci/about.html)
1917 Nov 21, German ace Rudolf
von Eschwege was killed over Macedonia when he attacked a
booby-trapped observation balloon packed with explosives.
(HN, 11/21/99)
1919 Jan 21, The German Krupp
plant began producing guns under the U.S. armistice terms.
(HN, 1/21/99)
1921 Jan 21, Barney Clark, the
1st person to receive a permanent artificial heart, was born.
(MC, 1/21/02)
1921 Jan 21, J.D. Rockefeller
pledged $1 million for the relief of Europe's destitute.
(HN, 1/21/99)
1924 Jan 21, Benny Hill
(d.1992), British comedian who hosted his own comedy show, was born
in Southampton, England. [Some sources give 1925 as the birth year]
(HN, 1/21/99)(www.nndb.com/people/883/000031790/)
1924 Jan 21, Russian
revolutionary Vladimir Ilyich Lenin died at age 53 and a major
struggle for power in the Soviet Union began. A triumvirate led by
Joseph Stalin succeeded Lenin. By 1928, Stalin had assumed absolute
power, ruling as an often brutal dictator until his death in 1953 of
a brain hemorrhage. In 1998 Vladimir Brovkin published “Russia After
Lenin.” After the death of Lenin, Bukharin became a full member of
the Politburo and opposed the policy of initiating rapid
industrialization and collectivization in agriculture-a position
shared by Stalin at the time. In 2000 Robert Service authored
“Lenin.”
(TMC, 1994, p.1924)(AP, 1/21/98)(WSJ, 8/3/98,
p.A12)(HNQ, 8/31/99)
1930 Jan 21, Valentin
Ignatyevich Filatyev, Russian cosmonaut, was born.
(MC, 1/21/02)
1930 Jan 21, An international
arms meeting opened in London. The London Naval Conference, hosted
by Britain, sought to establish naval disarmament and review the
Washington Treaty of 1922, which limited tonnage of new battleships.
After three months of meetings, representatives from Britain, the
United States and Japan signed a treaty limiting battleship tonnage
based on ratios between the nations. Italy and France declined to
sign. A second naval conference in December 1935 did little to
promote further disarmament and, by the beginning of World War II,
Germany, Japan and the United States had all begun building
battleships well over the limit of 35,000 tons stipulated by the
original Washington Treaty. [see Apr 22]
(HN, 1/21/99)(HNQ, 1/1/01)
1933 Jan 21, Itzhak Fuks,
Israeli El Al captain, was born. He was captain of the Jumbo Jet
that crashed in Amsterdam on Oct 4, 1992.
(MC, 1/21/02)
1933 Jan 21, The League of
Nations rejected Japanese terms for settlement with China.
(HN, 1/21/99)
1939 Jan 21, Wolfman Jack, DJ
(Midnight Special), was born in Brooklyn, NY as Bob Smith.
(MC, 1/21/02)
1939 Jan 21, Picasso painted
two pictures, both titled “Reclining Woman with Book.” In one
Marie-Theresa Walter is pictured in a smooth S-curve, in the other
Dora Maar (born as Theodora Markovitch d.1997 at 89) is broken into
jagged forms. Maar was a painter and photographer and struggled to
develop her own ambitions, but failed and spent much of her life as
a recluse.
(WSJ, 4/26/96, p.A-13)(SFC, 7/26/97, p.A24)
1940 Jan 21, Jack Nicklaus,
golfer (Player of Yr 1967,72,73,75,76), was born in Columbus, Ohio.
(MC, 1/21/02)
1941 Jan 21, Placido Domingo,
opera tenor (Pinkerton-Mme Butterfly), was born in Madrid, Spain.
(MC, 1/21/02)
1941 Jan 21, Richie Havens,
folk singer (Here Comes the Sun), was born in Brooklyn.
(MC, 1/21/02)
1941 Jan 21, Edwin Starr, US
singer (War), was born as Charles Hatcher.
(MC, 1/21/02)
1941 Jan 21, The United States
lifted the ban on arms to the Soviet Union.
(HN, 1/21/99)
1941 Jan 21, Australia &
Britain attacked Tobruk, Libya.
(MC, 1/21/02)
1941 Jan 21, British communist
newspaper "Daily Worker" was banned.
(MC, 1/21/02)
1942 Jan 21, Count Basie and
His Orchestra recorded "One O'Clock Jump" in New York City for Okeh
Records.
(AP, 1/21/98)
1942 Jan 21, A Bronx magistrate
ruled all pinball machines illegal.
(MC, 1/21/02)
1942 Jan 21, In North Africa,
German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel launched a drive to push the
British eastward.
(HN, 1/21/99)
1943 Jan 21, A Nazi daylight
air raid killed 34 in a London school.
(HN, 1/21/99)
1944 Jan 21, Some 649 British
bombers attacked Magdeburg.
(MC, 1/21/02)
1944 Jan 21, Some 447 German
bombers attacked London.
(MC, 1/21/02)
1945 Jan 21, Andrew Stein, pres
of NYC council (D), was born.
(MC, 1/21/02)
1950 Jan 21, Former State
Department official Alger Hiss, accused of being part of a Communist
spy ring, was found guilty in New York of lying to a grand jury.
Hiss, who always maintained his innocence, was sentenced to five
years in prison; he served less than four.
(AP, 1/21/00)
1950 Jan 21, George Orwell
(46), author, died in London of tuberculosis. His books included
Down and Out in Paris and London" (1933) and "1984." William
Abrahams (d.1998), editor and novelist, co-authored the 2-volume
biography of Orwell: "Life, Death and Art in the Second World War,"
and "Journey to the Frontier" with Peter Stansky. In 2000 Jeffrey
Meyers authored the biography "Orwell: Wintry Conscience of a
Generation." Orwell married Sonia Brownell (1918-1980) on his
deathbed. In 2003 Hilary Spurling authored "The Gril from the
Fiction Department," a biography of Sonia Orwell. In 2003 D.J.
Taylor authored "Orwell : The Life."
(AP, 1/21/98)(SFC, 6/5/98, p.D7)(SFC, 6/25/98,
p.B12)(SFEC, 10/1/00, BR p.5)(WSJ, 5/16/03, p.W10)(SSFC, 9/28/03,
p.M2)
1951 Jan 21, Communist troops
forced the UN army out of Inchon, Korea after a 12-hour attack.
(HN, 1/21/99)
1954 Jan 21, The first atomic
submarine, the USS Nautilus, was launched at Groton, Conn. However,
the Nautilus did not make its first nuclear-powered run until nearly
a year later.
(AP, 1/21/08)
1954 Jan 21, In Czechoslovakia
Frantisek Stransky died when a test prototype of the Oskar 54
microcar crashed. In 1956, the vehicle's name was changed to
"Velorex - Oskar" and then just to "Velorex". In 1959 the company
produced 120 vehicles per month. Beginning in 1936, the brothers
Frantisek (1914 - 1954) and Mojmír (1924) Stransky, owners of
a bicycle repair shop in village Parnik near Česká
Třebová, started with the design of a small, cheap
three-wheeled car, inspired by three-wheelers from Morgan Motor
Company.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velorex)
1958 Jan 21, Charles
Starkweather, 19, killed the mother, stepfather and half-sister of
his 14-year-old girlfriend, Caril Ann Fugate, at her family's home
in Lincoln, Neb. Starkweather, who had also killed a gas station
attendant the previous November, and Fugate went on a road trip
which resulted in seven more slayings. Starkweather was executed in
1959; Fugate, who maintained she had been Starkweather's hostage,
was convicted of murder and sentenced to life; she was paroled in
1976. His slaying spree inspired the 1973 film “Badlands” starring
Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek.
(SFEM, 2/8/98, p.8)(AP, 1/21/08)
1958 Jan 21, James Grover
Tarver (b.1885), Texas-born giant, died in Arkansas. He had grown to
be 8 feet 4 inches tall and traveled with the Ringling Bros. and
other circuses. In 1917 he played the giant in the film “Jack and
the Beanstalk.”
(SFC, 3/5/08,
p.G5)(www.forensicgenealogy.info/contest_80_results.html)
1958 Jan 21, The Soviet Union
called for a ban on nuclear arms in Baghdad Pact countries.
(HN, 1/21/99)
1959 Jan 21, Cecil Blount de
Mille (Cecil B. DeMille), one of Hollywood’s most successful
filmmakers, died at age 77. He was also one of the toughest. He once
said to his staff, "You are here to please me. Nothing else on earth
matters." He produced the "The 10 Commandments." In 2004 Robert S.
Birchard authored “Cecil B. DeMille’s Hollywood.”
(HNPD, 8/12/98)(HNQ, 10/27/98)(MC, 1/21/02)(WSJ,
7/14/04, p.D14)
1962 Jan 21, Snow fell in the
SF Bay Area and accumulated to about 3 inches in Daly City and San
Francisco. This was the heaviest local snowfall since 1887.
(SFC, 2/23/11, p.A10)(SSFC, 1/22/12, DB p.42)
1964 Jan 21, Carl T. Rowan was
named the director of the United States Information Agency (USIA).
(HN, 1/21/99)
1968 Jan 21, In Vietnam the
77-day Siege of Khe Sanh began as North Vietnamese units surrounded
U.S. Marines based on the hilltop headquarters. It was the longest
and bloodiest battle of the Vietnam War. The Battle began at 0530
hours when North Vietnamese Army forces hammered the Marine-occupied
Khe Sanh Combat Base with rocket, mortar, artillery, small arms, and
automatic weapons fire. Hundreds of 82-mm mortar rounds and 122-mm
rockets slammed into the combat base. Virtually all of the base's
ammunition stock and a substantial portion of the fuel supplies were
destroyed.
(HN, 1/21/99)(WSJ, 5/2/02,
p.D7)(www.vietnam-war.info/battles/siege_of_khe_sanh.php)
1968 Jan 21, An American B-52
bomber carrying four hydrogen bombs crashed at North Star Bay,
Greenland, killing one crew member and scattering radioactive
material. Reports began to surface later and in 1995 the Danish
government paid a $15.5 million settlement to some 1,700 exposed
workers.
