Today in History - January 26
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66CE Jan 26, The
5th recorded perihelion passage of Halley's Comet.
(MC, 1/26/02)
1397 Jan 26, Vytautas signed a
treaty with the Knights of the Cross but Samogitia was not included.
(LHC, 1/26/03)
1500 Jan 26, Spanish explorer
Vicente Yanez Pinzon reached the northeastern coast of Brazil during a
voyage under his command. Pinzon had commanded the Nina during
Christopher Columbus's first expedition to the New World.
(MC, 1/26/02)
1531 Jan 26, Lisbon was hit by an
earthquake and some about 30,000 died.
(MC, 1/26/02)
1564 Jan 26, A Lithuanian Army
under Radvila the Brown defeated a Russian force 5 time larger and
stopped its entry into Lithuania.
(LHC, 1/26/03)
1699 Jan 26, The Treaty of
Karlowitz, Croatia, ended the war between Austria and the Turks.
(HN,
1/26/99)(www.san.beck.org/1-10-Ottoman1300-1730.html)
1700 Jan 26, A magnitude 9.0
earthquake shook Northern California, Oregon, Washington and British
Colombia. It triggered tsunami that damages villages in Japan.
(AP, 2/27/10)
1715 Jan 26, Claude
Helvétius, French philosopher, was born. He advanced the theory
that sensation is the source of all intellectual activity.
(HN, 1/26/99)
1720 Jan 26, Guilio Alberoni was
ordered out of Spain after his abortive attempt to restore his
country’s empire.
(HN, 1/26/99)
1784 Jan 26, In a letter to his
daughter, Benjamin Franklin expressed unhappiness over the eagle as the
symbol of America. He wanted the turkey.
(AP, 1/26/98)
1786 Jan 26, Benjamin Robert
Haydon, painter (Waiting for The Times, Wordsworth Ascending), was born
in Plymouth.
(MC, 1/26/02)
1788 Jan 26, The 1st fleet of
ships carrying 736 convicts from England landed at Sydney Cove, New
South Wales, Australia. The first European settlers in Australia, led
by Capt. Arthur Phillip, landed in present-day Sydney. The day is since
known as Australia’s national day. In 2006 Thomas Keneally authored
“The Commonwealth of Thieves: The Story of the Founding of Australia.”
(AP, 1/26/98)(HN, 1/26/99)(WSJ, 9/19/00, p.A1)(Econ,
7/15/06, p.83)
1790 Jan 26, Mozart's opera "Cosi
Fan Tutte" premiered in Vienna. [see Jan 2]
(MC, 1/26/02)
1795 Jan 26, Johann Christoph
Friedrich Bach (62), composer, died.
(MC, 1/26/02)
1802 Jan 26, Congress passed an
act calling for a library to be established within the U.S. Capitol.
(AP, 1/26/98)
1824 Jan 26, Edward Jenner,
discoverer of vaccination, died.
(MC, 1/26/02)
1826 Jan 26, Julia Dent Grant,
First Lady and wife of Ulysses Grant, was born.
(HN, 1/26/99)
1833 Jan 26, Gaetano Donizetti’s
tragic opera "Lucrezia Borgia," premiered in Milan.
(WSJ, 7/27/98, p.A12)(MC, 1/26/02)
1837 Jan, 26, Michigan became the
26th state of the US.
(HFA, '96, p.22)(AP, 1/26/98)
1838 Jan 26, Tennessee became the
1st state to prohibit alcohol.
(MC, 1/26/02)
1841 Jan 26, Britain formally
occupied Hong Kong, which the Chinese had ceded to the British.
(AP, 1/26/98)
1848 Jan 26, Henry David Thoreau
(1817-1862) of Massachusetts presented an essay at the Concord Lyceum
that explained his motives for refusing to pay taxes. In 1849 it was
published as “Resistance to Civil Government.”
(ON, 10/09, p.12)
1861 Jan 26, Louisiana became the
6th state to secede from the Union.
(AP, 1/26/98)(HN, 1/26/99)(MC, 1/26/02)
1863 Jan 26, President Lincoln
named General Joseph Hooker to replace Burnside as commander of the
Army of the Potomac. [see Jan 25]
(HN, 1/26/99)
1870 Jan 26, Virginia rejoined the
Union.
(AP, 1/26/98)
1871 Jan 26, US income tax
repealed.
(MC, 1/26/02)
1875 Jan 26, Electric dental drill
was patented by George F. Green.
(MC, 1/26/02)
1875 Jan 26, Pinkerton agents,
hunting Jesse James, firebombed his mother’s house, killed his
13-year-old half-brother and seriously injured his mother.
(AH, 2/05, p.16)
1880 Jan 26, Douglas MacArthur
(d.1964), U.S. general in World War I, was born. He was the youngest
general in the U.S. Army in WW I. In World War II he was the commander
of all U.S. Army forces in the South Pacific; in Korea he commanded all
United Nations forces. William Manchester wrote his biography:
“American Caesar: Douglas MacArthur.”
(BS, 5/3/98, p.13E)(HN, 1/26/99)
1885 Jan 26, In Sudan General
“Chinese” Gordon (Charles George Gordon, 51), British gov-gen of Sudan,
was killed on the palace steps in the garrison at Khartoum by the
forces of Muhammad Ahmed, El Mahdi. In 1961 “General Gordon’s Khartoum
Journal,” edited by Lord Elton, was published.
(WSJ, 8/25/98, p.A14)(HN, 1/26/99)(MC, 1/26/02)(ON,
4/02, p.10)
1886 Jan 26, Karl Benz patented
the 1st automobile. [see Jan 29]
(MC, 1/26/02)
1891 Jan 26, Ilya G.
Ehrenburg, writer, propagandist (Fall of Paris, The Thaw), was
born in Kiev, Ukraine.
(MC, 1/26/02)
1891 Jan 26, Nicholaus Otto, auto
pioneer (internal combustion engine), died.
(MC, 1/26/02)
1893 Jan 26, Bessie Coleman, first
black airplane pilot, was born.
(HN, 1/26/99)
1893 Jan 26, Abner Doubleday
(b.1819), credited with inventing baseball, died on his 74th birthday.
(MC, 1/26/02)
1905 Jan 26, Maria Augusta von
Trapp (d.1987), Austrian singer, inspired "Sound of Music," was born.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_von_Trapp)(SSFC,
10/14/07, p.B6)
1907 Jan 26, US Congress passed
the Tillman Act, which prohibited corporations from making direct
campaign contributions to federal election candidates. It was named for
Sen. Benjamin "Pitchfork Ben" Tillman, a democrat from South Carolina.
(SFEC, 10/5/97, p.D9)(SFEC, 7/16/00, p.A8)(AP,
1/26/07)
1911 Jan 26, The Richard Strauss
opera "Der Rosenkavalier" premiered in Dresden, Germany.
(AP, 1/26/98)
1911 Jan 26, Glenn Curtiss piloted
the 1st successful hydroplane in San Diego.
(MC, 1/26/02)
1913 Jan 26, Jim Thorpe
relinquished his 1912 Olympic medals for being a pro.
(MC, 1/26/02)
1918 Jan 26, Nicolae Ceausescu,
Romanian president (1967-90), was born.
(MC, 1/26/02)
1920 Jan 26, Jeanne Hebuterne
(b.1898), the mistress of Amadeo Modigliani, killed herself 2 days
following Modigliani’s death while carrying his child.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeanne_H%C3%A9buterne)
1921 Jan 26, Akio Morita (d.1999),
CEO of Sony Corp., was born in Kasugaya, Japan.
(MC, 1/26/02)
1925 Jan 26, Paul Newman, actor
(Hud, Hombre, Hustler), was born in Cleveland.
(MC, 1/26/02)
1907 Jan 26, John Millington
Synge’s “The Playboy of the Western World” opened at the Abbey Theater
in Dublin. Many Irish nationalists found it so offensive that they
embarked on a semi-organized campaign to bring down the production.
(SFC, 12/30/06,
p.E1)(www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=10167)
1928 Jan 26, Eartha Kitt, singer,
actress (Catwoman-Batman), was born in SC.
