Today in History - January 23
Return to home
US National Handwriting Day in honor of John
Hancock
and his signature on the US Declaration of Independence: "I'll sign it
in letters bold enough so the King of England can see it without his
spectacles
on!"
(http://www.wima.org/consumer/nhd.html)
1265 Jan 23, The
1st English Parliament formally convened.
(MC, 1/23/02)
1429 Jan 23, At the Congress of
Luck Emp. Sigismund of Luxembourg offered to crown Vytautas as King of
Lithuania.
(LHC, 1/23/03)
1492 Jan 23, "Pentateuch," a
Jewish holy book, was first printed.
(MC, 1/23/02)
1552 Jan 23, The 2nd version of
Book of Common Prayer became mandatory in England. The Second Prayer
Book of Edward VI, more radical than the first, was authorized by a
second Uniformity Act.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.18)(MC, 1/23/02)
1622 Jan 23, William Baffin (~38),
British explorer, died.
(MC, 1/23/02)
1639 Jan 23, Francisco Maldonado
da Silva Solis, Peruvian poet, was burned at stake.
(MC, 1/23/02)
1647 Jan 23, Scottish
Presbyterians sold captured Charles I to English Parliament.
(MC, 1/23/02)
1719 Jan 23, Principality of
Liechtenstein was created within the Holy Roman Empire.
(www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/9403.htm)
1730 Jan 23, Joseph Hewes, US
merchant (Declaration of Independence signer), was born.
(MC, 1/23/02)
1737 Jan 23, John Hancock
(d.1793), American statesman, was born.
(HFA, '96, p.22)
1752 Jan 23, Muzio Clementi,
Italian composer, was born.
(MC, 1/23/02)
1783 Jan 23, Stendahl (d.1842),
[Marie Henri Beyle], French critic and writer (Le Rouge et de Noir),
was born. In 1997 Jonathon Keates published his book “Stendhal,”
which covers the writer’s life story. "Beauty is the promise of
happiness." "One can acquire everything in solitude, except character."
(WSJ, 3/25/97, p.A16)(AP, 12/4/97)(AP, 6/6/98)(MC,
1/23/02)
1789 Jan 23, Georgetown University
was established by Jesuits in present-day Washington, D.C., as the 1st
US Catholic college.
(AP, 1/23/98)(MC, 1/23/02)
1793 Jan 23, Prussia and Russia
signed an accord on the 2nd partition of Lithuania and Poland. The 2nd
partition of Poland. Polish patriots had attempted to devise a new
constitution which was recognized by Austria and Prussia, but Russia
did not recognize it and invaded. Prussia in turn invaded and the two
agreed to a partition that left only the central portion of Poland
independent.
(WUD, 1994, p.1677)(LHC, 1/23/03)
1800 Jan 23, Edward Rutledge (50),
US attorney (signed Declaration of Independence), died.
(MC, 1/23/02)
1806 Jan 23, William Pitt (46),
the Younger, PM Great Britain (1783-1801 and 1804-1806), died. Pitt was
the founder of the modern Conservative Party. In 2004 William Hague
authored the biography “William Pitt The Younger.”
(http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/town/terrace/adw03/pms/pitt.htm)(WSJ,
2/9/05, p.D10)
1812 Jan 23, A 2nd major
earthquake shook New Madrid, Missouri.
(NH, 3/1/04, p.67)
1832 Jan 23, Edouard Manet
(d.1883), French impressionist painter. His work was a major influence
on the young artists who created the Impressionist movement. His style
was influenced by the Spanish masters, particularly Velasquez. His work
included the “Execution of Maximilian,” “Luncheon on the Grass,” the
pastel “Portrait of Mademoiselle Lemaire,” “In the Boat,” “La
Promenade” and “Le Journal Illustre” (ca. 1878-79)
(WUD, 1994, p.871)(WSJ, 7/1/96, p.A11)(SFC, 8/21/96,
p.A9)(AAP, 1964) (WUD, 1994, p.871)(WSJ, 2/13/97, p.A16)(DPCP 1984)
1845 Jan 23, US Congress decided
all national elections would be held on the first Tuesday after the
first Monday in November. The law was signed by Pres. John Tyler.
(AP, 1/23/98)(WSJ, 3/13/00, p.A1)
1849 Jan 23, English-born
Elizabeth Blackwell, the 1st woman to receive medical degree, graduated
at the top of her class from the medical school of Hobart College in
Geneva, N.Y.
(http://campus.hws.edu/his/blackwell/biography.html)(ON, 4/03, p.2)
1865 Jan 23, General John Bell
Hood was relieved of his command of the Army of Tennessee.
(AH, 10/02, p.38)
1870 Jan 23, American army forces,
looking for Mountain Chief's band of hostile Blackfoot Indians, fell
instead upon Heavy Runner's peaceable Piegan band in Montana and killed
173, many of them women and children.
(www.legendsofamerica.com/NA-Blackfoot.html)(SSFC,
12/25/05, p.M2)
1897 Jan 23, In San Francisco Fong
Ching (32), known as the king of Chinatown, was killed by two gunmen at
the Wong Lung barbershop at 819 Washington St. Nobody was ever
convicted. “Little Pete” had led the Sam Yup Tong and was rumored to
have killed 50 men.
(SFC, 2/17/09, p.A10)
1898 Jan 23, Sergei Eisenstein,
Russian film director (Battleship Potemkin), was born. [see Jan
10]
(MC, 1/23/02)
1899 Jan 23, Humphrey Bogart, U.S.
actor was born. He won an Oscar for African Queen and also starred in
Casablanca and The Maltese Falcon. [see Dec 25, 1899]
(HN, 1/23/99)
1901 Jan 23, A great fire ravaged
Montreal, resulting in $2.5 million in property lost.
(HN, 1/23/99)
1901 Jan 23, First female intern
was accepted at a Paris hospital.
(HN, 1/23/99)
1907 Jan 23, Hediki Yukawa,
Japanese physicist (Nobel 1949), was born.
(MC, 1/23/02)
1908 Jan 23, Edward Alexander
MacDowell (b.1860), US composer (Indian Suite), died in NYC.
(www.britannica.com/eb/article-9049692)
1909 Jan 23, The steamship
Florida, with 850 Italian immigrant passengers, collided off Long
Island with the luxury liner Republic, a steamship under Captain Sealby
of the White Star Line. Jack Binns (26), a Marconi telegraph operator
on the Republic, sent and received messages for hours into the crises
and helped save 550 Republic passengers plus 192 crew. Only 6 people
died in the collision. The event was made into a 1999 TV documentary
"Rescue at Sea" as part of the American Experience PBS series.
(WSJ, 2/8/99, p.A21)(ON, 7/04, p.6)
1913 Jan 23, The "Young Turks"
revolted because they were angered by the concessions made at the
London peace talks.
(HN, 1/23/99)
1915 Jan 23, Potter Stewart, 94th
Supreme Court justice (1958-81), was born in Mich.
(MC, 1/23/02)
1919 Jan 23, Ernie Kovacs, U.S.
comedian, was born. His “The Ernie Kovacs Show” introduced viewers to
his off-beat sense of humor.
(HN, 1/23/99)
1920 Jan 23, The Dutch government
refused demands from the victorious Allies to hand over Kaiser Wilhelm
II, the dethroned German monarch who had fled to the Netherlands.
(AP, 1/23/00)
1922 Jan 23, The first successful
test on a human patient with diabetes occurred when a 2nd dose of
insulin was administered to dangerously ill Leonard Thompson (14).
Following the birth of an idea and nine months of experimentation, and
through the combined efforts of four men at the University of Toronto,
Canada, insulin for the treatment of diabetes was first discovered and
later purified for human use. Rural Canadian physician Dr. F.G. Banting
first conceived the idea of extracting insulin from the pancreas in
1920. He and his assistant C.H. Best prepared pancreatic extracts to
prolong the lives of diabetic dogs with advice and laboratory aid from
Professor J.J.R. Macleod. The crude insulin extract was purified for
human testing by Dr. J.B. Collip. Insulin, now made from cattle
pancreases, lifted the death sentence for diabetes sufferers around the
world.
(HNPD,
1/23/99)(www.insulinfreetimes.org/00_spring/giants.htm)
1928 Jan 23, Jeanne Moreau,
actress (Going Places, Jules & Jim), was born in Paris, France.