(www.ens-newswire.com/ens/aug2004/2004-08-09-02.asp)(AP, 1/21/08)
1968 Jan 21, A group of 31
North Korean commandos trudged undetected for about 40 miles from
the border to the presidential Blue House of South Korean President
Park Chung-hee in downtown Seoul. South Korean security forces
repelled the assault. 28 North Koreans and 34 South Koreans were
killed.
(SFC, 9/19/96, p.A8)(AP, 12/25/03)
1968 Jan 21, In Vietnam the
Battle of Khe Sahn began as North Vietnamese forces attacked a US
Marine base; the Americans were able to hold their position until
the siege was lifted 2 1/2 months later. It was the longest and
bloodiest battle of the Vietnam War. The Battle began at 0530 hours
when North Vietnamese Army forces hammered the Marine-occupied Khe
Sanh Combat Base with rocket, mortar, artillery, small arms, and
automatic weapons fire. Hundreds of 82-mm mortar rounds and 122-mm
rockets slammed into the combat base. Virtually all of the base's
ammunition stock and a substantial portion of the fuel supplies were
destroyed.
(WSJ, 5/2/02, p.D7)(AP,
1/21/08)(www.vietnam-war.info/battles/siege_of_khe_sanh.php)
1970 Jan 21, Timothy Leary
(1920-1996) was sentenced to 10 years in prison for possession of
two roaches of marijuana in 1968.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_Leary)
1970 Jan 21, The Boeing 747-100
made its 1st commercial transatlantic flight from NY to London. The
plane was 231 feet long with a wing span of 195 feet. It could seat
400 people in a cabin 182 feet long.
(WSJ, 7/19/96,
p.B5)(www.boeing.com/commercial/747family/pf/pf_milestones.html)
1974 Jan 21, The U.S. Supreme
Court decided that pregnant teachers could no longer be forced to
take long leaves of absence.
(HN, 1/21/99)
1976 Jan 21, Leonid Brezhnev
and Henry Kissinger met to discuss Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty
(SALT).
(HN, 1/21/99)
1976 Jan 21, The supersonic
Concorde jet was put into service by Britain and France.
(AP, 1/21/98)
1977 Jan 21, President Carter
urged 65 degrees as the maximum heat in homes to ease the energy
crisis.
(HN, 1/21/99)
1977 Jan 21, President Carter
pardoned almost all Vietnam War draft evaders as long as they had
not been involved in violent acts.
(AP, 1/21/98)(HNQ, 11/13/99)
1978 Jan 21, The Bee Gees'
"Saturday Night Fever" album, released in November, 1977, went #1
for 24 weeks following the release of the Saturday Night Fever film
in Dec 1977.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number-one_albums_of_1978_(U.S.))
1979 Jan 21, The Pittsburgh
Steelers became the first team to win three Super Bowls as they
defeated the Dallas Cowboys 35-31 in Super Bowl 13.
(AP, 1/22/04)
1979 Jan 21, Neptune became the
outermost planet as Pluto moved closer due to their highly
elliptical orbits.
(www.videocosmos.com/calendar-january2131.shtm)
1980 Jan 21, In the Iowa
Republican caucus George H. W. Bush beat Ronald Reagan 32% to 30%.
Reagan went onto win the nomination and the presidency.
(http://correntewire.com/post_iowa_perspective)
1980 Jan 21, Gold peaked in NY
at $875 a troy ounce. By mid-March gold prices fell to below $500
per ounce.
(SFC, 3/18/05,
p.F2)(www.321gold.com/editorials/wong/wong010104.html)
1982 Jan 21,
Convict-turned-author Jack Henry Abbott was found guilty in New York
City of first-degree manslaughter in the stabbing death of waiter
Richard Adan in 1981. Abbott was later sentenced to 15 years to life
in prison; he committed suicide in 2002.
(AP, 1/21/07)
1985 Jan 21, 19F (-28C) was
recorded at Caesar's Head, South Carolina, a state record. 34F
(-37C) was recorded at Mt. Mitchell, North Carolina, a state record.
(http://tinyurl.com/yaleou)
1985 Jan 21, James Beard
(b.1903), US culinary expert, author (Delights & Prejudices),
died.
(http://members.localnet.com/~jgeorge/jbeard.htm)(SFC, 5/4/05, p.E1)
1987 Jan 21, In South Africa a
paramilitary force killed 13 civilians in their sleep in the
KwaMakutha Zulu township (KwaZulu-Natal black homeland). In 1996
former defense minister Magnus Malan and 20 others were charged with
authorizing the killing. The first six defendants of the Inkatha
Freedom party were acquitted by Judge Jan Hugo. Former intelligence
officer Johan Opperman admitted to planning the attack.
(SFC,7/18/96, p.E3)(SFC,10/11/96,
p.A16)(WSJ,10/11/96, p.A1)(SFC,10/12/96, p.A10)
1988 Jan 21, Retin-A got a
boost when a study published in the Journal of the American Medical
Association said the anti-acne drug could also reduce wrinkles
caused by exposure to the sun.
(AP, 1/21/98)
1989 Jan 21, Former Ku Klux
Klan leader David Duke led a field of seven candidates in an open
primary to advance to a runoff election for a Louisiana state House
seat.
(AP, 1/1/99)
1990 Jan 21, Azerbaijan Pres.
Aliyev made his first public appearance since his 1987 resignation
from the Soviet Politburo. He broke the information blackout and
urged int’l. condemnation of the Soviet attack. Mutinous military
cadets fired on troops patrolling the capital during a crackdown on
a nationalist uprising.
(WSJ, 12/18/96, p.A21)(AP, 1/21/00)
1991 Jan 21, During the Gulf
War, Iraq announced it had scattered prisoners of war at targeted
areas; President Bush denounced Iraq’s treatment of POW’s, and said
Iraqi President Saddam Hussein would be held responsible. CBS News
correspondent Bob Simon, CBS News London bureau chief Peter Bluff, a
cameraman and soundman were captured by Iraqi forces; they were
released almost six weeks later.
(AP, 1/21/01)
1999 Jan 21, Charles Brown
(b.1922), African-American rhythm and blues pioneer, died. In 1947
his song “Merry Christmas Baby” became a perennial hit.
(SFC, 2/21/08,
p.E8)(http://elvispelvis.com/charlesbrown.htm)
1992 Jan 21, The Supreme Court
agreed to review a Pennsylvania law imposing waiting periods and
other restrictions on abortions. The court later upheld most of the
restrictions while reaffirming women's constitutional right to
abortion.
(AP, 1/21/02)
1992 Jan 21, William T
"Champion Jack" Dupree (81), US boxer, pianist, died in Germany.
(www.john-meekings.co.uk/wtdupree.html)
1993 Jan 21, Congressman Mike
Espy of Mississippi was confirmed as Secretary of the Department of
Agriculture.
(HN, 1/21/99)
1993 Jan 21, Two U.S. warplanes
bombed a defense site in northern Iraq after radar was turned on
them. Iraq denied provoking the attack.
(AP, 1/21/98)
1994 Jan 21, A jury in
Manassas, Va., acquitted Lorena Bobbitt by reason of temporary
insanity of maliciously wounding her husband John, whom she'd
accused of sexually assaulting her.
(AP, 1/1/99)
1994 Jan 21, Dow Jones passed
3900 to a record 3,914.20.
(http://tinyurl.com/cphe5)
1994 Jan 21, In Argentina a
fire near Puerto Madryn killed 25 fire cadets.
(http://members.virtualtourist.com/m/tt/75ea/)
1994 Jan 21, Basil Assad
(b.1961), the son of Syria’s Pres. Hafez Assad, was killed in a car
accident.
(SFEC, 6/11/00,
p.A12)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basil_al-Assad)
1995 Jan 21, President Clinton,
addressing the Democratic National Committee, implored members to
"bear down and go forward" despite results of the 1994 elections.
(AP, 1/21/00)
1996 Jan 21, At the 53rd annual
Golden Globes, “Sense and Sensibility” won best dramatic picture;
“Babe” won best comedy; best dramatic acting awards went to Nicolas
Cage for “Leaving Las Vegas” and Sharon Stone for “Casino,” while
awards for acting in a comedy or musical went to Nicole Kidman for
“To Die For” and John Travolta for “Get Shorty.”
(AP, 1/21/01)
1996 Jan 21, Jonathon Larson
(d.1/25/96), composer of Rent, began complaining of chest pains.
Doctors at the emergency room of Cabrini Hosp. said he probably had
food poisoning and pumped his stomach before sending him home. An
X-ray was taken but it was read by a doctor of osteopathic medicine.
(SFC, 6/8/96, p.E4)
1997 Jan 21, Speaker Newt
Gingrich was reprimanded and fined as the House voted for first time
in history to discipline its leader for ethical misconduct.
(AP, 1/21/01)
1997 Jan 21, The Democratic
National Committee announced it would no longer accept money from
people or companies with foreign ties and would limit contributions
from labor unions and wealthy benefactors.
(AP, 1/21/98)
1997 Jan 21, Irwin Levine (58),
composer (Tie a Yellow Ribbon), died in New Jersey.
(http://tinyurl.com/afxk9)
1997 Jan 21, Colonel Tom Parker
(87), manager for Elvis Presley, died.
(MC, 1/21/02)
1997 Jan 21, In Algeria two car
bombs in the capital killed as a many as 18 people.
(SFC, 1/22/97, p.A8)
1997 Jan 21, In Chechnya
elections for president were planned and Aslan Maskhadov and Shamil
Basayev led the 16 candidates. Ichkeria was name given to free
Chechnya by the Muslim separatists.
(SFC, 1/22/97, p.A9)
1997 Jan 21, In China 2
earthquakes struck within a minute in Xinjiang province and killed
at least 12 people.
