Today in History - January 28
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28CE Jan 28, The
Roman Emperor Nerva named Trajan, an army general, as his successor.
(HN, 1/28/99)
814 Jan 28, Charlemagne (71),
German emperor, Holy Roman Emperor (800-814), died. In 1968 Jacques
Boussard authored “The Civilisation of Charlemagne.” In 2004 Alessandro
Barbero authored “Charlemagne: Father of a Continent.”
(www.tiscali.co.uk)(Econ, 1/3/04, p.39)(Econ,
9/18/04, p.87)
1077 Jan 28, Pope Gregory VII
pardoned German emperor Henry IV at Canossa in northern Italy. Henry
had insisted that he reserved the right to "invest" bishops and other
clergymen, despite the papal decree, but became penitent when faced
with permanent excommunication.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walk_to_Canossa)(Econ,
5/9/09, p.88)
1457 Jan 28, Henry Tudor (later
Henry VII), 1st Tudor king of England (1485-1509), was born in Pembroke
Castle, Wales.
(www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/henry_vii_king.shtml)
1495 Jan 28, Pope Alexander VI
gave his son Cesare Borgia as hostage to Charles VIII of France.
(MC, 1/28/02)
1547 Jan 28, England's King Henry
VIII (55) died; his sixth and last wife was Catherine Parr. He was
succeeded by his 9-year-old son, Edward VI. In 1996 Alison Weir
authored “The Children of Henry VIII.”
(V.D.-H.K.p.162)(AP, 1/28/98)(HN, 1/28/99)(ON, 5/00,
p.5)
1561 Jan 28, The Edict of Orleans
suspended the persecution of French Huguenots.
(MC, 1/28/02)
1573 Jan 28, In Warsaw a
confederation act acknowledged freedom of religion in Lithuania and
Poland.
(LHC, 1/28/03)
1578 Jan 28, Cornelis Haga, Dutch
lawyer, ambassador to Constantinople (1611-39), was born.
(MC, 1/28/02)
1588 Jan 28, King Sigismund Vaza
upheld the 3rd Lithuanian Statute that until 1795 stood as the
fundamental code of law. In practice it was active until 1840.
(LHC, 1/28/03)
1596 Jan 28, English navigator Sir
Francis Drake (50) died off the coast of Panama of a fever; he was
buried at sea.
(HT, 4/97, p.30)(AP, 1/28/98)
1608 Jan 28, Giovanni Alfonso
Borelli, mathematician, astronomer, was born in Naples.
(MC, 1/28/02)
1613 Jan 28, Thomas Bodley
(b.1545), English diplomatist and scholar, died in London. He founded
the Bodleian Library at Oxford.
(www.nndb.com/people/859/000094577/)
1613 Jan 28, Galileo may have
unknowingly viewed the undiscovered planet Neptune.
(MC, 1/28/02)
1693 Jan 28, Anna "Ivanovna",
Tsarina of Russia, was born. [see Feb 7]
(HN, 1/28/99)
1706 Jan 28, John Baskerville,
English typographer and inventor of the "hot-pressing" method of
printing. He also manufactured lacquered ware.
(HN, 1/28/00)(WUD, 1994 p.124)
1725 Jan 28, Peter I "the Great"
Romanov (52), Czar of Russia (1682-1725), died. [see Feb 8]
(MC, 1/28/02)
1757 Jan 28, Antonio Bartolomeo
Bruni, composer, was born.
(MC, 1/28/02)
1757 Jan 28, Ahmed Shah, the first
King of Afghanistan, occupied Delhi and annexed the Punjab.
(HN, 1/28/99)
1775 Jan 28, Peter the Great, Czar
of Russia, was born.
(HN, 1/28/99)
1792 Jan 28, Rebellious slaves in
Santo Domingo launched an attack on the city of Cap.
(HN, 1/28/99)
1801 Jan 28, Francis Barber (ca.
1735 – 1801), the Jamaican manservant of Samuel Johnson (1752-1784),
died at the Staffordshire General Infirmary.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Barber)(http://tinyurl.com/2njdfy)
1807 Jan 28, London's Pall Mall
was 1st street lit by gaslight.
(MC, 1/28/02)
1825 Jan 28, George Edward Pickett
(d.1875), Major General in the Confederate Army, was born. When blame
was being sought for why his ill-fated charge was the final action of
the Battle of Gettysburg, and why the Confederacy did not win the
three-day battle, George Pickett suggested that "The Union Army might
have had something to do with it." Pickett had been sponsored for West
Point by the Illinois congressman, Abraham Lincoln.