(MC, 1/23/02)
1932 Jan 23, New York Gov.
Franklin D. Roosevelt announced his candidacy for the Democratic
presidential nomination.
(AP, 1/23/98)(HN, 1/23/99)
1932 Jan 23, El Salvador army
killed 4,000 protesting farmers.
(MC, 1/23/02)
1937 Jan 23, 17 people went on
trial in Moscow during Josef Stalin's "Great Purge."
(AP, 1/23/98)
1940 Jan 23, Pianist Jan Ignaz
Paderewski became premier of Polish government in exile.
(MC, 1/23/02)
1942 Jan 23, At Novi Sad, Serbia,
some 1200 people (predominantly Jewish), rounded up over a period of
three days, were shot along the shores of the Danube. Their bodies were
dumped into the frozen waters. Sandor Kepiro (b.1914), a Hungarian
gendarmerie officer, participated in the mass murder. In 1944 he was
sentenced to 10 years in prison for his part in the atrocities, but
conviction was later annulled.
(http://tinyurl.com/o5n5j3)(AP, 9/15/09)
1943 Jan 23, Critic Alexander
Woollcott suffered a fatal heart attack during a live broadcast of the
CBS radio program "People's Platform."
(AP, 1/23/98)
1944 Jan 23, Edvard Munch
(b.1863), Norwegian painter and hopeless alcoholic, died. His work
included “Kiss by the Window” (1892), “The Scream” (1893) and “Self
Portrait With Cigarette” (1895). He had a breakdown in 1908 and
retreated to Ekely, where he painted for his remaining years. He left
behind a collection 1,008 paintings at his estate outside Oslo. In 2005
Sue Prideaux authored “Edvard Munch: Behind the Scream.”
(WSJ, 4/16/02, p.D7)(SSFC, 12/18/05, p.M2)(Sm, 3/06,
p.60)(WSJ, 2/25/09, p.D7)
1945 Jan 23, Helmuth J. Moltke
(37), German general, politician (July 20th Plot), was executed.
(MC, 1/23/02)
1948 Jan 23, Director John
Huston's "Treasure of Sierra Madre" starring Humphrey Bogart opened.
(MC, 1/23/02)
1948 Jan 23, The Soviets refused
UN entry into North Korea to administer elections.
(HN, 1/23/99)
1949 Jan 23, The Communists
Chinese forces began their advance on Nanking.
(HN, 1/23/99)
1950 Jan 23, The Israeli Knesset
approved a resolution proclaiming Jerusalem the capital of Israel.
(SFC,12/11/97, p.C2)(AP, 1/23/98)(HN, 1/23/99)
1951 Jan 23, President Truman
created the Commission on Internal Security and Individual Rights, to
monitor the anti-Communist campaign.
(HN, 1/23/99)
1956 Jan 23, Alexander Korda (62),
English movie producer (Henry VIII), died.
(MC, 1/23/02)
1957 Jan 23, Princess Caroline of
Monaco, was born.
(HN, 1/23/99)
1957 Jan 23, Willie Edwards (25),
US black, was murdered by KKK.
(MC, 1/23/02)
1958 Jan 23, Venezuela gained
liberties with the overthrow of Gen. Marcos Perez Jimenez, its last
dictator. The social democrats' Democratic Action (AD) and the
Christian Democrats (Copei) began alternating power and then entered
into the power-sharing agreement called "Pacto de Punto Fijo." Rafael
Antonio Caldera (1916-2009) was one of the three signers of the Punto
Fijo pact, which organized democratic elections after the fall of
Jimenez.
(WSJ, 2/26/99, p.A15)(SSFC, 6/24/01, p.T6)(AP,
1/23/04)(AP, 12/24/09)
1960 Jan 23, The Bathyscaphe
"Trieste" reached bottom of Pacific at 10,900 m. Jacques Piccard
(1922-2008) and US Navy Lt. Don Walsh descended for 20 minutes in
the Trieste into the Mariana Trench, a 1,500 mile gash in the Earth’s
crust east of the Philippines with a depth of 37,000 feet below sea
level, nearly 7 miles.
(SFC, 10/29/96, p.A11)(SFEC, 11/17/96, BR p.4)(AP,
11/1/08)
1962 Jan 23, Jackie Robinson
became the 1st Black elected to Baseball Hall of Fame.
(www.imdb.com/name/nm0732697/bio)
1962 Jan 23, British spy Kim
Philby defected to USSR.
(MC, 1/23/02)
1964 Jan 23, Arthur Miller's
"After the Fall," premiered in NYC.
(MC, 1/23/02)
1964 Jan 23, The 24th amendment to
the Constitution, eliminating the poll tax in federal elections, was
ratified.
(AP, 1/23/98)
1968 Jan 23, North Korea seized
the U.S. Navy intelligence ship Pueblo, charging it had intruded into
the communist nation's territorial waters on a spying mission. One
crewman was killed in the attack. Cmdr. Lloyd Bucher (d.2004 at 76) was
quickly separated from the 81-man crew. The crew was released 11 months
later.
(NG, 8/74, p.266)(AP, 1/23/98)(SFC, 10/2/01,
p.A15)(SFC, 1/30/04, p.A25)
1969 Jan 23, Gregorio Ordonez,
deputy mayor of San Sebastian, Spain, was assassinated by an ETA
terrorist.
(Econ, 5/17/08,
p.66)(www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/basque/stories/overview.html)
1970 Jan 23, Evel Knievel made a
motorcycle jump over parked cars and trucks at the Cow Palace in Daly
City, Ca.
(www.stevemandich.com/evelincarnate/eveltimeline.htm)
1973 Jan 23, President Nixon
claimed that Vietnam peace had been reached in Paris and that the POWs
would be home in 60 days, claiming the agreement will "end the war and
bring peace with honor."
(AP,
1/23/98)(www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/vietnam/index-1969.html)
1973 Jan 23, Helgafell, an island
of Heimaey, Iceland, erupted for the 1st time in 7,000 yrs.
(www.volcano.si.edu/world/volcano.cfm?vnum=1702-01=&volpage=var)
1975 Jan 23, "Barney Miller"
premiered on ABC with James Gregory (d.2002 at 90) as Inspector Luger.
The series ended in 1982 after 172 episodes. It was a sitcom based on a
NYC police precinct. A spin-off called "Fish" was created in 1977 based
on detective Phil Fish played by Abe Vigoda.
(www.tv.com/barney-miller/show/345/summary.html)(SFC, 10/11/03, p.A18)
1976 Jan 23, Paul Robeson
(b.1898), black athlete, lawyer, singer, died in Philadelphia. Lloyd L.
Brown later wrote the biography "The Young Paul Robeson: On My Journey
Now." His granddaughter Susan Robeson in 1981 wrote "The Whole World in
His Hands: A Pictorial Biography of Paul Robeson."
(SFC, 3/26/98, p.A26)(WSJ, 4/9/98,
p.A21)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Robeson)
1977 Jan 23, The TV mini-series
"Roots," based on the Alex Haley novel, began a record breaking eight
night broadcast on ABC.
(AP, 1/23/98)(HN, 1/23/99)
1979 Jan 23, Willie Mays, former
outfielder for the SF Giants, was elected to baseball's Hall of Fame.
(SFC, 1/23/04, p.E2)
1979 Jan 23, The USAF's 388th
Tactical Fighter Wing at Hill AFB, Utah, became the first unit anywhere
to receive the F-16 Fighting Falcon. Lockheed Corp. produced the F-16
fighter jet. It became the first production military aircraft to
incorporate a fly-by-wire control system.
(WSJ, 3/22/96, p.A-1)(NPub, 2002,
p.23)(www.f-16.net/timeline_1979.html)
1980 Jan 23, Pres. Jimmy Carter
made his State of the Union address. His new American policy came to be
known as the “Carter Doctrine.” It was a pledge to defend US interests
in the Persian Gulf, using military force if necessary.
(www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/aureview/1983/jan-feb/grinter.html)
1981 Jan 23, Samuel Osborne Barber
II (b.1910), American composer of classical music, died. His work
ranged from orchestral, to opera, choral, and piano music. His Adagio
for Strings, composed in 1936 and first performed in 1938, became his
most famous composition.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Barber)
1981 Jan 23, Under international
pressure, opposition leader Kim Dae Jung’s death sentence was commuted
to life imprisonment in Seoul.