(WSJ, 1/22/97, p.A1)
1997 Jan 21, In Egypt the
al-Ahram newspaper reported that a 30-member family of beggars was
arrested. They had managed to save $294,000 from illegal begging on
the streets of Suez.
(SFC, 1/22/97, p.C1)
1997 Jan 21, In South Korea the
president agreed to allow the full parliament to consider a revise a
new labor law. Arrest warrants against union officials were
suspended.
(WSJ, 1/22/97, p.A1)
1998 Jan 21, Pres. Clinton
angrily denied charges that he had a sexual affair with Monica
Lewinsky (24), a White House aide in 1995, and that he encouraged
Lewinsky to lie under oath about their involvement.
(SFC, 1/22/98, p.A1)(AP, 1/1/99)
1998 Jan 21, The FBI arrested
dozens of prison guards and police officers in the Cleveland area
following a 2-year sting operation on cocaine trafficking.
(SFC, 1/22/98, p.A7)
1998 Jan 21, Jack Lord, TV star
of "Hawaii Five-O" fame, died in Honolulu at age 77. In 2006 it was
revealed that he left behind $40 million to a dozen local charities.
(AP, 1/1/99)(SSFC, 2/26/06, Par p.2)
1998 Jan 21, In Bosnia Western
mediators unveiled a common currency and ordered that it be accepted
by the Muslims, Serbs and Croats.
(SFC, 1/22/98, p.B2)
1988 Jan 21, In Burundi Hutu
rebels killed 45 people in 2 attacks, and 20 rebels died in a
subsequent battle with the army.
(WSJ, 1/22/98, p.A1)
1998 Jan 21, Pope John Paul II
arrived in Cuba for a 4-day historic visit.
(SFC, 1/8/98, p.B2)(AP, 1/1/99)
1999 Jan 21, Former Sen. Dale
Bumpers, an Arkansas Democrat, told the Senate impeachment trial of
Bill Clinton the president was guilty of a "terrible moral lapse"
but not of conduct warranting or even permitting his removal from
office.
(AP, 1/21/00)
1999 Jan 21, In Arkansas
twisters led to 4 deaths and over a dozen injuries across the state.
(SFC, 1/22/99, p.A3)
1999 Jan 21, In Texas LaTausha
Curry (25) was abducted while trying to make a call at a pay phone.
Derrick Lamone Johnson later confessed that he and an accomplice had
raped and murdered her. In 2009 Johnson (25) was executed.
(SFC, 5/1/09,
p.A8)(www.cca.courts.state.tx.us/opinions/73765.htm)
1999 Jan 21, Charles Brown
(b.1922), African-American rhythm and blues pioneer, died. In 1947
his song “Merry Christmas Baby” became a perennial hit.
(SFC, 2/21/08,
p.E8)(http://elvispelvis.com/charlesbrown.htm)
1999 Jan 21, The UN voted to
maintain at least a token presence in Angola.
(SFC, 1/22/99, p.A12)
1999 Jan 21, In Telagakodok,
Indonesia, at least 40 Christian villagers were killed by a mob of
Muslims.
(SFC, 1/26/99, p.A14)
1999 Jan 21, In Mexico Raul
Salinas de Gortari, brother of a former Mexican president, was
convicted and sentenced to 50 years for the 1994 assassination of
Jose Francisco Ruiz Massieu.
(SFC, 1/22/99, p.A10)(AP, 1/21/00)
1999 Jan 21, In Romania
striking miners stormed through police lines, killed one officer and
took 50 captive. The interior minister was fired.
(WSJ, 1/22/99, p.A1)
1999 Jan 21, In Russia Grigory
Pasko (37), in jail for 14 months, was put on trial for selling
classified information. He had reported on the disposal of
radioactive waste in the Sea of Japan.
(SFC, 1/22/99, p.A12)
1999 Jan 21, In Sierra Leone
the rebels were killing and mutilating civilians as they fell back
before Nigerian led troops.
(WSJ, 1/22/99, p.A1)
1999 Jan 21, Yugoslav Pres.
Milosevic postponed the expulsion of US envoy William Walker.
(SFC, 1/22/99, p.A10)
2000 Jan 21, The grandmothers
of Elian Gonzalez traveled to the United States to plead for the
boy’s return to Cuba.
(AP, 1/21/01)
2000 Jan 21, The US NASDAQ
market rose to a record 4,235.4.
(SFC, 1/22/00, p.E1)
2000 Jan 21, Negotiators in
Geneva agreed to new guidelines governing children in combat after
the US dropped its opposition to establishing 18 as the minimum age
for sending soldiers into combat.
(SFC, 1/22/00, p.A10)
2000 Jan 21, In Algeria nearly
60 soldiers and Islamic insurgents were killed near Relizane.
Security forces killed 12 insurgents in Sid Ali Bounab.
(SFC, 1/24/00, p.A7)
2000 Jan 21, In Austria the
2-day old ruling coalition collapsed.
(SFC, 1/22/00, p.A11)
2000 Jan 21, In China it was
reported that some 700 investigators had gathered over the last 2
months in Xiamen, formerly called Amoy, to investigate corruption
and the smuggling of some $9.5 billion worth of goods.
(SFC, 1/21/00, p.A12)
2000 Jan 21, In Ecuador the
military demanded the resignation of Pres. Jamil Mahuad and declared
itself in charge through a 3-man junta that included Gen. Carlos
Mendoza, indigenous leader Antonio Vargas and former Supreme Court
Chief Carlos Solorzano.
(SFC, 1/22/00, p.A1)
2000 Jan 21, In Japan 6 people
that included the daughter (16) of Shoko Asahara broke into the Aum
cult's Asashimura facility and kidnapped the 7-year-old son of
Asahara. Two of the kidnappers were arrested over the next 2 days.
The boy was found Jan 23 in the resort town of Hakone.
(SFEC, 1/23/00, p.A22)(SFC, 1/24/00, p.A7)
2000 Jan 21, In Madrid, Spain,
Basque separatists ended a 19-month lull in their guerrilla war with
a remote bomb that killed Lt. Col. Pedro Antonio Blanco Garcia (48).
(SFC, 1/22/00, p.A10)
2001 Jan 21, The Roman epic
“Gladiator” claimed best dramatic movie and the 1970's rock-and-roll
story “Almost Famous” won best comedy at the Golden Globes Awards.
(AP, 1/21/02)
2001 Jan 21, Pope John Paul II
elevated archbishops of New York and Washington and 35 other church
leaders to the College of Cardinals.
(AP, 1/21/02)
2001 Jan 21, Byron De La
Beckwith (80), a white supremacist convicted three decades after the
fact for assassinating civil rights leader Medgar Evers, died in
Jackson, Miss.
(AP, 1/21/02)
2001 Jan 21, In Chechnya rebels
fought street battles in Gudermes following weekend raids that left
6 Russian soldiers dead.
(WSJ, 1/22/01, p.A1)
2001 Jan 24, Portugal Telecom
and Spain’s Telefonica announced today the formation of a US$ 10
billion Strategic Joint Venture ("JV") for mobile services in
Brazil. The resulting entity, named Vivo, was formed from seven
assorted mobile units they already controlled.
(Econ, 5/22/10, p.71)(http://tinyurl.com/2cxlgd4)
2001 Jan 21, Syria approved
private banking and ended artificial exchange rates.
(WSJ, 1/22/01, p.A1)
2001 Jan 21, In Ukraine 9
miners died and 15 were injured in a gas explosion in the Donetsk
coal region.
(WSJ, 1/22/01, p.A1)
2002 Jan 21, Sec. of State
Colin Powell said the US would contribute $297 million for Afghan
reconstruction over the coming year during a conference on Afghan
reconstruction in Tokyo. Int’l. donors pledged over $4.5 billion
over 5 years.
(SFC, 1/21/02, p.A1)(SFC, 1/22/02, p.A12)
2002 Jan 21, K-Mart, the 3rd
largest US discount retailer, filed for bankruptcy protection. Kmart
was operating 2,114 stores with 250,000 employees.
(SFC, 1/22/02, p.A1)(Ind, 2/2/02, 5A)
2002 Jan 21, Peggy Lee
(b.1920), jazz and blues singer, died at age 81 in Bel Air, Calif.
(SFC, 1/23/02, p.A2)(AP, 1/21/03)
2002 Jan 21, In Goma, Congo, a
gas station exploded after some spilled gas was ignited by lava.
Dozens of people looting gasoline were killed.
(SFC, 1/22/02, p.A6)
2002 Jan 21, In Alexandria,
Egypt, a small group of leading rabbis, Muslim clerics and bishops
signed the Alexandria Doctrine, which condemned violence and
insisted that holy places be kept open.
(http://tinyurl.com/2pey69)(Econ, 11/3/07, SR
p.13)
2002 Jan 21, Haiti’s prime
minister quit amid political and economic woes.
(WSJ, 1/22/02, p.A1)
2002 Jan 21, Israeli forces
invaded Nablus, killed Palestinians and arrested 9 suspected
militants. PM Sharon decided to reopen the Temple Mount to
non-Muslims. The Waqf clerical trust imposed a ban on non-Muslims in
Sep, 2000.
(SFC, 1/22/02, p.A7)
2002 Jan 21, In Kashmir 21
people died in violence.
(WSJ, 1/22/02, p.A1)
2002 Jan 21, In Russia the
media minister took TV6 off the air after journalists there failed
to cut ties with owner Boris Berezovsky. Russian troops rounded up
dozens in Dagestan following an earlier bomb attack that killed 7
soldiers.
(SFC, 1/22/02, p.A8)
2003 Jan 21, The US Census
Bureau reported that Hispanics had passed Blacks as the biggest US
minority group.
(WSJ, 1/22/03, p.A1)
2003 Jan 21, Thousands of
British firefighters walked off the job for the third time in less
than three months after failing to resolve a wage dispute with the
government.