(MC, 1/28/02)
1829 Jan 28, In Scotland William
Burke was hanged for murder following a scandal in which he was found
to have provided extra-fresh corpses for anatomy schools in Edinburgh.
His partner William Hare had turned king’s witness. The scandal led to
the 1832 Anatomy Act.
(Econ, 11/15/08,
p.99)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Burke)
1830 Jan 28, Daniel Auber's opera
"Fra Diavolo," premiered in Paris.
(MC, 1/28/02)
1833 Jan 28, Charles George
"Chinese" Gordon, general (China, Khartoum), was born in London.
(MC, 1/28/02)
1839 Jan 28, William Henry Fox
Talbot (1800-1877), English inventor, presented his discoveries and
methods of photography to the Royal Society of London. His callotype, a
negative to positive process, allowed multiple reproductions of a
single image for the 1st time. Talbot suggested a daguerreotype camera
with extra parts to hold mercury.
(ON, 4/00, p.10)(SFC, 6/12/96, Z1 p.5)(SFC,
12/26/02, p.E9)
1851 Jan 28, Northwestern
University, near Chicago, was chartered.
(MC, 1/28/02)
1853 Jan 28, Cuban revolutionary
Jose Marti was born in Havana.
(AP, 1/28/98)
1858 Jan 28, John Brown organized
a plan to raid the Arsenal at Harper's Ferry. [see Oct 16, 1859]
(MC, 1/28/02)(ON, 7/02, p.7)
1871 Jan 28, France, under a
provisional republican government, continued the war against Germany,
but was forced to surrender in the Franco-Prussian War. Surrounded by
Prussian troops and suffering from famine, the French army in Paris
surrendered. During the siege, balloons were used to keep contact with
the outside world.
(V.D.-H.K.p.260)(AP, 1/28/98)(HN, 1/28/99)
1878 Jan 28, The first daily
college newspaper, Yale News (now Yale Daily News), began publication
in New Haven, Conn.
(AP, 1/28/08)
1878 Jan 28, The 1st telephone
exchange was established at New Haven, Conn.
(AP, 1/28/04)
1880 Jan 28, Henry Casebolt, San
Francisco inventor of the cable car grip, sold his interest in the
Sutter Street Railway.
(www.cable-car-guy.com/html/ccwho.html#hxc)
1884 Jan 28, Jean Felix Piccard,
scientist, explorer (balloonist), was born in Switzerland.
(MC, 1/28/02)
1886 Jan 28, Artur Rubinstein,
pianist, was born in Lodz, Poland.
(MC, 1/28/02)
1901 Jan 28, Byron Bancroft
Johnson announced that the American League would play the 1901 baseball
season as a major league and would not renew its membership in the
National Agreement. The new league would include Baltimore and
Washington, DC, recently abandoned by the National League. The league
would also invade 4 cities where National League teams existed: Boston,
Cleveland, Detroit and Philadelphia. The 8 charter teams included: the
Baltimore Orioles, Boston Americans, Chicago White Stockings, Cleveland
Blues, Detroit Tigers, Milwaukee Brewers, Philadelphia Athletics, and
Washington Senators.
(ON, 6/09,
p.11)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_League)
1902 Jan 28, The Carnegie
Institute was established in Washington, D.C.
(AP, 1/28/98)
1909 Jan 28, The United States
ended direct control over Cuba.
(AP, 1/28/98)
1912 Jan 28, Jackson Pollock
(d.1956), "Jack the Dripper", expressionist painter (Lavender Mist),
was born in Cody, Wyoming. Leader of the abstract expressionist school
of art. He filled 2 sketchbooks between 1937-1939 and another from
1938-1941.
(AHD, 1971, p.1015)(WSJ, 11/5/97, p.A20)(MC, 1/28/02)
1914 Jan 28, Beverly Hills, Ca,
was incorporated.
(MC, 1/28/02)
1915 Jan 28, Pres. Wilson refused
to prohibit the immigration of illiterates.
(MC, 1/28/02)
1915 Jan 28, The U.S. Coast Guard
was founded by an Act of Congress to fight contraband trade and aid
distressed vessels at sea.
(AP, 1/28/98)(HN, 1/28/99)
1915 Jan 28, 1st US ship, the
William P. Frye, was lost in WW I while carrying wheat to UK.
(MC, 1/28/02)
1915 Jan 28, The German navy
attacked the U.S. freighter William P. Frye, loaded with wheat for
Britain.