(HN, 1/23/99)
1983 Jan 23, Cosmos 1402, a
Russian nuclear powered satellite launched in 1982, fell into the
Indian Ocean.
(www.space.com/news/spacehistory/dangerous_reentries_000602.html)
1985 Jan 23, A debate in Britain's
House of Lords was carried live on TV for the first time.
(AP, 1/23/00)
1986 Jan 23, U.S. began maneuvers
off the Libyan coast.
(HN, 1/23/99)
1986 Jan 23, Joseph Beuys
(b.1921), German artist, died. In 1997 an English edition of "The
Essential Joseph Beuys" by Alain Borer was published.
(SFEC, 8/31/97, BR
p.8)(http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Beuys)
1988 Jan 23, More than 50,000
Israelis demonstrated in Tel Aviv to protest the treatment of
Palestinians in the occupied territories.
(AP, 1/23/98)
1988 Jan 23, Charles Glenn King
(b.1896), biochemist, died. He and a team of students isolated vitamin
C in 1932.
(http://tinyurl.com/yn4zse)
1989 Jan 23, Surrealist artist
Salvador Dali died in his native Spain at age 84. His autobiography was
titled "Secret Life of Salvadore Dali." His work included 2 surrealist
films made with Luis Bunuel: "Un Chien Andalou" and "L'Age d'Or." In
1984 Rafael Santos Torroella (d.2002 at 88), art historian, authored
"La Miel Es Mas Dulce Que La Sangre" (Honey Is Sweeter Than Blood),
considered one of the most important studies of Dali’s art. In 1998
Albert Field (d.2003), Dali expert, published his "Official Catalogue
of the Graphic Works of Salvador Dali." In 1999 Ian Gibson published
"The Shameful Life of Salvador Dali."
(AP, 1/23/99)(WSJ, 1/25/99, p.A16)(SFEC, 7/16/00,
p.T4)(SFC, 10/4/02, p.A26)(SFC, 8/15/03, p.A25)
1990 Jan 23, The 101st US Congress
convened its second session, facing an agenda that included clean air
legislation and deficit reduction.
(AP, 1/23/00)
1990 Jan 23, In Oregon Keith
Hunter Jesperson (b.1955) began his career as a serial killer with the
sexual assault and murder of Taunja Bennett. He went on to murder 8
women. He was arrested in March, 1995. In October 1995 just before
going to trial, he pleaded guilty to the murder of Bennett. Multnomah
County Presiding Judge Donald H. Londer sentenced Jesperson to life in
prison, setting a minimum 30-year prison term before being eligible for
parole. Jesperson claimed to have murdered up to 160 people in
California, Florida, Washington, Oregon and Wyoming. In 2002 Jack
Olsen (d.2002) authored “I: The Creation of a Serial Killer.”
(SSFC, 8/18/02,
p.M2)(www.crimelibrary.com/serial_killers/predators/jesperson/murder_1.html)
1991 Jan 23, "Seinfeld" began at a
regular slot on NBC-TV. Seinfeld initially debuted on NBC on July 5,
1989, in the guise of The Seinfeld Chronicles.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Seinfeld_episodes)
1991 Jan 23, After some 12,000
sorties in the Gulf War, General Colin Powell, chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, said allied forces had achieved air superiority, and
would focus air fire on Iraqi ground forces around Kuwait.
(AP, 1/23/01)
1991 Jan 23, Iraqi forces in
Kuwait deliberately created a huge oil spill in the Persian Gulf.
(SFC, 2/24/98, p.A9)
1992 Jan 23, Forty-seven nations,
including the United States, agreed on a massive global humanitarian
effort to rescue millions of hungry people in the former Soviet Union.
(AP, 1/23/02)
1993 Jan 23, FBI Director William
S. Sessions dismissed a Justice Department report accusing him of
ethical abuses, accusing former Attorney General William P. Barr of a
"crassly calculated attack."
(AP, 1/23/98)
1994 Jan 23, Treasury Secretary
Lloyd Bentsen, visiting Japan, met with Prime Minister Morihiro
Hosokawa, who promised to go through with a scheduled summit with
President Clinton.
(AP, 1/23/99)
1994 Jan 23, The Dallas Cowboys
and the Buffalo Bills won their respective NFL conference playoffs to
set up a Super Bowl rematch.
(AP, 1/23/99)
1995 Jan 23, The US Supreme Court
ruled that companies accused of firing employees illegally could not
escape liability by later finding a lawful reason to justify the
dismissal.
(AP, 1/23/00)
1995 Jan 23, A French team of
paleontologists led by Michel Brunet on 1/23/95 discovered a lower jaw
with 7 teeth and a separate canine of a hominid from 3.5 to 3 million
years of age. The discovery was made in a dried lake bed of central
Chad and named Australopithecus bahrelghazalia after the Arab name of a
nearby river.
(SFC, 5/23/96, p.A14)
1996 Jan 23, Delivering his State
of the Union address to a skeptical Republican Congress, President
Clinton traced the themes of his re-election campaign and confronted
GOP lawmakers on the budget, demanding they “never—ever” shut down the
government again.
(AP, 1/23/01)
1996 Jan 23, The US Army disclosed
that it had 30,000 tons of chemical weapons stored in Utah, Alabama,
Maryland, Kentucky, Indiana, Arkansas, Colorado and Oregon.
(WSJ, 1/23/96, p.A-1)
1996 Jan 23, Sandra Jensen became
the first person with Down syndrome to receive a new heart and Lungs.
The surgery was done at Stanford Univ.
(SFC, 1/31/97, p.A19)
1996 Jan 23, France acknowledged
that its nuclear testing had caused leaks of radioactive materials in
the South Pacific.
(WSJ, 1/25/96, A-1)
1997 Jan 23, The Age of Aquarius
dawned at 12:56 p.m.
(SFC, 1/24/97, p.A20)
1997 Jan 23, Cancer experts, who
were supposed to settle a furious controversy over whether women should
start having mammograms at age 40 or 50, decided instead to leave the
decision up to patients. The recommendation outraged the American
Cancer Society.
(AP, 1/23/98)
1997 Jan 23, A new species of a
carnivorous dinosaur from 120 million years ago was found in southern
England. At 26-feet it was larger than a velociraptor but smaller than
a tyrannosaurus rex.
(SFC, 1/24/97, p.A15)
1997 Jan 23, The Rwandan army
struck at Hutu insurgents and killed at least 310 in the northwest
area. Hutu rebels were suspected of killing more than 50 people
including 3 Spanish aid workers.
(SFC, 1/24/97, p.A14)
1997 Jan 23, In Kragujevac,
Serbia, opposition representatives tried to take over the TV station,
but were blocked by the regime of Pres. Milosevic.
(SFC, 1/24/97, p.A13)
1998 Jan 23, Fighting scandal
allegations involving Monica Lewinsky, President Clinton assured his
Cabinet that he was innocent.
(AP, 1/23/99)
1998 Jan 23, A judge in Fairfax,
Va., sentenced Mir Aimal Kasi to death for an assault rifle attack
outside CIA headquarters in 1993 that killed two men and wounded three
other people. Kasi was executed November 2002.
(AP, 1/23/03)
1998 Jan 23, Pope John Paul II
condemned the US embargo against Catholic Cuba.
(www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/latin_america/jan-june98/pope_1-23.html)
1998 Jan 23, Pres. Carlos Menem
ordered the navy to expel Alfredo Astiz, a former death squad officer.
Astiz was sentenced in absentia to life in prison in France for the
murder of 2 nuns and was wanted in Sweden for the murder of Dagmar
Hagelin, a teenage girl. Astiz surrendered to Interpol in 2001. In 2009
Astiz went on trial for the deaths of 2 French nuns, a journalist and 3
founders of a human rights group.
(SFC, 1/24/98, p.A10)(SFC, 7/3/01, p.A7)(SFC,
12/11/09, p.A2)
1998 Jan 23, From China it was
reported that millions of workers were being laid off in the northeast
industrial belt cities like Harbin and Shenyang.
(SFC, 1/22/98, p.E2)
1998 Jan 23, In France a massive
avalanche killed at least 11 people near the Italian border.
(SFC, 1/24/98, p.A9)
1998 Jan 23, In Belfast, Northern
Ireland, Liam Conway, a Catholic worker, was shot and killed. The
Ulster Freedom Fighters earlier claimed responsibility for 3 Catholic
deaths since new year’s Eve. The Ulster Volunteer Force was suspected
in Conway’s death.