(AP, 1/21/03)
2003 Jan 21, Colombian rebels
in Arauca state kidnapped an American photographer and a British
reporter, the first time foreign journalists were abducted in
Colombia's four-decade-long civil war. Scott Dalton and Ruth Morris
were freed Feb 1.
(AP, 2/1/03)(AP, 1/21/04)
2003 Jan 21, Congo's health
minister reported that a flu epidemic had killed more than 2,000
people in a far northern province.
(AP, 1/21/03)
2003 Jan 21, Israel razed 62
shops and market stalls in a Palestinian village Tuesday as troops
clashed with protesters.
(AP, 1/21/03)
2003 Jan 21, In Kuwait American
contract worker Michael Rene Pouliat (46) was killed by gunman in an
ambush near Camp Doha. Another worker was wounded. Saudi border
guards arrested a Kuwaiti suspect the next day.
(SFC, 1/23/03, p.A11)
2003 Jan 21, Mexico appealed to
the World Court to stop the execution of 51 of its citizens in the
United States.
(AP, 1/21/03)
2003 Jan 21, A 7.6-7.8
earthquake ripped through western and central Mexico, killing at
least 29 people and leaving 10,000 homeless.
(SFC, 1/23/03, p.A1)(AP, 1/21/04)
2003 Jan 21, NATO blocked a US
request to begin preparations for a military backup in the event of
war with Iraq.
(WSJ, 1/23/03, p.A1)
2003 Jan 21, In Uzbekistan a
series of stories posted on the Internet in early Jan before access
was cut off have alleged high-level corruption and the president's
imminent resignation, stirring rare public debate.
(AP, 1/21/03)
2004 Jan 21, President Bush
visited community colleges in Ohio and Arizona, where he highlighted
the economy and several new job-training initiatives he'd proposed a
day earlier in his State of the Union speech.
(AP, 1/21/05)
2004 Jan 21, Ohio lawmakers
gave final approval to a measure banning gay marriage and
prohibiting state employees from getting benefits for domestic
partners. Gov. Bob Taft said he would sign it pending a legal
review.
(SFC, 1/22/04, p.A1)
2004 Jan 21, The recording
industry sued 532 computer users it said were illegally distributing
songs over the Internet.
(AP, 1/21/05)
2004 Jan 21, Hong Kong
officials reported that Avian influenza was detected near 2 chicken
farms. 5 people in Vietnam had already died from the recent
outbreak.
(SFC, 1/22/04, p.A3)
2004 Jan 21, Ecumenical
Patriarch Bartholomew arrived in Cuba to consecrate St.
Nicholas Cathedral on Jan. 25, said Metropolitan Athenagoras of
Panama and Central America. There were 1,200 practicing Orthodox
Christians in Cuba.
(AP, 1/15/04)
2004 Jan 21, The 6-day World
Social Forum ended in Bombay, India, as thousands marching against
the Iraq war. Some 80,000 people from a hundred countries
participated in the forum.
(SFC, 1/22/04, p.A3)
2004 Jan 21, Most of Iran's
ministers and vice presidents submitted resignations to protest the
barring of thousands of would-be candidates from upcoming elections.
The Guardian Council had just reinstated 200 of the disqualified
candidates and said it would reconsider the rest.
(AP, 1/22/04)
2004 Jan 21, In central Iraq a
barrage of mortar fire struck a US military encampment, killing 2
American soldiers and critically wounding a third. In separate
incidents, gunmen ambushed a vehicle carrying Iraqi women who worked
in the laundry at a US military base, killing 4 of them,
(AP, 1/22/04)
2004 Jan 21, Israeli forces
demolished houses in Gaza's Rafah refugee camp for the second
straight day in an anti-militant clampdown that has left 400 people
homeless. A Palestinian woman was killed.
(AP, 1/21/04)(WSJ, 1/22/04, p.A1)
2005 Jan 21, The US Bureau of
Land Management (BLM) posted a decision to open thousands of acres
on Alaska’s North Slope for exploratory oil drilling.
(SFC, 1/22/05, p.A5)
2005 Jan 21, Michael Powell, US
chief of the FCC, said he will step down in 2 months.
(SFC, 1/22/05, p.A1)
2005 Jan 21, The body of Megan
Leann Holden (19) was found near Stanton, Texas. Her abduction from
a Wal-Mart parking lot 2 days earlier was captured on surveillance
videotape. Johnny Lee Williams (24), the suspect in her murder, was
arrested at an Arizona hospital after he shot during a robbery
attempt.
(SFC, 1/22/05, p.A3)
2005 Jan 21, In Belize a 2-day
strike ended to protest a lawmakers vote to approve tax hikes
opposed by a majority of the country's 250,000 people. Some 500
protesters clashed with police in front of Belize's House of
Representatives.
(AP, 1/22/05)
2005 Jan 21, Bulgarian
President Georgy Parvanov told parliament that he would like to see
Bulgaria's 450-strong troop contingent out of Iraq before the end of
the year.
(AFP, 1/21/05)
2005 Jan 21, A German policeman
was stabbed in the neck with a pair of scissors and another taken
hostage when a man they were trying to arrest turned violent.
(AP, 1/21/05)
2005 Jan 21, A car bomb
exploded outside a Shiite mosque in Baghdad where worshippers were
celebrating a major Muslim holiday, killing at least 14 people and
wounding 40. A suicide bomber left 7 people dead at a Shiite wedding
party near Youssufiya.
(AP, 1/21/05)(SFC, 1/22/05, p.A10)
2005 Jan 21, Hundreds of armed
Palestinian police deployed across the northern Gaza Strip on Friday
to prevent rocket fire on Israeli communities.
(AP, 1/21/05)
2006 Jan 21, In Colorado a
military jury convicted Chief Warrant Officer Lewis Welshofer Jr.,
an Army interrogator, of negligent homicide. During an interrogation
on Nov 26, 2003, he put a sleeping bag over the head of Iraqi Maj.
Gen. Abed Hamed Mowhoush and sat on his chest as the man suffocated.
(AP, 1/22/06)(SSFC, 1/22/06, p.D4)
2006 Jan 21, In Las Vegas Manny
Pacquiao avenged his defeat 10 months ago and handed Erik Morales
the worst beating of his career before finally stopping him in the
10th round of their 130-pound showdown.
(AP, 1/22/06)
2006 Jan 21, In Las Vegas
Jennifer Berry, a 22-year-old ballerina from Oklahoma, was crowned
Miss America. The pageant went without coverage from a major
television network for the first time since 1954, but aired on
Country Music Television.
(AP, 1/22/06)
2006 Jan 21, Rescuers in West
Virginia found the bodies of two miners who'd disappeared after a
conveyor belt caught fire deep inside a coal mine.
(AP, 1/21/07)
2006 Jan 21, Ashok Malhotra
(43) was shot dead at 2380 Aberdeen Way in Richmond, Ca. 2 suspects,
Ishtiaq Hussain (38) and Jose Antonio Barajas (22) were arrested Jan
24 following a chase at the Canadian border, where Hussain was shot.
(SFC, 1/25/06, p.B4)
2006 Jan 21, Afghanistan
formally approved a five-year development plan, the Afghanistan
Compact, to be presented to its international supporters at a key
conference in London at the end of this month.
(AP, 1/21/06)
2006 Jan 21, In Afghanistan a
local police chief was killed in a suspected Taliban ambush in
Ghazni province.
(AP, 1/22/06)
2006 Jan 21, In Bangladesh at
least 15 people were injured as police and opposition supporters
fought street battles in Dhaka ahead of a nationwide strike called
by opposition parties. The Awami League and its 13 left-leaning
allies called for a Sunday strike to press for removal of the chief
election commissioner and two newly appointed commissioners.
(AP, 1/21/06)
2006 Jan 21, A lost whale that
strayed up the Thames in central London was gently lifted onto a
barge as crowds lined the river banks to watch a unique rescue
operation. Wally, a young bottle-nosed whale, died while being
returned to the sea.
(AFP, 1/22/06)
2006 Jan 21, In Colombia a
video, released by Colombian guerrillas, showed 12 kidnapped
lawmakers pleading with their government to work with Venezuela's
leftist President Hugo Chavez to help obtain their release.
(AP, 1/21/06)
2006 Jan 21, Guyana's
government deployed soldiers to protect flood control gates and
reservoirs after saboteurs set fire to drainage systems in coastal
areas threatened by recent flooding. Since December, flooding has
covered thousands of acres in waist-deep water and displaced more
than 5,000 people.
(AP, 1/21/06)
2006 Jan 21, In Iraq Sunni Arab
politicians called for a government of national unity and signaled
they will use their increased numbers in parliament to curb the
power of rival Shiites, who have claimed the biggest number of seats
in the new legislature.
(AP, 1/21/06)
2006 Jan 21, A spate of
bombings and shootings across Iraq killed at least eight Iraqis.
Britain announced the death of a British security worker in a
roadside blast.
(AP, 1/21/06)
2006 Jan 21, Ilan Halimi (23),
a mobile phone salesman in northeast Paris, was kidnapped. Ransom
demands soon followed. He was found 3 weeks later naked, handcuffed
and covered with burn marks near railroad tracks in the Essonne
region south of Paris. He died en route to a hospital. On Feb 20 a
judge placed six men and a woman under investigation for the alleged
plot to kidnap and kill on religious, racial or ethnic motives.
(AP, 2/20/06)
2006 Jan 21, Kosovo President
Ibrahim Rugova (61), the ethnic Albanian leader and embodiment of
the province's decades-long struggle for independence from Serbia,
died of lung cancer.
(AP, 1/21/06)(Econ, 1/28/06, p.84)
2006 Jan 21, The families of
426 HIV-infected Libyan children asked for $12 million in
compensation for each child as part of efforts to resolve the case
of five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor charged with
intentionally infecting the children.
(AP, 1/22/06)
2006 Jan 21, In Nepal police
fired tear gas to disperse activists protesting the Nepalese king's
seizure of absolute power last year. At least 300 people were
arrested and 50 were injured.