(HN, 1/28/99)
1916 Jan 28, Louis D. Brandeis, a
private practice attorney and leader in the US Zionist movement, was
appointed by President Wilson to the Supreme Court, becoming its first
Jewish member. He served until 1939.
(AP, 1/28/98)(SFC, 10/6/05, p.A15)
1917 Jan 28, US forces were
recalled from Mexico after nearly eleven months of fruitless searching
for Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa, accused of leading a bloody
raid against Columbus, New Mexico.
(MC, 1/28/02)
1918 Jan 28, Lieutenant Colonel
John McCrae (b.1872), Canadian MD and author of the poem Flanders Field
(1915), died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McCrae)
1918 Jan 28, Leon Trotsky became
leader of the Russian Communists.
(MC, 1/28/02)
1921 Jan 28, Albert Einstein
startled Berlin by suggesting the possibility of measuring the universe.
(HN, 1/28/99)
1922 Jan 28, The American Pro
Football Association was renamed "National Football League."
(MC, 1/28/02)
1923 Jan 28, The 1st "National
Socialist German Workers Party" (NSDAP, aka NAZI) formed in Munich.
(MC, 1/28/02)
1929 Jan 28, Claus Oldenburg, US
pop artist (Alphabet/Good Humor), was born in Stockholm, Sweden. He
worked in Chicago as a newspaper reporter and then went to New York in
1956. He opened his “Store” in 1961, which was a storefront stocked
with painted plaster replicas of food, clothing, and inexpensive
household goods.
(WSJ, 10/11/95, p. A-12)(MC, 1/28/02)
1932 Jan 28, The Japanese attacked
Shanghai, China, and declared martial law.
(HN, 1/28/99)
1933 Jan 28, Susan Sontag,
American essayist and novelist, was born. Her works included "The Style
of Radical Will" and "Illness as a Metaphor."
(HN, 1/28/99)
1934 Jan 28, The 1st US rope ski
tow began operation at Woodstock, Vermont.
(MC, 1/28/02)
1936 Jan 28, Alan Alda, [Alphonso
D'Abruzzo], actor (Hawkeye Pierce-M*A*S*H), was born in NYC.
(MC, 1/28/02)
1936 Jan 28, A fellow prison
inmate slashed infamous kidnapper Richard Loeb to death.
(HN, 1/28/99)
1941 Jan 28, French General
Charles DeGaulle's Free French forces sacked south Libya oasis.
(HN, 1/28/99)
1944 Jan 28, Leonard Bernstein's
"Jeremiah," premiered in Pittsburgh.
(MC, 1/28/02)
1944 Jan 28, Matthew Henson
received a joint medal from Congress as co-discoverer of the North
Pole.
(HN, 1/28/99)
1944 Jan 28, 683 British bombers
attacked Berlin.
(MC, 1/28/02)
1944 Jan 28, U-271 & U-571
sank off Ireland.
(MC, 1/28/02)
1945 Jan 28, During World War II,
Allied supplies began reaching China over the newly reopened Burma
Road.
(AP, 1/28/98)
1945 Jan 28, Chiang Kai-shek
renamed the Ledo-Burma Road the Stillwell Road, in honor of General
Joseph Stillwell.
(HN, 1/28/99)
1945 Jan 28, The Red Army captured
Klaipeda, the last German-held Lithuanian city.
(LHC, 1/28/03)
1946 Jan 28, Helene Schjerfbeck
(b.1862), Finnish painter, died. Her work included a 5 painting series
of self-portraits that represented herself at various ages.
(Econ, 11/24/07,
p.91)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helene_Schjerfbeck)
1948 Jan 28, Charles Taylor, later
president of Liberia (1997-2003), was born in Arthington, Liberia, into
a family descended from freed American slaves.
(AP, 7/14/09)
1949 Jan 28, NY Giants signed
their 1st black players, Monte Irvin & Ford Smith.
(MC, 1/28/02)
1953 Jan 28, J. Fred Muggs (the
chimp) joined NBC's "Today Show."
(MC, 1/28/02)
1955 Jan 28, The U.S. Congress
passed a bill allowing mobilization of troops if China should attack
Taiwan.
(HN, 1/28/99)
1956 Jan 28, Elvis Presley
recorded his television debut for “Stage Show” hosted by Tommy and
Jimmy Dorsey.”
(SFC, 12/27/04,
p.C10)(www.elvisconcerts.com/liv1956.htm)
1956 Jan 28, Pres. Eisenhower
rejected a proposal for a friendship pact from Soviet Premier Bulganin.