(SFC, 1/24/98, p.A10)
1998 Jan 23, In Papua New Guinea
warring parties on Bougainville signed a peace agreement that would go
into effect on April 30. An estimated 10,000 people died during the 10
year civil strife, mostly non-combatants from untreated disease. Some
1,000 rebels died and about 2,200 government sympathizers.
(WSJ, 3/18/98, p.A1,14)
1998 Jan 23, In Venezuela Alicia
Machado (21), a former Miss Universe, drove the getaway car following
an attempted murder by her boyfriend, Juan Rodriguez Reggeti.
(SFC, 1/24/98, p.A10)
1999 Jan 23, Chief Judge Norma
Holloway ordered Monica Lewinsky to submit to questioning from House
Republican managers or Kenneth Starr.
(SFEC, 1/24/99, p.A1)
1999 Jan 23, US jets attacked 2
Iraqi surface-to-air missile batteries after encountering anti-aircraft
fire and MiG jets in the southern no-fly zone.
(SFEC, 1/24/99, p.A16)
1999 Jan 23, Satellites detected a
cosmic explosion that occurred some 9 billion light-years away in the
direction of the constellation Bootes. The gamma ray burster, GRB
990123, was the largest since the first detected event in 1967.
(SFC, 3/26/99, p.A2)
1999 Jan 23, Jay Pritzker, founder
of the Hyatt hotel chain, died at age 76. He was listed in 1998 as the
20th richest man in America and created the $100,000 Pritzker
Architectural Prize in 1979.
(SFEC, 1/24/99, p.D8)
1999 Jan 23, In his visit to
Mexico, Pope John Paul II urged his flock in the Americas to make the
region a "continent of life."
(AP, 1/23/00)
1999 Jan 23, In South Africa
Sifiso Nkabinde, leader of the small United Democratic Movement party,
was shot and killed in Richmond. Later gunmen in the same town killed
11 people who backed the ANC.
(SFC, 1/25/99, p.A7)
1999 Jan 23, The Yugoslav
government released 9 ethnic Albanians, captured Dec 14, while the KLA
released 5 elderly Serbian civilians, captured Jan 21.
(SFEC, 1/24/99, p.A20)
2000 Jan 23, At the 57th Golden
Globe Awards "American Beauty" won the best dramatic film category,
"Toy Story 2" won for best musical or comedy, and "The Sopranos" won
for best dramatic TV series.
(SFC, 1/24/00, p.D1)
2000 Jan 23, The Tennessee Titans
advanced to the Super Bowl by beating the Jacksonville Jaguars 33-to-14
in the AFC Championship game. The St. Louis Rams defeated the Tampa Bay
Buccaneers 11-to-6 to win the NFC Championship.
(AP, 1/23/01)
2000 Jan 23, An ice storm in the
Southeast and Midwest knocked out electrical services to a half-million
customers. The storm caused a truck to jackknife north of Kansas City
resulting in a multicar accident the killed 10 people.
(SFC, 1/24/00, p.A2)
2000 Jan 23, NFL star Derrick
Thomas was injured when the sport utility vehicle he was driving
overturned on an icy road in Missouri; Thomas died February eighth. The
crash also claimed the life of Thomas’ friend, Michael Tellis.
(AP, 1/23/01)
2000 Jan 23, In Chechnya rebels
ambushed Russian troops in Staraya Sunzha village and 8 soldiers were
killed. The body of Gen. Mikhail Malofeyev was found in Grozny. A
Chechen commander denied reports that Pres. Maskhadov was wounded.
(SFC, 1/24/00, p.A7)
2000 Jan 23, In Spain some 1.1
million people marched in Madrid to protest the recent car-bomb attack
by Basque separatists.
(SFC, 1/24/00, p.A6)
2001 Jan 23, Spencer Abraham,
energy secretary, extended 2 federal emergency orders forcing power
suppliers to continue selling electricity and natural gas to California.
(SFC, 1/24/01, p.A1)
2001 Jan 23, California energy
officials eked sufficient power out of tight West Coast electricity
supplies to avoid rush hour blackouts as lawmakers scrambled to make
longer-term deals to buy power.
(AP, 1/23/02)
2001 Jan 23, Five people believed
to members of Falun Gong set themselves on fire in Tiananmen Square.
One woman and her daughter (12) died. In August 4 people were convicted
of murder for organizing the self-immolation. A judge found that they
had spread the notion that members could achieve nirvana through
self-immolation.
(SFC, 1/24/01, p.A12)(SFC, 8/18/01, p.A11)
2001 Jan 23, In Egypt
Israeli-Palestinian peace talks were suspended after Palestinian gunmen
executed 2 Israelis, alleged Shin Bet security agents, in Tulkarem.
(SFC, 1/24/01, p.A13)
2001 Jan 23, India extended its
cease-fire in Kashmir for a 3rd month.
(WSJ, 1/24/01, p.A1)
2002 Jan 23, Pres. Bush said he
would ask for $48 billion in additional spending for the armed services
next year, the biggest defense spending increase in 20 years. Federal
deficits were expected for the next 2 years.
(SFC, 1/24/02, p.A1)(AP, 1/23/03)
2002 Jan 23, US authorities raised
the reward for information leading to the arrest of the anthrax
perpetrator to $2.5 million.
(SFC, 1/24/02, p.A12)
2002 Jan 23, Enron CEO Kenneth Lay
(59) resigned under pressure.
(SFC, 1/24/02, p.A1)
2002 Jan 23-2002 Jan 24, US
soldiers captured 27 Taliban fighters in Hazar Qadam, north of
Kandahar. Gov. Jan Muhammad Khan later said that 60 people were killed
and denied that any were Taliban or al Qaeda fighters. US military
later acknowledged that some of the dead may have been allies. The
captives were released Feb 6 and reported that they had been beaten and
abused. The Pentagon acknowledged Feb 21 that 16 villagers were
mistakenly killed.
(SFC, 1/25/02, p.A18)(SSFC, 1/27/02, p.A8)(SFC,
2/2/02, p.A10)(SFC, 2/7/02, p.A19)(SSFC, 2/10/02, p.A18)(SFC, 2/11/02,
p.A1)(SFC, 2/22/02, p.A16)
2002 Jan 23, John Walker Lindh, a
U.S.-born Taliban fighter, was returned to the United States to face
criminal charges that he'd conspired to kill fellow Americans.
(AP, 1/23/03)
2002 Jan 23, It was reported that
China was moving 17,000 settlers to a traditionally Tibetan region.
(WSJ, 1/23/02, p.A1)
2002 Jan 23, In Congo some 22.5
tons of food was distributed to the volcano stricken people of Goma.
(SFC, 1/24/02, p.A8)
2002 Jan 23, Israeli jets attacked
Hezbollah sites in Lebanon after a disputed border area was shelled.
(WSJ, 1/24/02, p.A1)
2002 Jan 23, Daniel Pearl, Wall
Street Journal reporter, was kidnapped in Karachi, Pakistan, by the
“National Movement for the Restoration of Pakistani Sovereignty.” A
deadline to kill him was extended a day pending 4 demands that
included: the return of Pakistanis in Cuba; access to lawyers for
Pakistani detainees in the US; the return of a former Taliban
ambassador; and the release of F-16 jets purchased by Pakistan in the
1980s. Ahmad Omar Saeed Sheikh became the chief suspect. Pearl was
later murdered.
(SFC, 1/28/02, p.A8)(SFC, 1/30/02, p.A6)(SFC,
2/1/02, p.A24)(SFC, 2/8/02, p.A18)
2002 Jan 23, Papua New Guinea
voted to grant autonomy and the right to a referendum on total
independence to Bougainville.
(SFC, 1/24/02, p.A8)
2002 Jan 23, In Puerto Rico 17
people were charged in a corruption scandal that involved $4.3 million
in diverted federal funds.
(SFC, 1/24/02, p.A4)
2002 Jan 23, The UN sent famine
relief to Zimbabwe.
(SFC, 1/24/02, p.A8)
2003 Jan 23, The US Senate
approved a $390 billion spending bill.
(AP, 1/23/03)
2003 Jan 23, In Texas 2 military
helicopters collided and 4 marine reservists were killed.
(WSJ, 1/24/03, p.A1)
2003 Jan 23, Actress Nell Carter
(54) died in Beverly Hills, Calif.