(AP, 1/21/06)
2006 Jan 21, In southern Nepal
Maoist rebels and government forces clashed in Phapar Badi village,
killing 14 militants and six security forces.
(AP, 1/22/06)
2006 Jan 21, In Nigeria, a
police spokesman said 14 suspects have been arrested following
clashes in Lagos earlier this week in which three people were
killed.
(AP, 1/21/06)
2006 Jan 21, A helicopter used
by the Red Cross for earthquake relief operations in Pakistan went
missing with seven crew members on board. The wreckage of the copter
and the bodies of the seven people on board were found in June 2006.
(AP, 1/21/07)
2006 Jan 21, Palestinian
security forces cast ballots for parliamentary candidates in the
official start of this week's Palestinian elections.
(AP, 1/21/06)
2006 Jan 21, US Navy vessels
sent warning shots and captured the crew of a suspected pirate ship
in the Indian Ocean off Somalia's coast. The US Navy boarded the
pirate ship and detained 26 men for questioning. Sailors aboard the
dhow told Navy investigators that pirates hijacked the vessel six
days ago near Mogadishu and thereafter used it to stage pirate
attacks on merchant ships.
(AP, 1/23/06)
2006 Jan 21, African nations
were split over Sudan's bid to head the African Union, a move which
could scuttle peace talks in the country's Darfur region and damage
Africa's efforts to improve its image abroad.
(AP, 1/21/06)
2007 Jan 21, New Mexico’s Gov.
Bill Richardson entered the race for the Democratic presidential
nomination.
(SFC, 1/22/07, p.A3)
2007 Jan 21, Lovie Smith became
the first black head coach to make it to the Super Bowl when his
Chicago Bears won the NFC championship, beating the New Orleans
Saints 39-14; Tony Dungy became the second when his Indianapolis
Colts took the AFC title over the New England Patriots, 38-34.
(AP, 1/21/08)
2007 Jan 21, More than a foot
of snow fell on parts of northern Arizona, while children as far
south as Tucson got a rare chance to play in the snow.
(AP, 1/22/07)
2007 Jan 21, Zdzislaw Rurarz, a
former Polish ambassador to Japan, died of cancer in Virginia. He
humiliated Poland's communist regime by defecting to the US in 1981
to protest its imposition of martial law.
(AP, 1/28/07)
2007 Jan 21, Louis Malcolm Boyd
(b.1927), aka L.M. Boyd, master gatherer of random facts, died at
his home in Seattle, Wa. He began his column in 1963 at the Seattle
Post-Intelligencer using the pen name Mike Mailway. In SF the column
was titled Grab Bag.
(SSFC, 1/28/07, p.B3)
2007 Jan 21, Oil leaked from
the Napoli, stricken freighter beached on the England’s southwest
coast, Two containers of hazardous chemicals fell into the sea as
salvage crews struggled to operate.
(AFP, 1/21/07)
2007 Jan 21, Canada announced
it will spend $25 million to protect, the Great Bear Rainforest, a
16-million-acre preserve that stretches 250 miles along British
Columbia's rugged Pacific coastline, one of the largest intact
temperate rainforests left in the world.
(AP, 1/22/07)
2007 Jan 21, The Danish
container ship Eleonora Maersk, one of the largest ships in the
world, was officially registered.
(www.ships-info.info/mer-eleonora-maersk.htm)(Econ, 11/12/11, p.72)
2007 Jan 21, German Chancellor
Angela Merkel met with Pres. Vladimir Putin in the Black Sea resort
of Sochi for talks set to focus on securing guarantees for energy
supplies to the EU. Putin promised to smooth energy flow to Europe.
(AP, 1/21/07)(WSJ, 1/22/07, p.A1)
2007 Jan 21, Embattled Guinean
President Lansana Conte called on his country's armed forces to
stand united in the face of a crippling general strike that has
claimed 10 lives as pressure mounted for him to resign. The African
Union called on Pres. Conte to pursue talks with trade union leaders
to ease a 12-day-old strike.
(AFP, 1/21/07)
2007 Jan 21, In India at least
one person was killed and eight wounded in two separate explosions
in the insurgency-hit northeastern state of Assam.
(AFP, 1/21/07)
2007 Jan 21, A major
6.5-magnitude undersea earthquake has rocked Indonesia's northern
Sulawesi province. The earthquake left four people dead and four
injured.
(AFP, 1/21/07)(AP, 1/22/07)
2007 Jan 21, Radical Shiite
cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's bloc announced it is lifting its political
boycott, some seven weeks after it began to protest the Iraqi prime
minister's summit with President Bush. A bomb struck a small bus in
Baghdad as it headed to a predominantly Shiite area, killing six
passengers and wounding 10. Two US Marines were killed in separate
attacks in the Anbar province. Another US soldier was killed in
fighting south of Baghdad.
(AP, 1/21/07)(AP, 1/22/07)(AP, 1/23/07)
2007 Jan 21, Islamic Jihad
militants launched homemade rockets into Israel from the Gaza Strip
in retaliation for Israel's continuing military operations against
their group in the West Bank.
(AP, 1/21/07)
2007 Jan 21, Russian border
police seized a Japanese fishing boat and its six crew members in
disputed waters between the two countries, prompting the Japanese
government to protest. The No. 38 Zuisho Maru was captured off
Kunashiri Island, one of four disputed islands in a group the
Japanese call the Northern Territories and the Russians call the
Kurils.
(AP, 1/22/07)
2007 Jan 21, Serbs voted in
parliamentary elections that could determine whether the troubled
Balkan nation will continue with pro-Western reform or return to its
nationalist past.
(AP, 1/21/07)
2007 Jan 21, Sheik Sharif Sheik
Ahmed, a top leader of Somalia's ousted Islamic movement seen by the
US as a potential key to preventing a widespread insurgency,
surrendered to authorities and went under police protection in
Nairobi.
(AP, 1/22/07)
2007 Jan 21, In Sri Lanka's
northern waters Tiger rebels rammed an explosives-laden boat against
a private merchant vessel operated by foreign crew, sparking a land,
sea and air battle.
(AFP, 1/21/07)
2007 Jan 21, Darfur rebels
accused the Sudanese government of bombing its areas for two days,
killing at least 17 civilians, in an attempt to delay a conference
of rebel leaders.
(AP, 1/21/07)
2007 Jan 21, Venezuelan
President Hugo Chavez told US officials to "Go to hell, gringos!"
and called Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice "missy" on his weekly
radio and TV show, lashing out at Washington for what he called
unacceptable meddling in his country's affairs.
(AP, 1/21/08)
2008 Jan 21, Stocks fell
sharply worldwide following declines on Wall Street last week amid
investor pessimism over the US government's stimulus plan to prevent
a recession.
(AP, 1/21/08)
2008 Jan 21, Marie Smith (89),
a resident of southeastern Alaska, died. She was the last speaker of
her native Eyak language.
(Econ, 2/9/08, p.92)
2008 Jan 21, Afghan President
Hamid Karzai told the parliament on its opening day that around
300,000 children cannot attend school because of violence in the
southern provinces.
(AP, 1/21/08)
2008 Jan 21, In northeastern
Australia surging floodwaters forced scores of people to evacuate
their homes. Farmers described the heavy rains as a mixed blessing
after years of drought.
(AP, 1/21/08)
2008 Jan 21, Police in
ex-Soviet Belarus dispersed a protest by about 2,000 entrepreneurs
denouncing President Alexander Lukashenko's decree that places
restrictions on hiring staff. Businessmen said the new regulations
deny them the right to hire workers outside their immediate families
or obliges them to re-register and be subject to higher taxes.
(AP, 1/21/08)
2008 Jan 21, Brazil’s Petrobras
announced the discovery of a huge natural gas reserve off the coast
of Rio de Janeiro.
(WSJ, 1/23/08, p.A10)
2008 Jan 21, Shares in China's
banks fell sharply after news reports said its No. 2 lender, Bank of
China, might write down holdings of US mortgage securities and two
others increased reserves for possible losses. State media said a
gas explosion in an illegal mine in northern China has killed at
least 20 people.
(AP, 1/21/08)
2008 Jan 21, Officials said
Congo government negotiators and rebel groups reached a deal to end
fighting in the vast country's restive east, where some 800,000
people had to flee their homes over the last year.
(AP, 1/21/08)
2008 Jan 21, Iran's supreme
leader reversed a decision by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and
ordered him to implement a law supplying natural gas to remote
villages amid rising dissatisfaction with the president's
performance. Local media have reported 64 cold-related deaths this
winter and say gas cuts are to blame.
(AP, 1/21/08)
2008 Jan 21, In Iraq a suicide
bomber apparently targeting a senior security official blew himself
up inside a funeral tent, killing 18 people in Hajaj. US troops
killed two al-Qaida-linked militants and detained 18 during raids in
central and northern Iraq. A parked car bomb exploded as an Iraqi
army patrol passed by south of Mosul, killing two civilians.
(AP, 1/21/08)(AP, 1/22/08)
2008 Jan 21, Israel launched an
advanced spy satellite that will be able to track events in Iran,
the country it considers its top foe, even at night and in cloudy
weather. India successfully launched the Israeli spy satellite into
orbit.
(AP, 1/21/08)(AFP, 1/21/08)
2008 Jan 21, In Italy a key
ally of Premier Romano Prodi pulled his party from the Cabinet amid
a corruption scandal, sending the center-left governing coalition
scrambling to keep the administration from falling.
(AP, 1/21/08)
2008 Jan 21, Latvia's Foreign
Ministry declared a Russian diplomat persona non grata, citing a
report that he was a threat to national security. On Jan 25 Russia
said it will expel a Latvian diplomat in apparent retaliation. Some
400,000 non-citizens lived in Latvia. Ethnic Russians accounted for
a third of the country's population of 2.3 million.