(EWH, 1968, p.1210)
1956 Jan 28, Iva Toguri D'Aquino
(1916-2006), a Japanese-American suspected of being wartime radio
propagandist "Tokyo Rose," was released from prison at Alderson, W.
Virginia. In 1949 she had been tried in San Francisco and convicted for
having spoken “into a microphone concerning the loss of ships.” She was
pardoned in 1977 by President Ford.
(SFC, 9/28/06, p.A18)(AH, 10/02, p.28)
1956 Jan 28-1956 Jan 29, Henry
Louis Mencken (b. Sep 11-12, 1880), author, critic and journalist, died
in his sleep in Baltimore. H.L. Mencken’s work included "Smart Set,"
"American Mercury," "In Defense of Women," "Treatise on the Gods," and
"A Mencken Chrestomathy." Mencken won fame as a journalist with the
Baltimore Morning Herald and Baltimore Sun, as editor of The American
Mercury magazine and as a literary critic. In 2002 Terry Teachout
authored "The Skeptic: A Life of H.L. Mencken." In 2005 Marion
Elizabeth Rodgers authored “Mencken: The American Iconoclast.”
(HNQ, 6/20/98)(SSFC, 11/3/02,
p.M1)(www.policyreview.org/DEC02/munson.html)
1958 Jan 28, Roy Campanella,
catcher for the Brooklyn Dodgers, was paralyzed in a car crash. In 1959
Topps Chewing Gum Company issued a baseball card in his honor featuring
Campanella in a wheelchair with the phrase “Symbol of Courage.”
(AH, 6/03, p.56)(http://tinyurl.com/ry7spx)
1959 Jan 28, Joseph Sprinzak (73),
Speaker of Israel Knesset (1949-59), died.
(MC, 1/28/02)
1962 Jan 28, Elliot Joslin
(b.1869), American pioneering diabetes researcher, died. He had argued
that controlling the level of glucose in a person’s bloodstream was the
key to managing type 2 diabetes.
(www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/pagerender.fcgi?artid=1848826&pageindex=1)
1963 Jan 28, Jean Felix Piccard,
Swiss explorer, died on his 79th birthday.
(MC, 1/28/02)
1964 Jan 28, The Soviets downed a
U.S. jet over East Germany killing three.
(HN, 1/28/99)
1970 Jan 28, Israeli fighter jets
attacked the suburbs of Cairo.
(HN, 1/28/99)
1973 Jan 28, A cease-fire
officially went into effect in the Vietnam War. The Vietnam War
resulted in the death of 58,153 (58,167) Americans, 1.1 million North
Vietnamese and Southern resistance fighters (Viet Cong), and 2 million
civilians. In 2001 Gerald Nicosia authored "Home to War: A History of
the Vietnam Veteran’s Movement."
(AP, 1/28/04)(WSJ, 11/30/95, p.A-23)(SFEM, 11/10/96,
p.12)(SSFC, 6/3/01, DB p.68)
1977 Jan 28, A heavy blizzard
began in Eastern Canada and the US. It claimed as many as 100 lives.
This was the only blizzard declared a natural and national disaster by
the American and Canadian governments. In 1978 Erno Rossi authored
“White Death: Blizzard of ’77.”
(www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-gRb_MuUgg)(www.whitedeath.com/)
1978 Jan 28, Fire swept through
the historic downtown Coates House hotel in Kansas City, Mo., killing
20 people.
(AP, 1/28/08)
1979 Jan 28, "The Wiz" closed at
Majestic Theater in NYC after 1672 performances.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wiz)
1980 Jan 28, SF Mayor Diane
Feinstein signed a Friendship City agreement with Zhao Xingzhi, vice
mayor of Shanghai. It was the 1st of its kind between an American city
and the PRC.
(SFC, 1/28/05, p.F7)
1980 Jan 28, Six U.S. diplomats
who had avoided being taken hostage at their embassy in Tehran flew out
of Iran with the help of Canadian diplomats.
(AP, 1/28/98)
1981 Jan 28, William J. Casey
(1913-1987) became the 13th director of CIA replacing Adm. Stansfield
Turner.
(www.espionageinfo.com/Cou-De/DCI-Director-of-the-Central-Intelligence-Agency.html)
1982 Jan 28, Italian
anti-terrorism forces rescued U.S. Brigadier General James L. Dozier,
42 days after he had been kidnapped by the Red Brigades.