(MC, 1/26/02)
1928 Jan 26, Roger Vadim, director
(And God Created Women, Barbarella), was born in France.
(MC, 1/26/02)
1929 Jan 26, Jules Feiffer,
cartoonist (Passionella), author (Little Murders), was born in NYC.
(MC, 1/26/02)
1929 Jan 26, San Francisco police
took Frances Orlando (19) to the Bush Police Station because she was
dressed in men's clothing.
(SFC, 1/23/04, p.E3)
1932 Jan 26, William K. Wrigley,
owner (Wrigley Gum, Chicago Cubs), died.
(MC, 1/26/02)
1934 Jan 26, Germany signed a
10-year non-aggression pact with Poland, breaking the French alliance
system.
(WUD, 1994, p.1682)(HN, 1/26/99)
1935 Jan 26, Bob Uecker, catcher,
actor, was born in Milwaukee, Wisc.
(MC, 1/26/02)
1939 Jan 26, Franco conquered
Barcelona.
(MC, 1/26/02)
1940 Jan 26, The Museum of Modern
Art in New York received works by Botticelli, Raphael and Michelangelo
on loan from Italy.
(HN, 1/26/99)
1940 Jan 26, Nazis forbade Polish
Jews to travel on trains.
(MC, 1/26/02)
1942 Jan 26, The first American
expeditionary force to go to Europe during World War II went ashore in
Northern Ireland.
(AP, 1/26/98)(HN, 1/26/99)
1943 Jan 26, A US War Department
Disposition Form was issued with “Subject: establishment of a War
Department Fixed Radio Station in Africa.” It detailed operational
objectives for what was to become the 4th Detachment of the Second
Signal Service Battalion, Asmara, Eritrea. Over time the US paid
Ethiopia more than $360m in military aid as rent for the eavesdropping
installation at Kagnew.
(www.kagnewstation.com/history/chapter4/index.html)(Econ, 1/22/05, p.80)
1943 Jan 26, The first OSS (Office
of Strategic Services) agent parachuted behind Japanese lines in Burma.
(HN, 1/26/99)
1943 Jan 26, Nikolai Vavilov
(b.1887), Soviet botanist, died in prison. In 1929 he had traced the
genealogy of the apple to Kazakhstan.
(SSFC, 5/25/08, Books
p.3)(www.michaelpollan.com/article.php?id=54)
1944 Jan 26, Angela Davis,
American revolutionary and black militant, was born.
(HN, 1/26/99)
1950 Jan 26, India officially
proclaimed itself a republic as Rajendra Prasad took the oath of office
as president.
(AP, 1/26/98)
1956 Jan 26, Buddy Holly had his
1st formal recording session. [see Jan 20]
(MC, 1/26/02)
1961 Jan 26, Wayne Gretzky, NHL
great scorer (Oiler, King, Rangers), was born in Brantford, Ont.
(MC, 1/26/02)
1961 Jan 26, "Are You Lonesome
Tonight?" by Elvis Presley peaked at #1.
(MC, 1/26/02)
1961 Jan 26, Janet G. Travell
became the 1st woman personal physician to the US President (JFK).
(MC, 1/26/02)
1962 Jan 26, Bishop Burke of
Buffalo Catholic dioceses declared Chubby Checker's "Twist" is impure
& banned it from all Catholic schools.
(MC, 1/26/02)
1962 Jan 26, The United States
launched Ranger 3 to land scientific instruments on the moon, but the
probe missed its target by some 22,000 miles.
(AP, 1/26/98)
1962 Jan 26, Charles "Lucky"
Luciano (65), NYC Mafia gangster, died.
(MC, 1/26/02)
1964 Jan 26, Eighty-four people
were arrested in a segregation protest in Atlanta.
(HN, 1/26/99)
1969 Jan 26, California was
declared a disaster area after two days of flooding and mud slides.
(HN, 1/26/99)
1972 Jan 26, A DC-9 exploded over
Serbska Kamenice, Czechoslovakia, and attendant Vesna Vulovic dropped
33,300 feet and survived following a 27-day coma and a 16-month
recovery. The cause of the explosion has never been established, but
was attributed by the Yugoslav and Czechoslovakian authorities to a
bomb placed on the plane by a Croatian Terrorist group, known as the
Ustasa.
(SFEC, 3/14/99, Z1
p.10)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vesna_Vulovic)
1978 Jan 26, In China Einstein’s
theory of relativity was officially reinstated.
(WUD, 1994, p.1691)
1979 Jan 26, Nelson A. Rockefeller
(70), former Vice President under Ford, died in New York. He was also a
4-time governor of New York.
(AP,
1/26/98)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson_Rockefeller)
1980 Jan 26, Israel and Egypt
established diplomatic relations, in accord with PM Begin’s agreement
with Pres. Sadat on Jan 10 at Aswan.
(http://tinyurl.com/2mk9zf)
1986 Jan 26, In India a Sarbat
Khalsa (general congregation of the Sikh people) was convened at the
Akal Takht, the Sikh seat of temporal authority in Amritsar. The
gathering passed a resolution favoring the creation of Khalistan. A
militant Sikh separatist movement had emerged in the 1970s with the
goal of carving out an independent Sikh state out of the Punjab called
Khalistan.
(Econ, 3/19/05,
p.46)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khalistan)
1988 Jan 26, The Andrew Lloyd
Webber musical "Phantom of the Opera" opened at Broadway's Majestic
Theater. It ran for 4,000+ performances.
(AP, 1/26/98)(www.broadway.com/gen/show.aspx?SI=1235)
1988 Jan 26, Australians
celebrated the 200th anniversary of their country as a grand parade of
tall ships sailed in Sydney Harbor, re-enacting the voyage of the first
European settlers.
(AP, 1/26/98)
1989 Jan 26, L. Douglas Wilder,
the lieutenant governor of Virginia, launched his successful campaign
to become the first elected black governor of a U.S. state.
(AP, 1/26/99)
1990 Jan 26, Attorneys for Manuel
Noriega challenged the jurisdiction of U.S. courts to try the deposed
Panamanian leader on drug-trafficking charges, and said Noriega should
be declared a prisoner of war.
(AP, 1/26/00)
1991 Jan 26, An estimated 200k to
300k people across the country demonstrated in support of, or in
opposition to, Operation Desert Storm.
(AP, 1/26/01)
1991 Jan 26, Soviet President
Mikhail S. Gorbachev granted the KGB and Soviet Interior Ministry
sweeping search-and-seizure powers to combat economic crime.
(AP, 1/26/01)
1992 Jan 26, The Washington
Redskins won Super Bowl XXVI, defeating the Buffalo Bills 37-24.
(AP, 1/26/02)
1992 Jan 26, On CBS' “60 Minutes,”
Democratic presidential candidate Bill Clinton, appearing with his
wife, Hillary, acknowledged “causing pain in my marriage,” but said
past problems were not relevant to the campaign.
(AP, 1/26/02)
1992 Jan 26, Jose Ferrer (b.1909),
Puerto Rico born film actor, died in Coral Gables, Fla.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Ferrer)
1993 Jan 26, U.N.
Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali called on the Security Council
to take "whatever measures are necessary" to compel Israel to readmit
400 deported Palestinians.
(AP, 1/26/98)
1993 Jan 26, Former Czechoslovak
President Vaclav Havel was elected president of the new Czech Republic.
(AP, 1/26/98)
1994 Jan 26, A scare occurred
during a visit to Sydney, Australia, by Britain's Prince Charles as a
young man lunged at the prince, firing two blank shots from a starter's
pistol.
(AP, 1/26/99)
1994 Jan 26, Russian President
Boris Yeltsin accepted the resignation of Finance Minister Boris
Fyodorov, who warned of economic collapse and social unrest.
(AP, 1/26/99)
1995 Jan 26, A little more than
three weeks after Republicans took control of Congress, the House
endorsed a balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution designed to
eliminate chronic federal deficits.
(AP, 1/26/00)
1996 Jan 26, First lady Hillary
Rodham Clinton testified before a grand jury connected to the
Whitewater probe.