(AP, 1/24/04)
2003 Jan 23, In Porto Alegre,
Brazil, the 3rd World Social Forum began as anti-globalization
activists demonstrated at the start of the third annual summit on ways
to limit the excesses of global capitalism.
(AP, 1/23/03)
2003 Jan 23, South and North Korea
agreed to peacefully resolve the international standoff over North
Korea's nuclear programs after Cabinet-level talks.
(AP, 1/23/03)
2003 Jan 23, Hamas gunmen
opened fire on a vehicle south of the West Bank city of Hebron and
three Israelis were killed. Retaliatory raids wounded 6 in Gaza.
(AP, 1/23/03)(SFC, 1/24/03, p.A11)
2003 Jan 23, The government of
Kuwait said a Kuwaiti had confessed to the Jan. 21 shootings of two
U.S. defense workers in Kuwait.
(AP, 1/24/04)
2003 Jan 23, In northern Peru an
explosion leveled an ammunition depot at a military base, killing seven
people and injured 95.
(AP, 1/23/03)
2004 Jan 23, The enduring
situation comedy "Friends" filmed its final episode in front of an
invitation-only audience.
(AP, 1/23/05)
2004 Jan 23, US District Judge in
LA, Aubrey Collins, ruled that a part of the Patriot Act, that makes it
a crime to give expert advice to foreign terrorist organizations, was
unconstitutional.
(SFC, 1/27/04, p.A3)
2004 Jan 23, It was reported that
Halliburton told the Pentagon that 2 employees took kickbacks at up to
$6 million from a Kuwaiti-based company for supplying US troops in Iraq.
(SFC, 1/23/04, p.A3)
2004 Jan 23, The Illinois Supreme
Court upheld former Gov. George Ryan's powers to commute sentences,
keeping 32 spared inmates off death row.
(AP, 1/23/05)
2004 Jan 23, Bob Keeshan (76), who
gently entertained and educated generations of children as television's
walrus-mustachioed Captain Kangaroo, died. Keeshan's "Captain Kangaroo"
debuted on CBS television in 1955 and ran for 30 years before moving to
public TV for 6 more.
(AP, 1/23/04)
2004 Jan 23, Helmut Newton (83),
fashion photographer, died in a car accident in LA.
(SFC, 1/23/04, p.A2)
2004 Jan 23, Vasili Mitrokhin
(81), a KGB archivist whose defection opened up thousands of spy
agency’s files to the West, died. He had been living in Britain under a
false name and with police protection since his defection in 1992.
(www.tribuneindia.com/2004/20040131/world.htm)
2004 Jan 23, A bomb planted in a
meeting room exploded after a gathering of the Iraqi Communist Party,
killing two men in an apparent attack on supporters of the U.S.-backed
government
(AP, 1/23/04)
2004 Jan 23, A Greek-owned cargo
ship laden with cement sank near the Mediterranean island of Malta,
Greece's Merchant Marine Ministry said. Two crewmen were rescued, but
15 were missing.
(AP, 1/24/04)
2004 Jan 23, A fire tore through a
wedding hall in southern India, killing 45 people, including the groom,
and injuring the bride and dozens of guests.
(AP, 1/23/04)
2004 Jan 23,The World Economic
Forum began in Davos, Switzerland. The war in Iraq and the threat of
terrorism dominated the Forum as the US appealed for cooperation on
both issues and the U.N. chief warned that an overly narrow focus could
worsen global tensions.
(AP, 1/24/04)
2005 Jan 23, The Philadelphia
Eagles defeated the Atlanta Falcons 27-10 to win the NFC championship
game; the New England Patriots won the AFC championship by beating the
Pittsburgh Steelers, 41-27.
(AP, 1/23/06)
2005 Jan 23, Travel was slowed to
a crawl at best across wide areas of the Northeast US and Canada as a
huge snowstorm whipped up blizzard conditions with wind gusting to 60
mph, making highways treacherous, canceling hundreds of airline flights
and slowing trains.
(AP, 1/23/05)(WSJ, 1/24/05, p.A1)
2005 Jan 23, Johnny Carson
(b.1925), the 30-year host of the "Tonight Show," died. Carson's death
was the result of complications from emphysema.
(AP, 1/24/05)
2005 Jan 23, Sir William Deakin
(91), a historian who founded St. Antony's College at Oxford
University, helped Winston Churchill write about World War II, and led
the first British mission to Marshal Tito's partisans in Yugoslavia,
died in Var, France.
(AP, 1/25/05)
2005 Jan 23, Police said suspected
leftist rebels ambushed a candidate for the legislature in India's
eastern state of Bihar, killing him and three supporters. Maoist rebels
in Bihar have called for a boycott of next month's vote.
(AP, 1/23/05)
2005 Jan 23, Indonesia raised its
death toll from the disaster by as many as 7,000 people.
(AP, 1/23/05)
2005 Jan 23, Iran's hard-line
leadership ruled out allowing women to run for president in June
elections, denying reports in the state-run media that it had decided
to allow female candidates for the first time.
(AP, 1/23/05)
2005 Jan 23, In Iraq fire swept
through the general hospital in Nasiriyah, killing 14 people and
injuring 75.
(AP, 1/23/05)
2005 Jan 23, Israeli leaders said
it willing to suspend military operations against Palestinian militants
if they call off attacks.
(AP, 1/23/05)
2005 Jan 23, Lebanon's finance
minister played down the transfer by Iraq's Defense Ministry of $500
million in cash to a financial institution in Beirut, saying he would
expect such a transfer to be legal if it was made by the Iraqi
government. Iraqi officials in early January sent some $300 million on
a charter jet to Lebanon to purchase weapons from int’l. arms dealers.
(SFC, 1/22/05, p.A10)(AP, 1/23/05)
2005 Jan 23, Viktor Yushchenko was
sworn in as president of Ukraine.
(AP, 1/23/06)
2006 Jan 23, The US government
cleared Pakistan from the threat of having its trade preferences
withdrawn after the country took action to clamp down on copyright
theft. The announcement coincided with a visit to Washington by
Pakistani PM Shaukat Aziz, who told the US Chamber of Commerce that his
government was serious about clamping down on copycat piracy.
(AFP, 1/24/06)
2006 Jan 23, A US military jury at
Fort Carson, Colo., ordered a reprimand, but no jail time, for an Army
interrogator convicted of killing an Iraqi general.
(AP, 1/23/07)
2006 Jan 23, The US Trade
Representative's Office said a 2nd layer of sanctions on Ukraine has
been removed because of that country's progress in fighting piracy of
US music and films.
(AP, 1/23/06)
2006 Jan 23, The US Treasury
Department briefed South Korean officials on its investigations into
suspected illegal financial activities by North Korea that Washington
says helped fund Pyongyang's nuclear arms program.
(AP, 1/23/06)
2006 Jan 23, West Virginia
lawmakers passed a bill requiring mines to use electronic devices to
track trapped miners and to stockpile oxygen to help keep them alive.
(SFC, 1/24/06, p.A4)
2006 Jan 23, Alan Crotzer (45) was
freed in Florida after DNA testing and other evidence convinced
prosecutors he was not involved in the 1981 armed robbery and rapes
that led to a 130-year prison sentence. DNA has been used to clear at
least 172 people wrongly convicted of crimes in 31 states since 1989,
according to the Innocence Project.
(AP, 1/24/06)
2006 Jan 23, US researchers
reported that chimpanzees may be more closely related to human
beings than they are to other apes.
(Reuters, 1/23/06)
2006 Jan 23, Albertson's Inc., the
nation's second biggest traditional grocery store chain, said it has
agreed to sell the company. The deal was valued at about $17.4 billion
in cash and stock and debt to an investment group including supermarket
chain Supervalu Inc. and drugstore chain CVS Corp. In June the new
owners announced the closure of 37 underperforming stores in Northern
California. In 2007 the remaining stores were renamed under the Lucky
name.
(AP, 1/23/06)(SFC, 1/24/06, p.E1)(SFC, 6/8/06,
p.C1)(SFC, 7/19/07, p.C3)
2006 Jan 23, Ford Motor Co., the
nation's second-largest automaker, said that it will cut 25,000 to
30,000 jobs and idle 14 facilities by 2012 as part of a restructuring
designed to reverse a $1.6 billion loss last year in its North American
operations.