(AP, 1/25/08)
2008 Jan 21, Mexico's army
captured Alfredo Beltran Leyva, a top lieutenant of the Sinaloa
cartel. He allegedly commanded squads of hit men and organized drug
shipments north.
(AP, 1/21/08)
2008 Jan 21, In southern
Nigeria a major oil pipeline belonging to Italian oil company Agip
caught fire and a tanker truck exploded in separate incidents.
(AFP, 1/21/08)
2008 Jan 21, President Pervez
Musharraf in Brussels pledged to hold free elections as he began a
European trip aimed at bolstering outside support, but urged the
West not to hold Pakistan to unrealistic rights standards.
(Reuters, 1/21/08)
2008 Jan 21, Paraguay's ruling
party nominated Education Minister Blanca Ovelar as its presidential
candidate, a first for the South American nation, but her candidacy
of still faces a court challenge.
(AP, 1/21/08)
2008 Jan 21, In Saudi Arabia
the daily Al-Watan, which is deemed close to the Saudi government,
reported that the Interior Ministry issued a circular to hotels
asking them to accept lone women, as long as their information is
sent to a local police station.
(AP, 1/21/08)
2008 Jan 21, In Sri Lanka
government soldiers attacked Tamil Tiger rebel bunkers across the
front lines in the embattled north, triggering a battle that killed
15 guerrillas and two soldiers.
(AP, 1/21/08)
2008 Jan 21, Sudan confirmed
that it has appointed Musa Hilal, the suspected head of a Sudanese
militia accused of murder, rape and other atrocities in Darfur, to a
senior government post. President Omar al-Bashir dismissed
allegations against the man as untrue.
(AP, 1/21/08)
2009 Jan 21, President Barack
Obama's first public act in office was to institute new limits on
lobbyists in his White House and to freeze the salaries of high-paid
aides, in a nod to the country's economic turmoil. A judge quickly
granted President Barack Obama's request to suspend the war crimes
trial at Guantanamo of a young Canadian in what may be the beginning
of the end for the Bush administration's system of trying alleged
terrorists. Obama took the oath of office again with Chief Justice
John Roberts to correct the previous day’s initial flub in wording.
In the Memorandum on Transparency and Open Government President
Obama instructed the Director of the Office of Management and Budget
(OMB) to issue an Open Government Directive. On Dec 8, 2009, a
memorandum was issued implement this.
(AP, 1/21/09)(Econ, 5/26/12,
p.29)(http://tinyurl.com/83n3uhq)
2009 Jan 21, Rev. John Skehan
(81), one of two Florida priests accused of embezzling hundreds of
thousands of dollars from their church, pleaded guilty as jury
selection was set to begin in the case. Prosecutors said he and Rev.
Francis Guinan plucked cash from the offering plate and spent it on
upscale homes, gambling trips to Las Vegas with a mistress, even a
$275,000 rare coin collection. On March 24 Skehan was sentenced to
14 months in prison. On March 25 Guinan was sentenced to 4 years in
prison.
(AP, 1/21/09)(SFC, 1/22/09, p.A3)(SFC, 3/25/09,
p.A7)(SFC, 3/26/09, p.A6)
2009 Jan 21, Arizona’s
Republican Sec of State, Janice Brewer (b.1944), became governor
after Democrat Janet Napolitano vacated her office to become Pres.
Obama’s Sec. of Homeland Security.
(Econ, 11/7/09,
p.33)(www.azgovernor.gov/About_Gov.asp)
2009 Jan 21, Haydar Al-Shukri,
the director of the Arkansas Earthquake Center at the University of
Arkansas at Little Rock, said a previously unknown fault, could
trigger a magnitude 7 earthquake with an epicenter near a major
natural gas pipeline.
(AP, 1/22/09)
2009 Jan 21, In Missouri a
father was arrested in Daviess County after two sealed coolers with
the remains of two infants were found. a third child is believed to
have died in Oklahoma. A surviving child, a 3-year-old boy, was in
state custody. The man was suspected of fathering four children with
his teenage daughter and faced charges of killing at least one after
human remains were discovered at their rural home.
(AP, 1/24/09)
2009 Jan 21, In Portland,
Oregon, officials said they would begin a criminal investigation
into newly elected Mayor Sam Adams (45), who admitted shortly after
taking office on January 1 that he had lied during his campaign
about a sexual relationship with a much younger gay man.
(WSJ, 1/24/09, p.A4)
2009 Jan 21, In Blacksburg,
Virginia, Haiyang Zhu (25), a Chinese doctoral student at Virginia
Tech, decapitated Xin Yang, a new Chinese graduate student.
(SFC, 1/23/09, p.A4)
2009 Jan 21, Charles Schneer
(b.1920), Hollywood film producer, died in Florida. His 25 films
included “It Came From Beneath the Sea” (1955) and “Hellcats of the
Navy” (1957).
(SFC, 1/27/09, p.B4)
2009 Jan 21, In Afghanistan a
suicide bomber attacked a wedding party in the northern province of
Baghlan, wounding five children and a district police chief. A
suicide car bomber detonated his explosives near an Afghan army
convoy in western Afghanistan, killing two troops.
(AP, 1/21/09)
2009 Jan 21, Scientists
reported that the entire Antarctic continent has been gradually
warming since at least 1957.
(SFC, 1/22/09, p.A10)
2009 Jan 21, Brazil’s central
bank cut its benchmark overnight rate, the Selic rate, to 12.75%,
the highest rate in the America’s, even considering its nearly 7%
inflation.
(WSJ, 1/22/09, p.A8)
2009 Jan 21, Official data
showed Britain's economy is weakening fast, with more figures due
this week expected to confirm the country has sunk into recession
for the first time since 1991.
(AP, 1/21/09)
2009 Jan 21, Germany banned the
production, sale or possession of a synthetic marijuana-like drug
known as "Spice," effective as of Jan 22, becoming the 4th nation to
ban the substance, marketed as an herbal room-freshener, after
Austria, the Netherlands and Switzerland.
(AP, 1/21/09)
2009 Jan 21, In northeastern
India an Assam Rifles paramilitary soldier shot and killed six of
his colleagues, then fled their military camp in a remote and
dangerous outpost.
(AP, 1/22/09)
2009 Jan 21, In Iraq a top
Sunni politician escaped assassination in a Baghdad car bombing that
killed at least 2 other people. Samira Ahmed Jassim (nickname Umm
al-Mumineen), a woman suspected of recruiting more than 80 female
suicide bombers, was arrested, dealing a major blow to one of the
most effective forms of attacks in Iraq.
(WSJ, 1/22/09, p.A1)(AP, 2/3/09)
2009 Jan 21, The last Israeli
troops left the Gaza Strip before dawn, as Israel dispatched its
foreign minister to Europe in a bid to rally international support
to end arms smuggling into the Hamas-ruled territory. The
Palestinian Center for Human Rights released a final tally, saying
1,284 Gazans were killed and 4,336 wounded, the vast majority
civilians. Israel's military said it will investigate charges that
its forces used phosphorous shells in a way that burned civilians
during the fighting in Gaza. Hamas officials conceded that they are
executing Palestinians suspected of collaborating with Israel during
the 3-week invasion. Fatah officials said at least 19 of its members
have been executed and more brutally tortured. On Sep 9, 2009, the
Israeli rights group B'Tselem published figures it said were
compiled in months of research, including visits to families of
victims. It said 1,387 Gazans were killed, including 773 civilians
(including 252 children younger than 16) and 330 combatants. 13
Israelis also died, including 4 civilians.
(AP, 1/21/09)(SFC, 1/22/09, p.A3)(AP, 9/9/09)
2009 Jan 21, Kosovo armed
forces took over security duties, less than a year after the
territory declared independence and in the face of strong protests
from Serbia.
(AP, 1/21/09)
2009 Jan 21, Indonesia’s Health
Ministry said 2 people have died of bird flu, apparently after
contact with sick chickens, raising the country's death toll to 115.
(AP, 1/21/09)
2009 Jan 21, In Nigeria the
best-known militant group in the Niger Delta said one of its allies
carried out an attack on a tanker in southern Nigeria in which one
Romanian crewman was taken hostage. He was soon released. The MT
Meredith, loaded with 4,000 tons of diesel, was attacked by gunmen
in speedboats and sustained "massive damage" during the attack.
(AFP, 1/21/09)(AFP, 1/22/09)
2009 Jan 21, North Korea and
Iran, two nations with nuclear aspirations the US wants to thwart,
both signaled that they were open to new initiatives from President
Barack Obama that could defuse tensions.
(AP, 1/21/09)
2009 Jan 21, In Pakistan a
Saudi called Zabi ul Taifi was among seven Al-Qaida suspects caught
when government forces mounted a raid near the northwestern city of
Peshawar.
(AP, 1/22/09)
2009 Jan 21, Portugal became
the 3rd euro zone country this month, after Spain and Greece, to
have its credit rating cut by Standard & Poor’s.
(WSJ, 1/22/09, p.A9)
2009 Jan 21, Russia's military
said that an old Soviet-built nuclear-powered satellite has spewed
fragments in orbit, but insisted they do not threaten the
international space station or people on Earth.
(AP, 1/21/09)
2009 Jan 21, Sri Lanka's
military declared a "safety zone" to enable some 250,000 trapped
civilians to cross into government-controlled territory from the
diminishing area held by Tamil Tiger rebels in the war-torn north.
(AP, 1/21/09)
2009 Jan 21, Three relatives of
Taiwan's former president Chen Shui-bian pleaded guilty to charges
of money laundering, as part of a massive corruption case in which
the ex-leader has been implicated.
(AFP, 1/21/09)
2009 Jan 21, Zimbabwe activists
launched a hunger strike to demand faster political change and urge
African leaders to isolate the country's president, Robert Mugabe,
who is accused of overseeing its political and economic collapse.