(AP, 1/26/01)
1996 Jan 26, Hours before a
midnight deadline, a confrontation-weary Congress voted to avert a
third federal shutdown and finance dozens of agencies for seven more
weeks.
(AP, 1/26/01)
1996 Jan 26, Olympic wrestler Dave
Schultz was fatally shot at the suburban Philadelphia estate of John E.
du Pont; du Pont surrendered 48 hours later. Du Pont was later
convicted of third-degree murder but mentally ill; he's serving a 13-
to 30-year sentence.
(AP, 1/26/06)
1996 Jan 26, The Council of Europe
voted to accept Russia. Russia became a member on Feb 28.
(WSJ, 1/26/96,
A-1)(www.coe.int/T/E/Com/About_Coe/Member_states/e_ru.asp#TopOfPage)
1996 Jan 26 Yeltsin appointed
Vladimir Kadannikov to oversee national economic policy. Mr. Kadannikov
was general-director of the debt-ridden Volzhsky Auto Works.
(WSJ, 1/26/96, A-6)
1997 Jan 26, The Green Bay Packers
beat the New England Patriots 35-21 to win Super Bowl XXXI, their first
Super Bowl in 29 years.
(SFC, 1/27/97, p.C1)(AP, 1/26/98)
1998 Jan 26, Pres. Clinton firmly
denied having sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky: “I did not have
sexual relations with that woman…I never told anybody to lie.”
(SFC, 1/27/98, p.A1)(SFEC, 11/15/98, p.A3)
1998 Jan 26, Stung by a drop in
profits, AT&T said it would cut at least 15,000 jobs, freeze
executive salaries and shake up management to reduce costs.
(AP, 1/26/99)
1998 Jan 26, Compaq Computer Corp.
announced that it would buy Digital Equipment Corp. for $9.6 billion.
(SFC, 1/27/98, p.A1)
1998 Jan 26, Intel introduced a
333 Mhz chip. It was code-named Deschutes and was expected to reach
450Mhz speed by the end of the year.
(WSJ, 1/26/98, p.B5)
1998 Jan 26, In Chile Gen’l.
Pinochet (82) backed away from scheduled retirement after the Christian
Democratic Party filed suit to prevent him from becoming a senator for
life.
(SFEC, 2/1/98, p.A11)
1998 Jan 26, In Japan public
prosecutors raided the Ministry of Finance and arrested 2 bank
regulators, Koichi Miyagawa (53) and Toshimi Taniuchi (48), on bribery
charges.
(SFC, 1/27/98, p.A8)
1998 Jan 26, Shinichi Suzuki (99),
pioneer of the 1950s Suzuki method for teaching music to young
children, died in Japan.
(SFC, 1/27/98,
p.A20)(www.suzukiassociation.org/about/suzuki/)
1998 Jan 26, In Jordan the Supreme
Court suspended an amendment to the press law, passed last May, and
cleared the way for 12 newspapers to resume publishing.
(SFC, 1/27/98, p.A10)
1998 Jan 26, In Northern Ireland
the Ulster Democratic Party, the largest pro-British paramilitary
group, withdrew from peace talks.
(SFC, 1/27/98, p.A8)
1999 Jan 26, Pope John Paul II
arrived in St. Louis and began his seventh pilgrimage to the United
States. He was greeted by Pres. Clinton at Lambert Int'l. Airport and
called on the president to protect unborn children and end armed
conflict abroad. He was later scheduled to bless the 33-foot steel
statue of the Virgin Mary commissioned by Carl Demma and made by
Charles Parks.
(SFC, 1/26/99, p.A15)(SFC, 1/27/99, p.A1)(AP,
1/26/00)
1999 Jan 26, Some 700 US troops
were ordered by NATO to be pulled from Bosnia in a 10% force reduction.
(WSJ, 1/27/99, p.A1)
1999 Jan 26, In Germany Chancellor
Schroeder abandoned an ambitious timetable for the planned shutdown of
nuclear power plants.
(SFC, 1/27/99, p.C10)
1999 Jan 26, In Honduras the
legislature voted to end 41 years of military autonomy and to put the
military under civilian control.
(SFC, 1/27/99, p.C10)
1999 Jan 26, US jets again fired
on air-defense sites in Iraq and Pres. Clinton approved more aggressive
rules of engagement.
(WSJ, 1/27/99, p.A1)
1999 Jan 26, In Jordan King
Hussein left to the United States for urgent medical care at the Mayo
clinic. His son Abdullah was sworn in to run the country in his absence.
(SFC, 1/27/99, p.A7)(AP, 1/26/00)
1999 Jan 26, A Palestinian man was
killed by an Israeli rubber bullet when he threw stones to protest the
demolition of an Arab-owned home in East Jerusalem.
(SFC, 1/27/99, p.C10)
2000 Jan 26, The grandmothers of
Elian Gonzalez hugged and kissed the six-year-old boy during a tense,
90-minute meeting in Miami Beach, Florida, that had been arranged by
the U-S government.
(AP, 1/26/01)
2000 Jan 26, Tennis great Don
Budge, who in 1938 became the first Grand Slam winner, died in
Scranton, Pennsylvania, at age 84.
(AP, 1/26/01)
2000 Jan 26, The UN appointed Hans
Blix of Sweden to be the new weapons inspector for Iraq.
(SFC, 1/27/00, p.A12)
2000 Jan 26, In Thailand the
legendary 24-year leader of the Karen National Union (KNU), was voted
out of the chairmanship. Saw Ba Thin was elected as the new chairman of
the Karen National Union (KNU).
(SFC, 1/28/00, p.A14)(SFC, 2/22/00, p.A8)
2000 Jan 26, In China the State
Bureau of Secrecy issued a 20-article circular that banned discussion
of state secrets on the Internet, in e-mail, and in chat rooms or
bulletin boards. Content and service providers were also required to
undergo a "security certification" prior to operation.
(SFC, 1/27/00, p.A1)
2000 Jan 26, The EU and Yugoslavia
crafted a $24 million plan to clear Danube River bridge debris due to
NATO bombing.
(WSJ, 1/27/00, p.A1)
2000 Jan 26, In Serbia police
killed 2 ethnic Albanian brothers on the southern border known as
Eastern Kosovo.
(SFEC, 3/5/00, p.A25)
2000 Jan 26, In Pakistan 6 of the
Supreme Court's 13 judges refused to take a new oath under the
provisional military government. Of 102 judges, 89 took the oath. The
oath protected the military from legal action.
(SFC, 1/27/00, p.C16)
2001 Jan 26, Pres. Bush renewed
his pledge to build a missile defense system and to reduce the nuclear
arsenal.
(SFC, 1/27/01, p.A3)
2001 Jan 26, Scientists announced
that they had decoded the genetic blueprint of rice. It was the 1st
important plant to have its genome decoded.
(SFC, 1/27/01, p.A7)
2001 Jan 26, Diane Whipple (33),
Lacrosse coach, died after being mauled by 2 dogs in her San Francisco
Pacific Heights apartment. The dogs, under the control of Marjorie
Knoller, were later found to be owned by 2 Aryan Brotherhood prison
gang members and kept by attorneys Robert Noel (59) and Marjorie
Knoller (45). A few days later Noel and Knoller adopted Paul Schneider
(38) in SF family court. Bane, one of the Presa Canario dogs, was
destroyed following the attack on Whipple. Hera, the 2nd dog, was
impounded. Knoller and Noel were indicted for murder and manslaughter
on Mar 27. Hera was put to death Jan 30, 2001. Knoller was paroled Jan
1, 2004. In 2005 a state appeals court reinstated a murder conviction
against Marjorie Knoller. Knoller was again jailed in 2008 after a
judge reinstated her murder conviction. On Sep 22 Knoller was sentenced
to 15 years to life in prison.
(SSFC, 1/28/01, p.A1)(SFC, 1/30/01, p.A1)(SFC,
1/31/01, p.A1)(SFC, 2/1/01, p.A11)(SFC, 3/28/01, p.A1)(SFC, 1/31/02,
p.A13)(SFC, 1/1/04, p.A19)(SFC, 5/6/05, p.B1)(SFC, 8/23/08, p.B1)(AP,
9/22/08)
2001 Jan 26, In Illinois a
Salvation Army van collided with a truck and 10 people were killed on I
55 near Joliet.