(AP, 1/23/06)
2006 Jan 23, African leaders began
their annual summit in disarray, failing to resolve dissension over
Sudan's bid to chair the 53-state body. An AU official said 5 African
leaders have asked Sudan to withdraw its bid to head the African Union
because the appointment could sink Darfur peace talks and dent the
group's credibility.
(AP, 1/23/06)
2006 Jan 23, In Australia
commercial fishing was banned in Sydney's harbor due to dangerous
levels of poisonous dioxin being found in prawns and fish. Prawn
fishing had already been banned a month earlier. Greenpeace said some
of the pollution originated in Homebush Bay on the Parramatta River,
some 12 kilometers (7.5 miles) from Sydney Harbor Bridge. From 1957 to
1976 Union Carbide made chlorinated herbicides there, including
2,4,5,-T a component of the infamous Agent Orange used during the
Vietnam War.
(AP, 1/24/06)
2006 Jan 23, Wildfires raged
across southern Australia. A firefighter was killed as a fire truck
overturned speeding to a blaze. Distraught ranchers shot cattle injured
by the flames.
(AP, 1/23/06)
2006 Jan 23, In northwest
Bangladesh 6 people were killed and around 100 were wounded when police
opened fire on a crowd of 10,000 rioting farmers demanding improved
electricity supply.
(AFP, 1/23/06)
2006 Jan 23, Belgian brewer InBev
NV, the world's largest brewery by volume, said it has agreed to buy
the largest brewer in China's Fujian province for 614 million euros
($740 million).
(AP, 1/23/06)
2006 Jan 23, In Bolivia Evo
Morales appointed a Marxist energy minister and a Cabinet of Indians,
intellectuals and union leaders, backing his promise to establish a
socialist shape.
(AP, 1/24/06)
2006 Jan 23, Canadians began
voting on whether to send their Liberal Party packing after 13 years.
Conservatives won and Stephen Harper pledged to quickly carry out his
campaign promises to cut taxes, get tough on crime and repair strained
ties with Washington.
(AP, 1/24/06)
2006 Jan 23, Canadian officials
said a cow from Alberta had tested positive for mad cow disease.
(SFC, 1/24/06, p.A5)
2006 Jan 23, In Chile Gen. Augusto
Pinochet's wife and four grown children were indicted and ordered
arrested on charges of tax evasion related to the former dictator's
multimillion-dollar accounts at overseas banks.
(AP, 1/23/06)
2006 Jan 23, China's Ministry of
Health announced the country's 10th human case of bird flu infection
after a 29-year-old woman from the southwest of the country was
diagnosed with the H5N1 virus.
(Reuters, 1/23/06)
2006 Jan 23, Saudi King Abdullah
met with Chinese President Hu Jintao in Beijing, amid efforts by China
to secure overseas oil and gas reserves for its power-hungry economy.
(AP, 1/23/06)
2006 Jan 23, Ugandan rebels killed
eight Guatemalan peacekeepers in Congo in an ambush near the border
with Sudan. The gunbattle also left 15 attackers dead.
(AP, 1/23/06)
2006 Jan 23, A senior envoy said
Iran will immediately retaliate if referred to the UN Security Council
next week by forging ahead with developing a full-scale uranium
enrichment program.
(AP, 1/23/06)
2006 Jan 23, A suicide car bomber
killed at least three Iraqis Monday near the Green Zone housing the US
Embassy and Iraqi government. 2 American servicemen died in a roadside
bombing in Baghdad. 2 Marines died in a vehicle accident in western
Iraq. Armed men, some wearing police commando uniforms, raided homes
and a mosque in a predominantly Sunni Arab neighborhood of northern
Baghdad. They shot and killed three men on the spot and detained more
than 20.
(AP, 1/23/06)(AP, 1/24/06)
2006 Jan 23, Takafumi Horie, chief
executive of Japanese Internet portal Livedoor, was arrested for
alleged securities law violations in a scandal that has caused a week
of turmoil in Japan's stock market. On Jan 25 Horie resigned from the
board of Livedoor.
(AP, 1/23/06)(Econ, 1/28/06, p.60)
2006 Jan 23, In Kenya a five-story
building collapsed in central Nairobi with more than 280 construction
workers inside, killing at least 14 people and injuring more than 60.
The government next day said the owner and contractor of a building
were rushing workers to complete the structure before the concrete on
lower levels had set.
(AP, 1/24/06)
2006 Jan 23, In Mali a closing
ceremony was held for a gathering of the World Social Forum. Other
gatherings were set for Pakistan and Venezuela. The first World Social
Forum was held in Brazil in 2001 and coincides each year with the
market-friendly World Economic Forum of political and business leaders
in Davos, Switzerland.
(AP, 1/24/06)(SFC, 1/24/06, p.A2)
2006 Jan 23, Raul Osiel Marroquin
was arrested in Mexico City. On Jan 26 he described killing four gay
men. His arrest was the 1st confirmation of a serial killer targeting
homosexuals.
(AP, 1/26/06)
2006 Jan 23, In Montenegro a
packed passenger train derailed and plunged into a steep river canyon
outside the capital of Podgorica, killing at least 44 people and
injuring more than 135, more than half of them children.
(AP, 1/24/06)
2006 Jan 23, Nepal's royal
government vowed to hold municipal elections next month despite a
boycott by major parties, street protests, a candidate's assassination
and rebel violence that killed 26 over the weekend.
(AP, 1/23/06)
2006 Jan 23, Russia's main
intelligence agency said it had uncovered spying by four British
diplomats, using electronic equipment inside a fake rock, and accused
them of channeling funds to non-governmental organizations, including
one of the country's most well-known human rights watchdogs.
(AP, 1/23/06)
2006 Jan 23, The family of Thai PM
Thaksin Shinawatra sold their controlling stake in the telecom Shin
Corp. for $1.87 billion to Singapore’s Temasek Holdings. Legal
loopholes were used to avoid taxes on the sale.
(WSJ, 2/6/06, p.C10)(Econ, 3/4/06, p.39)
2006 Jan 23, A Turkish court
dropped charges against Orhan Pamuk, the country's best-known novelist,
for insulting "Turkishness," ending a high-profile trial that outraged
Western observers and cast doubt on Turkey's commitment to free speech.
He had been charged under articles 301 and 305 of the penal code.
(AP, 1/23/06)(Econ, 1/28/06, p.50)
2006 Jan 23, The United Nations
Children's Fund (UNICEF) appealed for $805 million to provide aid to
children and mothers in 29 emergencies worldwide.
(AP, 1/23/06)
2007 Jan 23, President Bush won
cautious kudos in Europe and Asia for urging reduced dependence on oil
and backing alternative energy sources in his State of the Union
address, but his push for more troops in Iraq was widely derided. Bush
called for 20% cut in gasoline consumption over the next decade.
(AP, 1/24/07)(WSJ, 1/24/07, p.A1)
2007 Jan 23, US customs rules went
into effect calling for passports for US citizens returning by air from
any country including Canada, Mexico and Caribbean nations.
(SFC, 1/22/07, p.A3)
2007 Jan 23, Two US inmates, a
convicted rapist in Georgia and a man who was unjustly convicted of
murder in New York but helped find the real killer from his prison
cell, were granted their freedom after DNA tests proved their innocence.
(AP, 1/24/07)
2007 Jan 23, E. Howard Hunt
(b.1918), leader of the 1972 Watergate break-in, died in Florida. He
described the affair in his book “Under Cover: Memoirs of an American
secret agent” (1974).
(SFC, 1/24/07, p.B7)
2007 Jan 23, In eastern
Afghanistan a bomber blew himself up amid a crowd of workers outside a
US military base, killing as many as 10 and wounding more than a dozen
others in the deadliest suicide attack in four months.
(AP, 1/23/07)
2007 Jan 23, Brazil said it had
requested the US extradite two leaders of an evangelical church (Reborn
in Christ) who allegedly used their followers' donations to buy
mansions, a horse farm and apartments in Brazil and the US. Estevam
Hernandes Filho (52) and his wife, Sonia Haddad Moraes Hernandes (48)
were arrested by US customs agents in Miami earlier this month on
charges of carrying a large sum of undeclared cash. The couple was
sentenced to five months in prison, five months of house arrest and a
probation period for failing to declare they were carrying more than
$10,000 into the United States. They were also fined $60,000. Both
returned to Brazil on Aug 1, 2009.