(AP, 1/21/09)
2010 Jan 21, The US Supreme
Court in the case of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission
threw out a 63-year-old law designed to restrain the influence of
big business and unions on elections, ruling 5-4 that corporations
may spend as freely as they like to support or oppose candidates for
president and Congress. The decision drastically altered who gives
and gets hundreds of millions of dollars in elections. Super PACs,
political action committees went on to reshape the 2012 presidential
campaign.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._Federal_Election_Commission)(Econ,
10/9/10, p.50)(Econ, 2/25/12, p.35)
2010 Jan 21, In North Carolina
John Edwards, former Democratic presidential candidate, admitted
that he fathered a child during an affair before his 2nd White House
bid, dropping long-standing denials just ahead of a book by a former
campaign aide.
(SFC, 1/23/10, p.A6)
2010 Jan 21, Conan O'Brien told
NBC good riddance in a $45 million deal for his exit from "The
Tonight Show," allowing Jay Leno to return to the late-night program
he hosted for 17 years.
(AP, 1/21/10)
2010 Jan 21, Air America Radio,
a radio network that was launched in 2004 as a liberal alternative
to Rush Limbaugh and other conservative commentators, shut down
abruptly due to financial woes.
(AP, 1/22/10)
2010 Jan 21, General Motor
Co.'s Opel unit will cut 8,300 jobs across Europe, including 4,000
in Germany, and close a plant in Antwerp, Belgium, cutting over
2,300 jobs.
(AP, 1/21/10)
2010 Jan 21, Silversea Cruises
christened its newest ship, the Silver Spirit. It was built to
accommodate 540 guests and became the largest and most luxurious of
the company’s ships.
(Econ, 2/13/10, p.67)
2010 Jan 21, Toyota said it is
recalling 2.3 million vehicles in the US to fix accelerator pedals
with mechanical problems that could cause them to become stuck. The
announcement comes just months after it recalled 4.2 million
vehicles due to gas pedals that could become trapped under floor
mats, causing sudden acceleration.
(AP, 1/22/10)
2010 Jan 21, New York State
police found the body of Dean Pierson (59) in his Copake barn. They
said the upstate dairy farmer had shot and killed 51 of his milk
cows in his barn before turning the rifle on himself.
(AP, 1/23/10)
2010 Jan 21, Angola's
parliament approved a new constitution under which the president
would no longer be directly elected by the people, but would be
chosen by the parliament. In effect the leader of the largest party
in parliament automatically becomes president. The charter must now
be approved by the Constitutional Court, a step seen as a formality.
Critics said giving parliament the power to name the president will
only further entrench President Eduardo Dos Santos, who has been in
power since 1979.
(AP, 1/22/10)(Economist, 9/1/12, p.52)
2010 Jan 21, China declared it
is over the global crisis and signaled a shift in focus to
controlling inflation, sparking concern it could hamper growth and
the country's contribution to a worldwide rebound.
(AP, 1/21/10)
2010 Jan 21, Finland’s Nokia
Corp. said it will offer free navigation services globally for users
of its smart phones, in a drive to counter a similar move by Google
Inc.
(AP, 1/21/10)
2010 Jan 21, In Kenya radical
Muslim cleric Sheik Abdullah el-Faisal was flown out of the country
enroute to Jamaica. El-Faisal once served four years in a British
jail for inciting murder and stirring racial hatred by urging
followers to kill Americans, Hindus and Jews.
(AP, 1/21/10)
2010 Jan 21, In Malaysia
vandals tried to burn down two Muslim prayer rooms, following a
string of arson attacks on churches amid a dispute over the use of
the word "Allah" by Christians.
(AP, 1/21/10)
2010 Jan 21, A Dutch airlift
brought 106 children from quake-ravaged Haiti to new lives in the
Netherlands and Luxembourg, as anxious families waited to hug
children they had been in the process of adopting for months.
(AP, 1/21/10)
2010 Jan 21, New Zealand said
that biblical citations inscribed on US-manufactured weapon sights
used by its troops in Afghanistan will be removed because they are
inappropriate and could stoke religious tensions. The inscriptions
on products from defense contractor Trijicon of Wixom, Michigan,
came to light this week in the US where Army officials said on Jan
19 they would investigate whether the gun sights, also used by US
troops in Afghanistan and Iraq, violate US procurement laws.
Trijicon said biblical references were first put on the sites nearly
30 years ago by the company founder, Glyn Bindon, who was killed in
a plane crash in 2003.
(AP, 1/21/10)
2010 Jan 21, In Nigeria
religious leaders in Jos prepared for mass burials after four days
of Christian-Muslim clashes left nearly 300 dead.
(AFP, 1/21/10)
2010 Jan 21, The Pakistani army
said during a visit by US Defense Secretary Robert Gates that it
can't launch any new offensives against militants for six months to
a year to give it time to stabilize existing gains.
(AP, 1/21/10)
2010 Jan 21, In southern Sudan
clashes continued for a 4th day in the troubled southern state of
Jonglei leaving 15 more people dead.
(AFP, 1/22/10)
2010 Jan 21, Sweden's Royal
Academy of Sciences awarded Austria-born American scientist Walter
Munk (92) the 2010 Crafoord Prize in Geosciences for his research on
ocean circulation. The Crafoord award has been given annually since
1982 for scientific research in areas not covered by the Nobel
Prizes.
(AP, 1/21/10)
2010 Jan 21, In Turkey a July,
2009, constitutional amendment paving the way for military officers
to be tried in civilian courts was struck down by the constitutional
court.
(Econ, 2/13/10, p.57)(http://tinyurl.com/ybprno6)
2010 Jan 21, Officials said
Yemen will stop issuing visas to foreign visitors upon arrival to
try to prevent Islamic militants from sneaking in to meet and train
with an al-Qaida offshoot that has established a stronghold in the
fractured and impoverished country.
(AP, 1/21/10)
2011 Jan 21, Osama bin Laden
demanded that France withdraw its troops from Afghanistan in
exchange for the release of French hostages being held by al-Qaida
affiliates, according to an audio message broadcast on an Arabic
news channel.
(AP, 1/21/11)
2011 Jan 21, The US State
Department said it has revoked the visas of about a dozen Haitian
officials, increasing pressure on the government to drop its favored
candidate from the presidential runoff in favor of a popular
contender who is warning of renewed protests if he is not on the
ballot.
(AP, 1/21/11)
2011 Jan 21, Glenn Shriver (29)
of Grand Rapids, Michigan, was sentenced to 4 years in prison after
admitting that he took $70,000 from Chinese spies while attempting
to secure jobs with the CIA and US Foreign Service.
(SFC, 1/22/11, p.A5)
2011 Jan 21, Gulet Mohamed
(19), a Virginia teenager who claims he was beaten and tortured
while stuck in Kuwait for a month after he was apparently placed on
the US government's no-fly list, was reunited with his family at a
Washington-area airport. In March of 2009, Mohamed traveled to Yemen
and Somalia, where he still has family, to learn Arabic. He stayed
in those countries for just a few months and settled in Kuwait in
August 2009, where he lived with an uncle.
(AP, 1/22/11)
2011 Jan 21, Northern
California school officials said a second-grade teacher in Oakland
was placed on leave while a school and police investigate accounts
by students that classmates engaged in oral sex and stripped off
some of their clothes during class.
(AP, 1/22/11)
2011 Jan 21, Afghan leader
Hamid Karzai paid his first state visit to Russia amid political
mayhem at home that saw a delay in the seating of a new parliament
and renewed questions about his ability to lead the war-ravaged
state. A joint statement said Pres. Medvedev has gratefully accepted
Hamid Karzai's invitation to visit Afghanistan.
(AFP, 1/21/11)
2011 Jan 21, In Albania
protesters overturned and burned police vehicles and clashed with
officers who fought them off with tear gas, rubber bullets and water
cannon. Two men were fatally shot in the chest and another died of a
wound to the head. Tensions rose sharply last week when Deputy Prime
Minister Ilir Meta resigned after a private TV station aired a video
that showed him asking a colleague to influence the awarding of a
contract to build a power station. A 4th person died of wounds a few
days later.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Albanian_opposition_demonstrations)(AP,
1/22/11)
2011 Jan 21, Belarus Pres.
Lukashenko (56) warned that no dissent will be tolerated as he took
the oath of office for a fourth time in a ceremony that was
boycotted by EU ambassadors.
(AP, 1/22/11)
2011 Jan 21, Brazilian
officials said about 400 people were registered as missing after
mudslides last week that killed at least 806 people.
(AP, 1/21/11)(Reuters, 1/23/11)
2011 Jan 21, China’s ICBC bank
agreed to buy 80% of the Bank of East Asia’s retail branch network
in New York and California for $140 million.
(Econ, 1/29/11, p.74)
2011 Jan 21, Cuba suspended
indefinitely all mail service to the United States, extending a ban
announced in November and expanding it to cover letters as well as
packages. Deliveries were suspended in November following a US
decision to increase security measures following last year's failed
terror threat involving packages mailed from Yemen.
(AP, 1/22/11)
2011 Jan 21, Two-day talks
between Iran and six world powers started in Istanbul. A senior
Iranian official said suspending uranium enrichment is not up for
discussion.
(AFP, 1/21/11)
2011 Jan 21, Iraqi authorities
announced the arrest of several suspects in the deadly suicide
bombings outside Karbala that have provoked criticism of the
security forces for not protecting the pilgrims flocking to the
shrines. Police in Hillah arrested the local leader of a
government-backed Sunni Muslim militia for planning the deadly
bombings on Shiite pilgrims this week.
(AP, 1/21/11)(AP, 1/22/11)
2011 Jan 21, Jordan's
opposition vowed continual protests over price increases and
inflation until the resignation of PM Samir Rifai and his
government. Thousands of Jordanians calling for their government to
step down marched in several cities in an outpouring of anger over
economic hardship and a lack of democratic reforms in the
constitutional monarchy.