(SFC, 1/27/01, p.A3)
2001 Jan 26, Dr. Charles Merieux,
virologist and founder of the Merieux Laboratory, died at age 94 in
Lyon, France. He helped produce the Salk vaccine cultivated in minced
monkey kidney tissue. He also produced a vaccine against a meningitis
strain that killed 4,000 people in Brazil in 1974.
(SFC, 1/27/01, p.A24)
2001 Jan 26, Joseph Kabila was
sworn in as Congo's president, following the assassination of his
father, Laurent Kabila.
(AP, 1/26/02)
2001 Jan 26, In Germany the lower
house passed an overhaul of the national pension system.
(SFC, 1/27/01, p.C16)
2001 Jan 26, A 7.9 (7.7)
earthquake hit India and Pakistan as India prepared to celebrate
Republic Day. It was an intraplate earthquake along a thrust fault 300
miles south of the boundary between the Indo-Australian and Eurasian
Plates. Some 20,000-50,000 people were killed and over 14,000 injured
across Gujarat state. 10 people were reported killed in Pakistan. The
quake caused an underground river, either the Saraswati or Indus, to
reappear that had disappeared in a 19th century quake. [see Jan 31]
(SFC, 1/26/01, p.A16)(SFC, 1/27/01, p.A1)(WSJ,
1/29/01, p.A1)(SFC, 2/17/01, p.D8)(WSJ, 1/2/02, p.R12)
2001 Jan 26, Benjamin Hermansen
(15), a black teenager, was stabbed to death in Holmlia near Oslo,
Norway. 5 Neo-Nazi Bootboys were soon arrested. In 2002 Joe Erling Jahr
(20) was sentenced to 16 years in prison and Ole Nicolai Kvisler (22)
was sentenced to 15 years. Veronica Andreasen (18) received 3 years as
an accomplice.
(SFC, 1/30/01, p.A11)(SFC, 1/18/02, p.A6)
2001 Jan 26, In the Philippines
Pres. Arroyo forced her Cabinet ministers to sign an 8-point “covenant”
that included pledges to show “respect for others,” live a simple
lifestyle and focus on the poor.
(SFC, 1/27/01, p.A14)
2001 Jan 26, The 198-foot vessel
Pamyat Merkuriya sank in the Black Sea and at least 14 people were
killed. The ship was enroute to Yevpatoria, Ukraine, from Istanbul.
(SFC, 1/30/01, p.A11)
2001 Jan 26, A UN panel criticized
Saudi Arabia for discriminating against women, harassing minors and for
punishments that included flogging and stoning.
(SFC, 1/27/01, p.C16)
2002 Jan 26, Jennifer Capriati
produced the greatest comeback in a Grand Slam final to overcome
Martina Hingis (news) and defend her Australian Open title, 4-6, 7-6
(7), 6-2.
(AP, 1/26/03)
2002 Jan 26, In a preview of his
State of the Union address, President Bush pledged in his Saturday
radio address to "work to create jobs and renew the strength of our
economy."
(AP, 1/26/03)
2002 Jan 26, Sec. of State Powell
asked Pres. Bush to declare that the US is bound by the Geneva
Conventions in the treatment of Afghan captives at Guantanamo Bay.
(SSFC, 1/27/02, p.A)
2002 Jan 26, The Honduras Congress
elected Justice Vilma Cecilia Morales as the 1st woman to head the
Supreme Court.
(SSFC, 1/27/02, p.A19)
2002 Jan 26, The Palestinian
Authority again called for an end to all bombing and shooting attacks
against Israel. Israeli troops shot and killed a Palestinian passing
through an army checkpoint and militants were hit by an tank shell when
they tried to lay an explosive near a border fence.
(SSFC, 1/27/02, p.A18)
2003 Jan 26, Tampa Bay won their
first NFL championship over the Oakland Raiders in Super Bowl 37.
Rioting erupted on Oakland streets following the Raiders' Super Bowl
loss to the Tampa Bucs (48-21).
(SFC, 1/27/03, p.A1)(AP, 1/26/04)
2003 Jan 26, Secretary of State
Colin Powell, citing Iraq's lack of cooperation with U.N. inspectors,
said he'd lost faith in the inspectors' ability to conduct a definitive
search for banned weapons programs.
(AP, 1/26/04)
2003 Jan 26, Bill Gates announced
that his charitable foundation will spend $200 million for medical
research in poor and undeveloped countries.
(SFC, 1/27/03, p.A3)
2003 Jan 26, In Cameroon an
overcrowded bus swerved into oncoming traffic on the nation's main
highway, sparking a five-car pileup that killed at least 70.
(AP, 1/28/03)
2003 Jan 26, In England historian
Hugh Trevor-Roper (b.1914) died. His books included "The Last Days of
Hitler" (1947), "The Rise of Christian Europe" (1965), and "The
European Witch Craze of the 16th and 17th Centuries." His final work
“The Invention of Scotland” was published posthumously in 2008.
(SFC, 1/27/03, p.B4)(WSJ, 7/26/08, p.W8)
2003 Jan 26, Annamarie Schimmel
(80), a professor emeritus of Islamic studies at Harvard University who
also lectured in Germany and Turkey, publishing more than 100 books
died in Bonn.
(AP, 2/2/03)
2003 Jan 26, In Guatemala a
security guard opened fire with a shotgun at thousands of people
gathered for a political convention of the National Union of Hope
party. Isaias Caal Ichich wounded 5 people.
(AP, 1/27/03)
2003 Jan 26, In Ivory Coast
loyalists, enraged by a peace deal with rebels, attacked the French
Embassy and army base.
(SFC, 1/27/03, p.A5)
2004 Jan 26, The White House
retreated from its once-confident claims that Iraq had weapons of mass
destruction; Democrats swiftly sought to turn the about-face into an
election-year issue.
(AP, 1/26/05)
2004 Jan 26, The US Congressional
Budget Office said the deficits over the coming decade are expected to
total $2.4 trillion, 1 trillion more than estimates made 6 months
earlier.
(SFC, 1/27/04, p.A1)
2004 Jan 26, Lionel Tate, the
Florida teen who'd killed a 6-year-old playmate and became the youngest
defendant in the nation to be locked away for life, was released after
three years behind bars.
(AP, 1/26/05)
2004 Jan 26, Cleveland City Hall
began a domestic partner's registry, the 1st in the nation created by
voters.
(SFC, 1/27/04, p.A3)
2004 Jan 26, A pair of winter
storms blanketed much of the eastern half of the US and police blamed
them for at least 34 highway deaths.
(WSJ, 1/27/04, p.A1)
2004 Jan 26, President Hamid
Karzai signed Afghanistan's new constitution into law, putting into
force a charter meant to reunite his war-shattered nation and help
defeat a virulent Taliban insurgency.
(AP, 1/26/04)
2004 Jan 26, China's President Hu
Jintao arrived in France, with European ministers considering Beijing's
request that they lift an arms embargo imposed after the killing of
Tiananmen Square protesters in 1989.
(AP, 1/26/04)
2004 Jan 26, Nearly 200 people
were missing after a barge caught fire and sank in a river in
northwestern Congo near Lukelela. At least 301 people survived.
(AP, 2/1/04)
2004 Jan 26, In Egypt an 11-story
building collapsed in Nasr City, a Cairo suburb, during a fire and at
least 14 people, mostly firefighters and police responding to a blaze,
were killed.
(AP, 1/27/04)
2004 Jan 26, Pakistan joined the
list of countries affected by the bird flu disease that has sparked
mass chicken culls across the region.
(AP, 1/26/04)
2004 Jan 26, Sudanese planes
dropped bombs in western Sudan, sending hundreds of people fleeing
across the border into Chad where aid workers scrambled to provide them
food and shelter in the barren desert.
(AP, 1/27/04)
2004 Jan 26, A 6-year-old Thai boy
became Asia's seventh confirmed bird flu fatality.