(AP, 1/24/07)(AP, 8/2/09)
2007 Jan 23, British police
arrested five men under anti-terror laws, in dawn raids reportedly
linked to the escape of a terror suspect and the distribution of
Islamist propaganda.
(AP, 1/23/07)
2007 Jan 23, British police set up
roadblocks to try to hinder scavengers who descended on a southwest
England beach to pick through shipping containers that washed ashore
from a stranded cargo vessel.
(AP, 1/23/07)
2007 Jan 23, China Central
Television banned all images and spoken references to pigs in order to
avoid offending Muslims. The Year of the Pig was set to begin in
February.
(WSJ, 1/25/06, p.A1)
2007 Jan 23, Ethiopian troops who
helped Somalia's government drive out a radical Islamic militia began
withdrawing in military trucks and tanks.
(AP, 1/23/07)
2007 Jan 23, A special committee
of the European Parliament approved a report alleging EU nations
including Britain, Poland, Germany and Italy were aware of secret CIA
flights over Europe and the abduction of terror suspects by US agents
into clandestine detention centers.
(AP, 1/23/07)
2007 Jan 23, French doctors said
that they had performed the world’s third partial face transplant on a
man whose face was disfigured by severe tumors.
(SFC, 1/24/07, p.A2)
2007 Jan 23, In northeast India
suspected separatist rebels set off a large bomb in a crowded market in
Gauhati, the capital of Assam state, killing at least one person and
wounding 12.
(AP, 1/23/07)
2007 Jan 23, The UN refugee agency
said that men allegedly wearing uniforms of the Iraqi security forces
abducted a group of 17 Palestinian refugees from a building rented by
the agency in Baghdad. Two bombs struck separate Shiite targets in
Baghdad, killing five people. A Blackwater USA security helicopter
crashed in a Sunni neighborhood in central Baghdad and 5 men were shot
execution style in the back of the head.
(AP, 1/23/07)(AP, 1/24/07)
2007 Jan 23, Bertie Ahern,
taoiseach of Ireland, launched a $238 billion national-development plan
for the economy over the next 7 years.
(Econ, 2/3/07, p.54)
2007 Jan 23, A Jordanian man
fatally shot his 17-year-old daughter whom he suspected of having sex
despite a medical exam that proved her chastity. The man surrendered to
police hours after the killing, saying he had done it for family honor.
On average, about 20 women in the country are killed by their relatives
in such cases each year.
(AP, 1/25/07)
2007 Jan 23, Hezbollah-led
protesters paralyzed Lebanon, clashing with government supporters and
burning tires and cars on roads in and around the capital to enforce a
general strike aimed at toppling US-backed Prime Minister Fuad Saniora.
Three people were killed and more than 170 wounded.
(AP, 1/24/07)
2007 Jan 23, Mozambique’s National
Institute for Disaster Management said torrential rains in central
Mozambique had claimed five lives and rendered more than 3,500 homeless
since the weekend.
(AFP, 1/23/07)
2007 Jan 23, In southern Nigeria
unidentified assailants seized oil engineers, an American and a Briton,
in the latest kidnapping.
(Reuters, 1/23/07)
2007 Jan 23, Dozens of masked
gunmen claiming to be members of al-Qaida stormed an empty Gaza Strip
beach resort and blew up a reception hall, saying they were sending a
message to an ally of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
(AP, 1/23/07)
2007 Jan 23, Ryszard Kapuscinski
(b.1932), Belarus-born Polish writer and journalist, died following
heart surgery. He gained international acclaim for his books
chronicling wars, coups and revolutions in Africa, the Middle East and
other parts of the world. His books included "The Emperor" (1978), a
chronicle of the decline of Haile Selassie's regime in Ethiopia. In
1981 he published "Shah of Shahs," a book about the 1979 Islamic
revolution that toppled Iran's Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. His last
book “Travels With Herodotus” was published shortly after his death.
(AP, 1/24/07)(WSJ, 6/9/07, p.P8)(SSFC, 7/22/07, p.M1)
2007 Jan 23, In northern Sri Lanka
2 roadside bombs exploded in Jaffna town, killing a government soldier
and three civilians.
(AP, 1/23/07)
2007 Jan 23, Hundreds of
Venezuelans protested against a congressional measure that would grant
President Hugo Chavez the power to pass laws by decree in areas from
the economy to defense.
(AP, 1/23/07)
2008 Jan 23, The US Congressional
Budget Office estimated that the deficit for the current budget year
will jump to about $250 billion, citing the weakening economy. This
figure does not reflect at least $100 billion in red ink from an
economic stimulus measure in the works.
(AP, 1/23/08)
2008 Jan 23, Bechtel Corp. and its
partner Parsons Brinckerhoff in Boston’s Big Dig announced an agreement
to pay $407 million to settle a government lawsuit and avoid criminal
charges over the 2006 collapse that left one woman dead.
(SFC, 1/24/08, p.C1)
2008 Jan 23, Police in San Jose
and Santa Clara, Ca., picked up over 70 people, part of more than 140
sought in the culmination of Operation Meltdown, a year-long undercover
investigation into copper theft.
(SFC, 1/24/08, p.B2)
2008 Jan 23, In Detroit Mayor
Kilpatrick responded to revelations by the Detroit Free Press regarding
an affair with a top aide in 2002-2003. He said that period represented
a difficult time in his life. Some 14,000 text messages revealed that
he had lied under oath during testimony in 2007 over the use of his
security unit to cover up his extramarital affair with Christine
Beatty, his Chief of Staff.
(SFC, 1/24/08, p.A9)
2008 Jan 23, In Afghanistan a
Canadian soldier was killed and two others were injured when a military
convoy struck an improvised mine near the southern city of Kandahar.
(Reuters, 1/24/08)
2008 Jan 23, In Australia the
final issue of The Bulletin magazine was published. It was launched in
1880 and became an institution in Australian publishing.
(AP, 1/24/08)
2008 Jan 23, Canada bowed out of
the 2009 UN conference on racism in Durban, South Africa, saying it
would likely "degenerate into ... expressions of intolerance and
anti-Semitism."
(AFP, 1/24/08)
2008 Jan 23, In Chile retired Col.
Ivan Quiroz was arrested in the southern city of Concepcion after
remaining at large for four months. He went into hiding to avoid a
10-year prison sentence in a human rights case dating from the
dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet He had been convicted as member
of a secret police unit that killed 12 members of a pro-communist urban
guerrilla gang in 1987.
(AP, 1/24/08)
2008 Jan 23, In China a train ran
into group of railway workers in eastern Shandong province, killing 18
and injuring nine others.
(AP, 1/25/08)
2008 Jan 23, The EU unveiled its
comprehensive climate and energy proposals.
(www.inforse.dk/europe/pdfs/INFORSE-on-EU-energy-package.pdf)
2008 Jan 23, Militia leaders
signed a peace accord with Congo's government aimed at ending years of
fighting in the country's restive east.
(AP, 1/23/08)
2008 Jan 23, In France an economic
commission headed by Jacques Attali issued a report: 300 Decisions for
Changing France,” which had been requested by Pres. Sarkozy.
(Econ, 1/26/08, p.51)
2008 Jan 23, PM Costas Karamanlis
became the first Greek premier to pay an official visit to Turkey in
nearly 50 years, reflecting warmer ties between two countries that have
come close to war several times.
(AP, 1/23/08)
2008 Jan 23, In Iran a top
interior ministry official said more than 2,000 reformers seeking
democratic changes within Iran's hard-line ruling establishment have
been disqualified from running in the upcoming parliamentary elections.
(AP, 1/23/08)
2008 Jan 23, In Iraq an explosion
struck an apartment building in Mosul shortly after police arrived to
investigate a tip about a weapons cache inside, killing at least 38
people and injuring 225. The huge blast destroyed about 50 buildings in
the Mosul slum. It was later blamed on the Seifaddin Regiment, some 150
foreign and Iraqi fighters who entered Iraq from Syria a few months
earlier. A relief organization later said more than 60 people were
killed and 280 wounded based on estimates from relatives who buried
victims without officially registering them. Gunmen opened fire on an
Iraqi army checkpoint in central Baghdad, killing 8 soldiers and
wounding two.
(AP, 1/23/08)(AP, 1/24/08)(SSFC, 1/27/08, p.A7)(AP,
1/28/08)
2008 Jan 23, Italy’s Premier
Romano Prodi won a confidence vote in parliament's lower house, but his
chances for success in the upper house appeared to worsen as more
allies defected amid growing pressure on the center-left leader to
resign.