(AP, 1/21/11)
2011 Jan 21, The Royal
Malaysian Navy commandos wounded three pirates in a gunbattle and
rescued the 23 crew members on the Malaysian-flagged chemical tanker
MT Bunga Laurel, shortly after the pirates stormed the vessel in the
Gulf of Aden with assault rifles and pistols. On Jan 31 Malaysian
police took custody of 7 captured Somali pirates.
(AP, 1/22/11)(AP, 1/31/11)
2011 Jan 21, Mexican soldiers
patrolling a rural area on the border with Texas killed 10 suspected
drug gang gunmen at a training camp in Valle Hermoso, Tamaulipas
state. In Chihuahua state a commander who worked in internal affairs
for the local Attorney General's Office was killed along with
another agent. In Ciudad Juarez three men died when a gasoline bomb
was thrown into their store. Elsewhere in Ciudad Juarez, authorities
found the dead bodies of three other victims of apparent gangland
murders. The Mexican military seized 45 pounds of marijuana, a
sports utility vehicle and a metal-framed catapult just south of the
Arizona border near the small town of Naco, following a tip-off from
the US Border Patrol.
(AP, 1/22/11)(Reuters, 1/26/11)
2011 Jan 21, In New Zealand
David Walsh, mathematical savant and professional gambler, opened
his Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) at his Moorilla estate on the
River Derwent.
(Econ, 1/29/11, p.84)
2011 Jan 21, In Pakistan some
2,000 people in a Taliban-controlled region of the northwest
demonstrated against American missile attacks pounding the area,
calling for an end to the strikes and the arrest of the US officials
behind them. In the southwest gunmen torched two tankers carrying
fuel for US and NATO forces, wounding two drivers.
(AP, 1/21/11)
2011 Jan 21, Dozens of
Palestinians, enraged by France's sympathy for an Israeli soldier
held by Gaza militants, ambushed the French foreign minister's
motorcade in the Gaza Strip, pelting it with eggs and hurling a shoe
that narrowly missed hitting her.
(AP, 1/21/11)
2011 Jan 21, A Saudi man died
after setting himself on fire in the southwestern town of Samta, in
what could be the latest example of a rash of self-immolations
sweeping the region following events in Tunisia.
(AP, 1/22/11)
2011 Jan 21, It was reported
that Erik Prince, head of Xe Services (formerly known as Blackwater
Worldwide) private security company, was currently involved in an
Arab-financed program to mobilize 2000 Somali recruits to fight
pirates.
(SFC, 1/20/11, p.A2)
2011 Jan 21, South Korean navy
commandos stormed the Samho Jewelry, a ship hijacked by Somali
pirates in the Indian Ocean, rescuing all the 21 crew and killing
eight pirates. The pirates had seized the 11,500-ton chemical
freighter Samho Jewelry on January 15. Five pirates were captured.
(AFP, 1/21/11)(AP, 1/31/11)(Econ, 2/5/11, p.69)
2011 Jan 21, The Spanish
government said it is drawing up a new plan to restructure the
country's regional savings banks, the weak link in its banking
system and a major cause of concern over the public finances.
(AFP, 1/21/11)
2011 Jan 21, A Sudanese man,
Al-Amin Musa Al-Amin (25), set himself on fire in the latest
instance of self-immolation in the Arab world. He was being treated
in hospital for second-degree burns in Omdurman, Khartoum's twin
city.
(AFP, 1/22/11)
2011 Jan 21, Vietnam’s
state-controlled media said a cold spell over the past three weeks
has killed at least seven people as well as more than 20,000 cows
and buffalos.
(AP, 1/21/11)
2011 Jan 21, Zimbabwe
researchers said nearly one-third of the country’s registered voters
are dead, and others appear to be babies or up to 120 years old, and
called for the list to be overhauled so that the upcoming election
cannot be rigged.
(AP, 1/21/11)
2012 Jan 21, Former House
Speaker Newt Gingrich beat Mitt Romney in the South Carolina
Republican primary 40% to 28%. Rick Santorum took 3rd place with 17%
and Ron Paul came in 4th with 13%.
(AP, 1/22/12)
2012 Jan 21, In New Jersey a
fire destroyed a barn in Lafayette killing 22 valuable show horses.
(SSFC, 1/22/12, p.A7)
2012 Jan 21, Afghan President
Hamid Karzai said that he personally held peace talks recently with
the insurgent faction Hizb-i-Islami. At least 13 people, including
five Afghan border police, a NATO soldier and two would-be suicide
bombers, were killed across the country.
(AP, 1/21/12)(AFP, 1/21/12)
2012 Jan 21, Anti-whaling
activists threw paint and foul smelling acid at a whaling ship in
the Antarctic ocean in a fresh bid to halt the annual hunt.
(AFP, 1/21/12)
2012 Jan 21, Anti-capitalist
protesters said they have taken over a large building in the City of
London financial district. Occupy London publicly repossessed Roman
House, an abandoned nine-storey office building in the Barbican.
They left the premises later in the day after a request from
contractors employed by the building's owners.
(AFP, 1/21/12)(AFP, 1/22/12)
2012 Jan 21, Burundi admitted
that it had asked for an exiled Burundian opposition leader to be
arrested in Tanzania and extradited to face murder charges. Alexis
Sinduhije, the head of the opposition Movement for Solidarity and
Development, a former journalist, was arrested in Tanzania's
economic capital Dar es Salaam on January 11 upon his arrival there
from Uganda.
(AFP, 1/21/12)
2012 Jan 21, In China Beijing
environmental authorities started releasing more detailed air
quality data that may better reflect how bad the Chinese capital's
air pollution is.
(AP, 1/21/12)
2012 Jan 21, Colombia’s
President Juan Manuel Santos said that Manuel Marulanda, the late
leader and co-founder of FARC, the country's main leftist rebel
group, had owned 57 ranches in two states alone. Marulanda had lived
a simple life and died a natural death in 2008.
(AP, 1/22/12)
2012 Jan 21, In eastern India a
landmine attack by Maoist rebels killed at least 12 policemen and
injured three others in Jharkhand state.
(AFP, 1/21/12)
2012 Jan 21, An Iranian boat
sank while sailing between Hormuz Island and the port city of Bandar
Abbas on the mainland. 17 people died after a storm capsized the
passenger boat.
(AP, 1/22/12)
2012 Jan 21, Iraqi police said
gunmen attacked the house of a police officer near the northern
oil-rich city of Kirkuk, killing one of his guards.
(AP, 1/21/12)
2012 Jan 21, An Israeli air
strike targeted Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip who were
laying explosives near the border.
(AFP, 1/21/12)
2012 Jan 21, In Ivory Coast at
least one person was killed during an attack in Abidjan on a meeting
of supporters of ex-president Laurent Gbagbo.
(AFP, 1/21/12)
2012 Jan 21, In Kuwait Sheik
Saud Al Nasser Al Sabah (68) died. He served as Kuwait's ambassador
to the US during Iraq's 1990 invasion of the oil-rich country and
the American-led war to oust Saddam Hussein's forces.
(AP, 1/22/12)
2012 Jan 21, Lebanese officials
said the Syrian navy arrested three Lebanese fishermen and
confiscated their boat in Lebanese waters off the northern town of
Arida.
(AP, 1/21/12)
2012 Jan 21, In Libya around
200 protesters frustrated with the pace of reforms stormed the
grounds of the country's transitional government headquarters in
Benghazi to demand a meeting with the nation's interim leaders.
(AP, 1/21/12)
2012 Jan 21, Madagascar's
toppled Pres. Marc Ravalomanana tried to end his exile in South
Africa, but his commercial plane was forced to turn back mid-flight
when his landing was blocked by Andry Rajoelina, the populist former
disc jockey who toppled him. Ravalomanana’s party walked out of a
fledgling unity government, after the island nation barred him from
flying home to end his three-year exile.
(AFP, 1/21/12)
2012 Jan 21, Dutch sailor Laura
Dekker (16) set foot aboard a dock in St. Maarten, ending a yearlong
voyage aboard a sailboat named "Guppy" that apparently made her the
youngest person ever to sail alone around the globe. She had set out
from St. Maarten on Jan. 20, 2011.
(AP, 1/21/12)
2012 Jan 21, Pakistan detained
31 Indian fishermen and seized their 14 boats for fishing in its
territorial waters in the Arabian Sea.
(AFP, 1/22/12)
2012 Jan 21, In Somalia gunmen
kidnapped an American man in the northern town of Galkayo.
Bilal-Berjawi, a British-Lebanese commander of the al-Shabab
militant group, was killed along with two others when a US drone
missile struck the car they were traveling in outside Mogadishu.
Another airstrike killed six people near the insurgent stronghold of
Kismayo.
(AP, 1/21/12)(AP, 1/22/12)
2012 Jan 21, In eastern Spain a
flaming-horned bull trampled and fatally gored a man during a
festival in Navajas. Catalonia had legislation protecting flaming
bulls, despite a ban that took effect on Jan 1.
(AP, 1/21/12)
2012 Jan 21, In Sudan gunmen
ambushed a UN-African Union peacekeeping patrol in the
conflict-stricken Darfur region, killing one Nigerian soldier and
wounding three.
(AFP, 1/21/12)
2012 Jan 21, In northwestern
Syria a string of explosions struck a police truck transporting
prisoners on the Idlib-Ariha highway, killing at least 14 people.
Government troops also battled defectors in the north in fighting
that left 10 people dead. Clashes erupted after security forces
killed four civilians when they fired on mourners at a funeral in
Douma.
(AP, 1/21/12)(AP, 1/22/12)(AFP, 1/23/12)
2012 Jan 21, Thailand police
seized 3.8 million methamphetamine tablets in the country’s largest
drug bust in years.
(AP, 1/21/12)
2012 Jan 21, Yemeni officials
said outgoing President Ali Abdullah Saleh will leave soon to Oman,
en route to medical treatment in the United States. Yemen's
parliament approved an immunity law, a key step toward Saleh's
formal retirement from his post.
(AP, 1/21/12)
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