(AP, 1/26/04)
2005 Jan 26, Condoleezza Rice was
sworn in as secretary of state, following her confirmation by the
Senate.
(AP, 1/26/06)
2005 Jan 26, In Glendale, Ca., a
Metrolink commuter train struck a vehicle, derailed and sideswiped
another train, killing 11 people and injuring about 180 others. Juan
Manuel Alvarez (25) left his SUV on a railroad track after changing his
mind about committing suicide. Alvarez was convicted in 2008 on 11
counts of murder and was sentenced to 11 consecutive life terms in
prison. In 2009 Metrolink agreed to pay some $30 million to settle most
of the lawsuits related to the derailment.
(AP, 1/27/05)(SFC, 1/27/05, p.A1)(SFC, 8/21/08,
p.A3)(SFC, 10/14/09, p.A6)
2005 Jan 26, In Ohio an employee
at the Toledo North Assembly Jeep plant shot 3 co-workers, killing one,
before taking his own life.
(SFC, 1/27/05, p.A3)
2005 Jan 26, Afghan President
Hamid Karzai started a two-day visit to Iran mainly focused on boosting
economic relations and inaugurating a new cross-border highway.
(AFP, 1/26/05)
2005 Jan 26, China’s central bank
said a nationwide personal credit database will be available across the
country by the end of the year. The database was launched in January,
2006, and included records of 340 million individuals.
(WSJ, 1/27/05, p.A10)(WSJ, 1/17/06, p.A15)
2005 Jan 26, A US military
transport helicopter crashed in bad weather in Iraq's western desert,
killing 31 people, all believed to be Marines. Insurgents killed five
other American troops.
(AP, 1/26/05)
2005 Jan 26, A suicide car bomber
attacked an office of a major Kurdish party, killing or injuring at
least 20 people.
(AP, 1/26/05)
2005 Jan 26, Israel and the
Palestinian Authority resumed diplomatic contacts after a two-week
freeze, and Israel agreed to suspend targeted killings of Palestinian
militants.
(AP, 1/26/05)
2005 Jan 26, At his first public
hearing prosecutors said Mohammed Bouyeri (26), the alleged killer of
Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, ignored his victim's pleas for mercy and
calmly shot him at close range before slitting his throat.
(AP, 1/26/05)
2005 Jan 26, A South Korean
semiconductor maker said it had pioneered an innovation that will allow
energy efficient light-emitting diodes to light homes (LED for AC).
(AP, 1/26/05)
2005 Jan 26, The Sudanese air
force bombed villagers in South Darfur, observers from the African
Union reported, and an international aid organization said casualties
were inflicted. The UN said renewed fighting in Sudan's Darfur region
may have killed up to 105 civilians and displaced more than 9,000 last
week.
(AP, 1/26/05)
2005 Jan 26, The World Economic
Forum, the global business meeting that attracts world leaders and
Hollywood stars, opened in Davos, Switzerland. A Chinese economist said
that China has lost faith in the stability of the US dollar and would
seek to broaden the exchange rate for the yuan to a more flexible
basket of currencies.
(AP, 1/26/05)(SFC, 1/27/05, p.C1)
2005 Jan 26, The 5th annual World
Social Forum opened in Porto Alegre, Brazil. Activists from some 4,000
non-governmental organizations and 112 countries gathered under the
theme “Another World Is Possible.”
(SFC, 1/29/05, p.A6)
2006 Jan 26, President Bush said
that Hamas cannot be a partner for Middle East peacemaking without
renouncing violence, and he reiterated that the United States will not
deal with Palestinian leaders who do not recognize Israel's right to
exist.
(AP, 1/26/06)
2006 Jan 26, The Arizona Supreme
Court ordered first-term Republican Rep. David Burnell Smith to leave
office at midnight for violating a state's public campaign financing
system during his 2004 primary race.
(AP, 1/27/06)
2006 Jan 26, California
legislators became the 1st in the US to designate secondhand tobacco
smoke as a toxic air contaminant.
(SFC, 1/27/06, p.B1)
2006 Jan 26, The US federal
deficit was projected to widen to $360 billion in fiscal 2006.
(WSJ, 1/27/06, p.A1)
2006 Jan 26, Confronted by Oprah
Winfrey on her syndicated talk show, author James Frey acknowledged
lies in his addiction memoir "A Million Little Pieces."
(AP, 1/26/07)
2006 Jan 26, In eastern
Afghanistan a rocket killed two police officers during a battle with
Taliban rebels in Paktika province.
(AP, 1/26/06)
2006 Jan 26, Britain said it will
send at least another 4,000 troops, four times its current deployment,
to Afghanistan in coming months as a NATO mission expands into a
dangerous region rife with Taliban and al-Qaida insurgents.
(AP, 1/26/06)
2006 Jan 26, British port and
ferries group P&O said it has accepted a takeover bid from
Singapore's PSA International worth 3.545 billion pounds (5.2 billion
euros, 6.4 billion dollars).
(AP, 1/26/06)
2006 Jan 26, Colombian authorities
led dozens of simultaneous raids across five cities in collaboration
with US officials and dismantled a false passport ring with links to
al-Qaida and Hamas militants.
(AP, 1/27/06)
2006 Jan 26, Iran's Civil Aviation
Organization said it has proposed resuming direct flights between Iran
and the United States after more than 25 years, despite political
hostilities between the two countries.
(AP, 1/26/06)
2006 Jan 26, In Iraq the US
military released five Iraqi women detainees, a move demanded by the
kidnappers of an American reporter to spare her life, but an official
said the release was coincidental.
(AP, 1/26/06)
2006 Jan 26, Mexico said it will
suspend its plan to distribute maps to migrants wanting to cross the US
border illegally. An official said the decision was made because the
maps would show anti-immigrant groups where migrants likely would
gather.
(AP, 1/26/06)
2006 Jan 26, Under request from
Pakistan Interpol said it has issued international notices seeking the
arrest of former PM Benazir Bhutto and her husband on corruption
charges. Both were currently visiting the US.
(AP, 1/26/06)
2006 Jan 26, In southwestern
Pakistan suspected tribal militants blew up a stretch of railway track,
severing train links with rest of country.
(AP, 1/26/06)
2006 Jan 26, Hamas leader Mahmoud
Zahar said he was ready to maintain a cease-fire with Israel forged in
February 2005 if Israel does likewise, but that the Islamic group will
respond to attacks. Hamas supporters raised their flag over the
Palestinian parliament and rushed into the building amid clashes with
Fatah loyalists.
(AP, 1/26/06)
2006 Jan 26, Russian military
prosecutors and top officers pledged a thorough inquiry into one of the
most brutal hazing incidents in the Russian military in years. Doctors
said the legs and genitals of Pvt. Andrei Sychev (18) were
amputated after a New Year's Eve incident at the Chelyabinsk Tank
Academy. On Sep 26 a Chelyabinsk military court found Junior Sergeant
Alexander Sivyakov guilty of abuse of power that led to severe bodily
harm, and sentenced him to four years in prison.
(AP, 1/26/06)(AP, 9/27/06)
2006 Jan 26, Saudi Arabia recalled
its ambassador in Denmark to protest a published series of caricatures
of the prophet Muhammad. Protests spread across the Muslim world for
weeks, and dozens of people were killed.
(AP, 1/26/07)
2006 Jan 26, Serbian police
arrested Jovo Djogo, the former chief of security for Bosnian Serb
wartime general Ratko Mladic, over suspicions he is helping the war
crimes fugitive avoid justice. Djogo was a close aide to the Bosnian
Serb political and military leadership from the start of the former
Yugoslav republic's 1992-1995 war.
(AFP, 1/28/06)
2006 Jan 26, A South Korean court
ordered Dow Chemical and Monsanto, US manufacturers of the defoliant
Agent Orange, to pay $62.5 million in medical compensation to 20,000
Korean veterans of the Vietnam War and their families.
(AP, 1/26/06)(WSJ, 1/27/06, p.A1)
2006 Jan 26, In Sri Lanka a rocket
propelled grenade shot at rebel vehicles in the east of the island
killed a rebel commander. Rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE)
said government forces fired the grenade a day after a deal to end a
three-year deadlock in talks.