(AP, 1/23/08)
2008 Jan 23, In Malaysia tens of
thousands of ethnic Indian Malaysians gathered at the Batu Caves temple
outside Kuala Lumpur to celebrate Thaipusam, one of Hinduism’s biggest
festivals. In past years over a million have turned out. The reduced
turnout was due to a boycott called by the Hindu rights Action Force
(Hindraf), despite PM Badawi’s promise to make Thaipusam a public
holiday in the capital.
(Econ, 1/26/08, p.42)
2008 Jan 23, Nepal's government
reversed a fuel price hike after two days of nationwide protests and
clashes in the capital.
(AP, 1/23/08)
2008 Jan 23, Fifteen pilot whales
died in beach strandings in southern New Zealand while rescuers
monitored progress of 15 others toward safer waters.
(AP, 1/23/08)
2008 Jan 23, Tens of thousands of
Palestinians on foot and on donkey carts poured into Egypt from Gaza
after masked gunmen used land mines to blast down a seven-mile barrier
dividing the border town of Rafah.
(AP, 1/23/08)
2008 Jan 23, A Polish military
plane carrying 20 passengers and crew crashed in flames in northwestern
Poland, killing all aboard including an air force general.
(AP, 1/23/08)
2008 Jan 23, Russia said a new
draft UN resolution on Iran's disputed nuclear program does not call
for any harsh sanctions, and the Iranian president said new measures
would not deter the country in its pursuit of nuclear technology.
(AP, 1/23/08)
2008 Jan 23, Police in Moscow
arrested Semyon Mogilevich, a suspected crime boss with alleged links
to Russia's multibillion dollar gas business. Mogilevich, a
Ukrainian-born Russian citizen, has long been sought by the FBI and
Interpol.
(AP, 1/25/08)
2009 Jan 23, President Barack
Obama struck down the Bush administration's “global gag rule,” a ban on
giving federal money to international groups that perform abortions or
provide abortion information, an inflammatory policy that has bounced
in and out of law for the past quarter-century.
(AP, 1/24/09)(WSJ, 1/24/09, p.A1)
2009 Jan 23, US federal fisheries
regulators announced rules to protect marine mammals during Navy sonar
training along the Atlantic coast and in the Gulf of Mexico. Similar
regulations were issued previously by the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration covering the West Coast and Hawaii.
(SFC, 1/24/09, p.A2)(AP, 1/24/09)
2009 Jan 23, Gov. David Paterson
picked Democratic US Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand to fill New York's vacant
US Senate seat, a day after Caroline Kennedy abruptly withdrew from
consideration.
(AP, 1/23/09)
2009 Jan 23, Joseph Bruno (79),
former majority leader of the New York Senate, was indicted on federal
corruption charges.
(SFC, 1/24/09, p.A3)
2009 Jan 23, Geron Corp., a Menlo
Park, Ca., biotechnology company, announced that it had received a FDA
clearance to mount a study of its stem cell treatment for spinal cord
injuries in up to 10 patients.
(WSJ, 1/23/09, p.A12)
2009 Jan 23, In Afghanistan a NATO
soldier died in a bomb blast in the south of the country. Taliban
militants attacked a police post in Kandahar province sparking a battle
in which three policemen died. A roadside bomb blast struck a joint
Afghan army and NATO forces convoy in western Farah province, killing
an Afghan soldier and wounding five NATO troops.
(AFP, 1/24/09)
2009 Jan 23, In Australia rescuers
poured water on the parched skin of sperm whales beached on a remote
sand bank on Perkins Island to keep them alive until the next high
tide. All 45 whales died with 2 days.
(AP, 1/23/09)(AP, 1/24/09)(AP, 1/25/09)
2009 Jan 23, Authorities in the
Bahamas charged an island lawmaker and detained two other people in an
alleged plot to extort money from actor John Travolta after the death
of his son. Sen. Pleasant Bridgewater, an attorney from Grand Bahama,
was arrested a day earlier and charged with abetment to extort and
conspiracy to extort.
(AP, 1/23/09)
2009 Jan 23, In Belgium a man went
on a rampage at a day care center, stabbing two young children and a
female worker to death and slashing 10 other children all over their
bodies.
(AP, 1/23/09)
2009 Jan 23, Bolivia’s Pres. Evo
Morales seized control of Pan-American Energy’s local natural gas
producer and warned other privately owned companies they would face
similar fates if they do not comply with Bolivian laws.
(WSJ, 1/24/09, p.A6)
2009 Jan 23, The British economy
was officially declared in recession as a galloping economic crisis has
driven down the value of the British pound to a 23-year low and
threatened to remake the country's political landscape.
(McClatchy Newspapers, 1/23/09)
2009 Jan 23, Colombia's national
police chief said that fugitive drug boss Daniel Rendon, the country's
leading drug lord, has offered assassins a bounty of $1,000 for each
police officer they kill. The defense minister said another 10
Colombian soldiers have been fired for negligence in connection with
the killings of civilians to inflate guerrilla casualty figures. A
major was the highest ranking of the 10 cashiered soldiers from the
Popa Battalion in the northern city of Valledupar.
(AP, 1/23/09)
2009 Jan 23, Indian PM Manmohan
Singh was hospitalized and will undergo heart bypass surgery after
doctors found blocked arteries.
(AP, 1/23/09)
2009 Jan 23, Iraqi Foreign
Minister Hoshiyar Zebari said Turkey, Iraq and the United States have
agreed to set up a joint command center in northern Iraq to gather
intelligence to fight Kurdish PKK rebels in the region.
(Reuters, 1/23/09)
2009 Jan 23, Iraq's top security
official called a decision by his government to close Camp Ashraf,
housing some 3,500 members of an armed Iranian opposition group north
of Baghdad "irreversible," saying the Iraqi authorities do not allow
anti-Iran activities on their soil. Members of the terrorist People's
Mujahedeen, known as the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, will either be deported to
Iran or be given the option of going to a third country. A bomb hidden
inside a traffic police booth exploded in western Baghdad, killing a
7-year-old boy and wounding his mother.
(AP, 1/23/09)
2009 Jan 23, Japan’s space agency
(JAXA) launched Ibuki (breath), the first satellite dedicated to
monitoring carbon dioxide emissions. Officials hoped to gather
information on climate change and help the country compete in the
lucrative satellite-launching business.
(AP, 1/23/09)(Econ, 2/14/09, p.90)
2009 Jan 23, Officials said
Liberia's worst caterpillar plague in three decades has spread to
neighboring Guinea after swarms of the crop-eating insects devastated
more than 45 towns.
(AP, 1/23/09)
2009 Jan 23, In northern Norway an
off-duty police officer shot and killed his ex-girlfriend with another
officer's service pistol, then critically wounded himself outside the
elementary school where she was a student teacher.
(AP, 1/23/09)
2009 Jan 23, In Pakistan 2
suspected US missile attacks killed 14 people just east of the Afghan
border. At least five victims were identified as foreign militants. A
suicide attack and a roadside bomb killed two soldiers and three
civilians in the Swat Valley.
(AP, 1/23/09)
2009 Jan 23, In Puerto Rico three
of five co-defendants reached plea agreements days after another
co-defendant, former Acevedo aide Eneidy Coreano, agreed to testify in
a federal corruption trial against former Gov. Anibal Acevedo Vila and
have her charges dropped.
(AP, 1/23/09)
2009 Jan 23, Said Ali al-Shihri, a
Saudi man released from Guantanamo after spending nearly six years
inside the US prison camp, is now the No. 2 of Yemen's al-Qaida branch,
according to a purported Internet statement from the terror network.
(AP, 1/23/09)
2009 Jan 23, In Sri Lanka
assailants on motorbikes attacked and wounded a newspaper editor and
his wife as they drove to work, the latest in a string of assault on
journalists.
(AP, 1/23/09)
2009 Jan 23, In Zimbabwe city
workers in Harare began an indefinite strike, demanding to be paid in
hard currency. President Robert Mugabe's ruling party refused to budge
on opposition demands for a unity government, whose fate hinges on the
outcome of a regional summit next week. The WHO said cholera in
Zimbabwe has so far killed 2,773 people.
(AP, 1/23/09)(AFP, 1/23/09)
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