(AFP, 1/27/06)
2007 Jan 26, The White House said
President Bush had authorized US forces in Iraq to take whatever
actions were necessary to counter Iranian agents deemed a threat to
American troops or the public at large. Defense Secretary Robert Gates
told a news conference that a congressional resolution opposing
President Bush's troop buildup in Iraq undercut US commanders and
emboldened the enemy.
(AP, 1/26/08)
2007 Jan 26, The United States
issued a formal rule banning exports of luxury items to North Korea,
including jet skis, I-pods, jewelry and fancy cars, in an effort to put
pressure on the communist leadership in Pyongyang.
(AP, 1/26/07)
2007 Jan 26, The Maine Legislature
overwhelmingly passed a resolution objecting to the Real ID Act of
2005. The federal law sets a national standard for driver's licenses
and requires states to link their record-keeping systems to national
databases. Within a week of Maine's action, lawmakers in Georgia,
Wyoming, Montana, New Mexico, Vermont and Washington state also balked
at Real ID. Idaho approved a similar bill on March 8.
(AP, 2/4/07)(Econ, 3/24/07, p.36)
2007 Jan 26, Intel said it will
begin using a new material on its next generation of chips making them
more energy efficient. IBM also announced changes in its chip-making
processes.
(SFC, 1/27/07, p.A1)
2007 Jan 26, It was reported that
Dr. Robert Bohannon, a Durham, North Carolina, molecular scientist, has
come up with a way to add caffeine to baked goods, without the bitter
taste of caffeine. Each piece of pastry is the equivalent of about two
cups of coffee.
(AP, 1/26/07)
2007 Jan 26, Scientists reported
that damage to one area of the brain was found to curb a smoker’s urge
to smoke.
(WSJ, 1/26/07, p.A1)
2007 Jan 26, A US Navy helicopter
crashed during a training mission in the ocean about 50 miles off the
southeastern coast of California. One sailor was reported dead and 3
missing.
(SSFC, 1/28/07, p.A2)
2007 Jan 26, In Afghanistan an
assailant gunned down lawmaker Maulavi Mohammed Islam Mohammadi. He was
the Taliban's governor of Bamiyan province and had overseen the
destruction of two Buddha statues carved into a cliff under the former
Taliban regime. In 2005 Mohammadi said: "It was foreigners like
Chechens and Arabs with the Taliban who made the decision. They were
crazy people. Even though I was governor, I had no power." A suicide
bomber blew himself up outside the offices of an aid group in the
capital of Helmand province, Lashkar Gah. A policeman and two civilians
were wounded.
(AP, 1/26/07)
2007 Jan 26, The last Islamic
militant group still fighting in the 16-year-old civil war against
Algeria's government said in an Internet statement posted that it had
changed its name to highlight its allegiance to the Al-Qaeda network.
The Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) said that it was
changing its name to the Al-Qaeda Organization in the Islamic Maghreb
(northwest Africa) on the orders of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
(AFP, 1/26/07)(Econ, 8/18/07, p.38)
2007 Jan 26, Argentina authorized
officials to reveal state secrets if called to testify in human rights
trials, a move intended to speed up prosecution of atrocities committed
during the country's 1976-1983 military dictatorship.
(AP, 1/27/07)
2007 Jan 26, British and American
television stations reported that British police have concluded that a
former Russian spy was poisoned by a lethal dose of radioactive
Polonium-210 added to his tea at a London hotel.
(AP, 1/26/07)
2007 Jan 26, Canada apologized to
software engineer Maher Arar, who was deported to Syria by US agents
after Canadian police mistakenly labeled him an Islamic extremist, and
paid him C$10.5 million ($8.9 million) in compensation.
(Reuters, 1/26/07)
2007 Jan 26, China’s state media
said police in northern China have detained three men for the deaths of
two women last year whose corpses were sold as "ghost brides" to
accompany dead men in the afterlife. The ghost bride tradition, called
"minghun" or afterlife marriage, is common in the Loess Plateau region
of northern China.
(AP, 1/26/07)
2007 Jan 26, In Germany Peter
Hartz, Volkswagen human resources executive, was fined $750,000 and
given a 2-year suspended sentence after he pleaded guilty to funding an
account that provided special travel perks for employees.
(www.wsws.org/articles/2007/jan2007/volk-j27.shtml)
2007 Jan 26, Inmates rioted at a
prison on the outskirts of Guatemala City, leaving at least one person
dead before 3,000 riot police and soldiers stormed the penitentiary.
(AP, 1/26/07)
2007 Jan 26, In western India a
four-story boarding school collapsed, killing at least 11 girls and
injuring 14. The school in Tichakpura, a village in Gujarat, served
tribespeople in the area.
(AP, 1/27/07)
2007 Jan 26, An Iranian opposition
group based in France claimed Iran has thousands of paid operatives
working in neighboring Iraq.
(AP, 1/26/07)
2007 Jan 26, US House Speaker
Nancy Pelosi and Rep. John Murtha, both vocal war critics, were in the
Iraqi capital at the head of a delegation of House members on a
fact-finding mission. A bomb hidden in a box holding pigeons tore
through a crowded pet and livestock market in Baghdad, killed 15 people
and wounded dozens. 38 bullet-riddled bodies were found in Baghdad. A
former member of Saddam Hussein's ousted Baath Party and an interpreter
who works for the US military were killed in two separate drive-by
shootings in Kut. The body of a well-known Shiite boxer was found in
central Baghdad near the dangerous street where he was kidnapped
several days ago. A US Marine was killed in fighting in Anbar province.
(AP, 1/26/07)(SFC, 1/27/07, p.A9)
2007 Jan 26, It was reported that
scientists in Japan have developed a new technique for detecting
explosives such as TNT in landmines or luggage using radio waves. The
scientists created a device called superconducting quantum interference
device (SQUID), which has a very sensitive magnetic field sensor that
detects nitrogen, an element found in many explosives, including TNT.
(Reuters, 1/26/07)
2007 Jan 26, In Kenya a regional
director for the aid agency CARE was killed.
(SSFC, 2/11/07, p.G2)
2007 Jan 26, Six federal police
officers involved in President Felipe Calderon's anti-drug operation
were being investigated for extortion after they were videotaped taking
money from a driver in the border city of Tijuana.
(AP, 1/27/07)
2007 Jan 26, Jim Anderton, New
Zealand’s agriculture minister, declared Feb. 15 "National Lamb Day.”
(AP, 1/26/07)
2007 Jan 26, Officials at Davos,
Switz., said Nigeria, Africa's largest oil producer, now depends 100
percent on imports of petroleum products due to the closure of its
three refineries and canalization of pipelines.
(AFP, 1/27/07)
2007 Jan 26, William James Fulton,
a Protestant extremist was convicted on 48 terror counts and sentenced
to 28 years in prison, following the longest criminal trial in Northern
Ireland's history. The court found him guilty of killing a grandmother
with a pipe bomb, wounding four police officers with a grenade,
possessing firearms used for other killings, smuggling drugs and a host
of other crimes.
(AP, 1/26/07)
2007 Jan 26, A Pakistani security
guard died when he blocked a suicide bomber outside the Marriott Hotel
in Islamabad. At least seven other people were wounded.
(AP, 1/26/07)(WSJ, 1/27/07, p.A1)
2007 Jan 26, Hamas gunmen stormed
the home of a militant from the rival Fatah movement, sparking a deadly
gunbattle and capping a day of factional violence across the Gaza Strip
that killed 16 people, including a 2-year-old boy.
(AP, 1/27/07)
2007 Jan 26, Martin Ngoga,
Rwanda’s chief prosecutor, said Rwanda will release another 8,000
prisoners convicted or awaiting trial over the central African nation's
1994 genocide, raising fears among survivors of a fresh round of
bloodletting.
(Reuters, 1/26/07)
2007 Jan 26, Singapore executed
two Africans on drug trafficking charges despite pleas for clemency by
Nigeria's president.
(AP, 1/26/07)
2007 Jan 26, In Somalia a spate of
gunfire and mortar attacks in Mogadishu killed five people overnight
and injured at least four others.
(AP, 1/26/07)
2007 Jan 26, In South Africa
historian David Rattray (48) was found shot dead at his home in the
eastern Kwa-Zulu Natal province. On Feb 5 a court handed Sethe
Nkwanyana (23) a 25-year prison term for armed robbery and the murder
of Rattray. Nkwanyana said in court that Banozi Ndlovu shot Rattray.
(AFP, 2/5/07)(Econ, 2/10/07, p.91)
2007 Jan 26, Darfur rebels said
they would refuse peace talks and would fight African Union
peacekeepers on the ground if Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir
became chairman of the pan-African body. In southern Sudan gunmen
killed an Indian peacekeeper and wounded 2 others.
(Reuters, 1/26/07)(AP, 1/27/07)
2007 Jan 26, The Swedish
government announced an agreement with suborbital space-tourism company
Virgin Galactic that Swedish officials believe will lead to midsummer
and mid-winter flights of Virgin's SpaceshipTwo vehicle to observe the
Aurora Borealis from Sweden.
(www.space.com/news/070128_sweden_virgin.html)
2007 Jan 26, Suspected Muslim
separatists ambushed police patrols and torched a school as PM Surayud
Chulanont returned to southern Thailand for a third attempt at ending
the bloody insurgency.
(AP, 1/27/07)
2007 Jan 26, The UN General
Assembly adopted a resolution condemning the denial of the Holocaust,
with only Iran rejecting it as an attempt by the United States and
Israel to exploit the atrocity for their political interests.
(AP, 1/26/07)
2007 Jan 26, Officials said Jody
Williams, the US anti-landmine campaigner and Nobel Peace Prize winner,
will lead a team of United Nations investigators to probe killings,
rapes, destruction of villages and mass flight in Darfur.
(AP, 1/26/07)
2008 Jan 26, Barack Obama routed
Hillary Rodham Clinton in the racially charged South Carolina primary,
regaining campaign momentum in the prelude to a Feb. 5 coast-to-coast
competition for more than 1,600 Democratic National Convention
delegates. Nearly complete returns showed Obama winning 55% of the
vote, Clinton gaining 27%. Edwards had 18% and won only his home county
of Oconee. The South Carolina Democratic Party broke its own turnout
record in the presidential primary.
(AP, 1/27/08)
2008 Jan 26, The film “Frozen
River,” directed by Courtney Hunt, won first prize at the Sundance Film
Festival in Park City, Utah. “Trouble the Water” won as best US
documentary film. “The Wackness” won the audience award.
(SSFC, 1/27/08, p.A2)
2008 Jan 26, Miss Michigan Kirsten
Haglund, a 19-year-old aspiring Broadway star, was crowned Miss America
2008 in a live show billed as the unveiling of the 87-year-old
pageant's new, hipper look.
(AP, 1/27/08)
2008 Jan 26, It was reported that
some 15,000 birds had died over the last month around Utah’s Great Salt
Lake due to avian cholera, caused by the bacterium Pasteurella
multocida. The disease was introduced into the wild during the 1940s
from US domestic poultry.
(SFC, 1/26/08, p.B6)
2008 Jan 26, Viktor Schreckengost
(b.1906), designer of numerous household products, died. He melded
Bauhaus functionalism and American sensibility.
(WSJ, 2/2/08, p.A12)
2008 Jan 26, In Afghanistan gunmen
kidnapped Cyd Mizell (49), a burqa-clad American aid worker, and her
driver, Abdul Hadi, while they were driving through a residential
section of Kandahar. She worked for the aid agency Asian Rural Life
Development Foundation.
(AP, 1/26/08)(AP, 1/27/08)
2008 Jan 26, According to the
Int’l. Crisis Group, a Brussels-based lobby, the CAR has dropped below
the level even of a failed state.
(Econ, 1/26/08, p.46)
2008 Jan 26, Egyptian riot police
and armored vehicles restricted Gaza motorists to a small border area
of Egypt, in the second attempt in two days to restore control over the
chaotic frontier breached by Hamas militants. At least 36 Egyptian
security personnel have been hospitalized, including some in critical
condition, due to border incidents with Palestinians.
(AP, 1/26/08)
2008 Jan 26, In Guyana gunmen
stormed into Lusignan, a coastal village, and shot dead 11 people with
5 children among the dead. Police and government officials suspected a
gang led by Rondell Rawlins, a former Guyanese soldier, is behind the
violence. Rawlins has accused security forces of kidnapping his
pregnant 18-year-old girlfriend days ago and police say he threatened
to carry out attacks until she is found.
(AP, 1/26/08)
2008 Jan 26, In Indonesia a small
cargo plane disappeared and apparently crashed during a short flight
over Borneo island, and all three people aboard were feared dead.
(AP, 1/26/08)
2008 Jan 26, A security chief for
Sunni tribesmen who rose up against al-Qaida in Iraq said the Jan 23
explosion in northern Iraq was spearheaded by foreign fighters under
the sponsorship of Seif al-Islam Gadhafi, son of the Libyan leader. A
former city official was stabbed to death along with his wife and
daughter in their home in a predominantly Shiite neighborhood in
Baghdad. An American soldier was killed by a bomb while on foot patrol
in Baghdad.
(AP, 1/26/08)(AP, 1/27/08)
2008 Jan 26, In Iraq a former city
official was stabbed to death along with his wife and daughter in their
home in a predominantly Shiite neighborhood in northeastern Baghdad.
Elsewhere in the capital, an American soldiers was killed by a bomb
while on foot patrol.
(AP, 1/27/08)
2008 Jan 26, In northern Jordan a
tour bus collided with a water tanker, killing at least 21 people with
33 Injured.
(AP, 1/27/08)
2008 Jan 26, George Habash (81),
former PLO leader, died in Jordan. His radical PLO faction gained
notoriety after the simultaneous hijackings of four Western airliners
in 1970 and the seizure of an Air France flight to Entebbe, Uganda.
(AP, 1/26/08)
2008 Jan 26, In Kenya sporadic
gunshots rang in Nakuru as those forced from their homes by
postelection violence threatened revenge. Police took 16 charred bodies
to a mortuary, where onlookers sobbed.
(AP, 1/26/08)
2008 Jan 26, Malaysian police
detained 53 activists in a crackdown on a planned opposition-led
protest over inflation ahead of national elections expected within
weeks.
(AP, 1/26/08)
2008 Jan 26, Russian riot police
fired warning shots into the air and beat demonstrators who tried to
rally against alleged vote-rigging in the Muslim region of Ingushetia.
(AP, 1/26/08)
2008 Jan 26, Sri Lankan air force
jets bombed the Tamil Tiger rebels' naval headquarters while the
group's sea wing leaders were holding a meeting there.
(AP, 1/26/08)
2008 Jan 26, In western Thailand a
bus packed with passengers heading to a funeral tumbled down a
mountain, killing nine people and injuring 26 others.
(AP, 1/26/08)
2008 Jan 26, Venezuelan President
Hugo Chavez and allies Nicaragua, Bolivia and Cuba, members of the
Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA), launched a regional
development bank intended to strengthen their alliance and promote
independence from US-backed lenders like the World Bank as Chavez
hosted a summit with ALBA leaders.
(AP, 1/26/08)
2009 Jan 26, President Barack
Obama said the nation can't afford "distractions" or "delays" when it
comes to the economic stimulus plan working its way through Congress.
He also ordered the government to re-examine whether California and
other states should be allowed to have tougher auto emission standards,
a clean break from Bush administration policy.
(AP, 1/26/09)
2009 Jan 26, The US Senate voted
60-34 to confirm Timothy Geithner (b.1961) as Treasury secretary.
(WSJ, 1/27/09, p.A1)
2009 Jan 26, The US Supreme Court
ruled unanimously that managers cannot retaliate against employees whop
cooperate with discrimination probes.
(WSJ, 1/27/09, p.A1)
2009 Jan 26, Fannie Mae estimated
that it would need a capital infusion of 11-16 billion dollars from the
US Treasury to cover losses related to home mortgage defaults.
(WSJ, 1/27/09, p.A4)
2009 Jan 26, Illinois Gov. Rod
Blagojevich skipped the start of his impeachment trial preferring to
make his case on national TV.
(WSJ, 1/27/09, p.A3)
2009 Jan 26, Two Pennsylvania
judges were charged with taking millions of dollars in kickbacks to
send teenagers to two privately run youth detention centers.
Prosecutors later said Luzerne County Judges Mark Ciavarella (58) and
Michael Conahan (56) took $2.6 million in payoffs to put juvenile
offenders in lockups run by PA Child Care LLC and a sister company,
Western PA Child Care LLC.
(AP, 2/11/09)
2009 Jan 26, Nicholas Cosmo,
founder of Agape World Inc., was arrested for running a Ponzi scheme
that bilked investors of an estimated $370 million. His Long Island,
NY, firm promised profits of 48-80% a year.
(WSJ, 1/28/09,
p.A12)(www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1874283,00.html)
2009 Jan 26, Caterpillar Inc
announced it would cut nearly 20,000 jobs and warned of a tough year
ahead as a downturn that began in the United States metastasized into a
full-blown global recession, gutting orders for earth-moving equipment.
At least 1,500 of the lost jobs were in greater Peoria, Ill.
(Reuters, 1/26/09)(Econ, 2/21/09, p.37)
2009 Jan 26, Halliburton said is
has agreed to pay $559 million to the US to settle charges that one of
its former units bribed Nigerian officials during the construction of a
gas plant.
(WSJ, 1/27/09, p.B3)
2009 Jan 26, Home Depot Inc.
announced plans to eliminate 7,000 jobs while closing four dozen stores
under its smaller home improvement brands as the recession continues to
batter the nation's housing market. Its shares climbed more than 5
percent in morning trading.
(AP, 1/26/09)
2009 Jan 26, Pfizer Inc. said it
is buying rival drug maker Wyeth in a $68 billion deal that will
increase its revenue by 50%. At the same time Pfizer announced cost
cuts that include slashing more than 8,000 jobs as it prepares for an
expected revenue crash when its cholesterol drug Lipitor loses patent
protection in November 2011. Pfizer also said it has agreed to pay $2.3
billion to settle a federal investigation into its alleged off-label
marketing of the now withdrawn painkiller Bextra.
(AP, 1/26/09)(WSJ, 1/27/09, p.B2)
2009 Jan 26, In Bellflower,
California, Nadya Suleman (33) gave birth to eight babies, only the
second time in history octuplets have survived more than a few hours.
The woman already had six other children and never expected to have
eight more when she took fertility treatment. Her mother later said the
woman had conceived all 14 of her children through in vitro
fertilization, is not married and has been obsessed with having
children since she was a teenager.
(AP, 1/27/09)(AP, 1/30/09)(AP, 1/31/09)(SFC,
1/31/09, p.A2)
2009 Jan 26, Argentina's Pres.
Cristina Fernandez declared an agricultural emergency in the nation's
breadbasket provinces, responding to a key demand by powerful farm
organizations amid the worst drought in decades.
(AP, 1/27/09)
2009 Jan 26, A Bahamas paramedic
was charged in an alleged scheme to extort $25 million from John
Travolta after his chronically ill son died of a seizure at the
family's vacation home.
(AP, 1/27/09)
2009 Jan 26, China greeted the
arrival of the Year of the Ox with fireworks and celebrations, bidding
farewell to a tumultuous 2008 marked by a massive earthquake, the
Olympics, and a global economic crisis.
(AP, 1/26/09)
2009 Jan 26, China’s state media
reported that an 18-year-old man has died from bird flu in southern
China, the fifth human death from the virus in the country this year.
(AP, 1/26/09)
2009 Jan 26, The armies of Congo
and Rwanda, battling together against Rwandan Hutu militiamen in
eastern Congo, clashed with fighters trying to retake a village and
killed 4 of them.
(AP, 1/27/09)
2009 Jan 26, It was reported that
recent analysis of vials of treated wastewater taken from a plant in
Patancheru, where about 90 Indian drug factories dump their residues,
enough of a single, powerful antibiotic was being spewed into one
stream each day to treat every person in a city of 90,000.
(AP, 1/26/09)
2009 Jan 26, Iran’s state radio
reported that several members of its border security forces were killed
in an ambush near the Pakistani border.
(AP, 1/26/09)
2009 Jan 26, In the Netherlands
the first-ever trial of the International Criminal Court began at The
Hague with Thomas Lubanga, a Congolese militia commander, denying he
committed war crimes by recruiting hundreds of child soldiers to kill
and rape.
(AP, 1/26/09)
2009 Jan 26, European Union
leaders said they were willing to take in prisoners being released from
the US detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, but stressed that American
authorities must show ex-inmates pose no security threat before they
can be resettled.
(AP, 1/26/09)
2009 Jan 26, The European Union
decided to remove an Iranian opposition group from the EU's terror list
and lift the restrictions on its funds, a move likely to further damage
relations strained over Tehran's nuclear program.
(AP, 1/26/09)
2009 Jan 26, European Union
nations announced the addition of 27 Zimbabwean officials and 36
companies to the EU's visa and assets freeze blacklist to pressure
President Robert Mugabe to share power with Zimbabwe's opposition.
(AP, 1/26/09)(Econ, 1/31/09, p.52)
2009 Jan 26, Iceland's coalition
government collapsed, leaving the island nation in political turmoil
amid a financial crisis that has pummeled its economy and required an
international bailout to keep the country afloat.
(AP, 1/26/09)
2009 Jan 26, In northern Iraq 2 US
helicopters crashed in Tamim province, killing four American troops, in
the deadliest single incident for US forces in more than four months.
Enemy fire was later reported as the cause of the collision.
(AP, 1/26/09)(WSJ, 2/28/09, p.A1)
2009 Jan 26, In Madagascar
thousands of demonstrators demanding a new government in Madagascar
took to the streets and set the country's state TV complex on fire to
protest the apparent shutdown of the opposition's radio station.
(AP, 1/26/09)
2009 Jan 26, Norway announced a 20
billion kroner ($2.89 billion) stimulus package to boost growth and
employment.
(WSJ, 1/27/09, p.A8)
2009 Jan 26, In northwest Pakistan
a bomb rigged to a bicycle exploded on a major road in Dera Ismail
Khan, killing at least five people and wounding 20 in the latest attack
to rattle the volatile region. In the southwest gunmen shot dead the
leader of a small Shiite political party in Quetta, triggering violent
protests. Several hundred people torched vehicles and a bank. Elsewhere
in the northwest a man whom militants accused of spying for America was
found shot dead in Datta Khel village in North Waziristan.
(AP, 1/26/09)
2009 Jan 26, Southern African
leaders opened fresh talks in Pretoria to end Zimbabwe's political
crisis amid a new threat by President Robert Mugabe to form a
government excluding his arch rival from power.
(AFP, 1/26/09)
2009 Jan 26, Spain's Prado Museum
named Asensio Julia as the workshop assistant believed mostly likely to
have painted "Colossus" (1808-1912), a work that was once attributed to
Francisco de Goya y Lucientes.
(AP,
1/26/09)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Colossus)
2009 Jan 26, A UN spokesman in
Colombo said dozens of civilians have been killed in Sri Lanka's
embattled north during ongoing heavy fighting between government troops
and Tamil rebels. At least 10 civilians were killed today inside an
area declared as a "safety zone." Over the weekend, dozens of people
were killed or wounded.
(AFP, 1/26/09)
2009 Jan 26, Sudanese warplanes
bombed Darfur rebel positions near the key town of El-Fasher ahead of
an expected ground offensive.
(AFP, 1/26/09)
2009 Jan 26, The Economist
magazine said this week's edition has not been distributed in Thailand
because of local objections to an article about the royal family, the
second disruption in two months.
(AP, 1/26/09)
2009 Jan 26, The Thai navy
detained a boat filled with 78 illegal Rohingya migrants, many of whom
had lacerations and burns they said were inflicted by Myanmar soldiers.
(AP, 1/27/09)
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