(AP, 1/28/98)
1985 Jan 28, The song "We are the
World" was recorded in Hollywood, Ca.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Are_the_World)
1986 Jan 28, Just 73 seconds into
its 10th launch, Americans watched in horror as the space shuttle
Challenger (STS-51L) exploded in midair, killing its crew of seven:
Navy pilot Michael J. Smith, Commander Francis Scobee and mission
specialist Ronald McNair, mission specialist Ellison Onizuka, first
teacher in space Christa McAuliffe, payload specialist Gregory Jarvis
and mission specialist Judith Resnik. President Ronald Reagan spoke to
the nation from the Oval Office that afternoon, explaining the tragedy
to the nation's schoolchildren: "The future doesn't belong to the
fainthearted. It belongs to the brave.... The crew of the space shuttle
Challenger honored us by the manner in which they lived their lives. We
will never forget them nor the last time we saw them this morning as
they prepared for their journey and waved good-bye and 'slipped the
surly bonds of earth to touch the face of God.'" Space shuttle flights
were suspended until 1988. An independent U.S. commission blamed the
disaster on unusually cold temperatures that morning and the failure of
the O-rings, a set of gaskets in the rocket boosters. Rocco Petrone
(1926-2006), former Apollo program manager and Rockwell chief shuttle
engineer, had cautioned against the launch fearing that low
temperatures might have damaged the shuttle’s thermal protection tiles.
(SFC, 12/18/96, p.A3)(AP, 1/28/98)(HNPD,
1/28/00)(SFC, 9/1/06, p.B8)
1988 Jan 28, A 13-day standoff in
Marion, Utah, between police and a polygamist clan ended in gunfire
that killed a state corrections officer and seriously wounded the
group's leader, Addam Swapp.
(AP, 1/28/98)
1988 Jan 28, Public Service of New
Hampshire filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. This was the first American
utility since the Depression to go bankrupt, mostly because of
unexpected costs of a nuclear plant.
(www.nu.com/aboutnu/psnh.asp)(Econ, 6/2/07, SR p.22)
1988 Jan 28, The Supreme Court of
Canada struck down the nation's restrictive abortion law.
(AP, 1/28/98)
1988 Jan 28, Nicaragua's leftist
government and Contra rebels began their first face-to-face peace
talks, meeting in San Jose, Costa Rica.
(AP, 1/28/98)
1989 Jan 28, In Antarctica an
Argentine navy ship, the Bahia Paraiso, was wrecked on rocks next to
DeLaca Island, near the US Palmer Station scientific base. It was still
leaking diesel fuel in 1996 and had decimated imperial cormorant and
kelp gull bird population.
(SFC, 1/4/97,
p.A19)(www.antarcticmarc.com/bahia.html)
1989 Jan 28, In Hungary official
Imre Pozsgay described the 1956 Hungarian Revolution as a popular
uprising, a startling contradiction of the official Communist view that
the revolt was a counter-revolution.
(AP, 1/28/99)
1990 Jan 28, The San Francisco
49ers routed the Denver Broncos, 55-10, in the 24th Super Bowl.
(AP, 1/28/00)
1991 Jan 28, Secretary of State
James A. Baker the Third and Soviet Foreign Minister Alexander A.
Bessmertnykh announced in Washington DC that a planned February
superpower summit in Moscow had been postponed.
(AP, 1/28/01)
1991 Jan 28, The US military
reported that more than 60 Iraqi fighter-bombers had taken refuge in
Iran, where they were impounded by the Iranian government.
(AP, 1/28/01)
1991 Jan 28, Harold "Red" Grange
(b.1903), three-time All-American, died. He is credited with
establishing professional football as a popular spectator sport. In
2009 Lars Anderson authored “Red Grange and the Barnstorming Tour That
Launched the NFL.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Grange)(SSFC,
1/3/10, Books p.F4)
1992 Jan 28, President George H.W.
Bush, in his State of the Union address, proposed tax breaks and
business incentives to revive the economy, and announced dramatic cuts
in the U.S. nuclear arsenal.
(AP, 1/28/02)
1992 Jan 28, A multinational
Middle East peace conference opened in Moscow.
(AP, 1/28/02)
1993 Jan 28, Funeral services were
held in Washington for former Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall.
(AP, 1/28/98)
1993 Jan 28, The Israeli Supreme
Court unanimously upheld the deportations of 400 Palestinians from the
occupied territories to Lebanon.
(AP, 1/28/98)
1994 Jan 28, In Los Angeles,
Superior Court Judge Stanley Weisberg declared a mistrial in the case
of Lyle Menendez, just over two weeks after a mistrial was declared in
the case of Lyle's brother Erik; both juries deadlocked over whether
the brothers were guilty of murder in the shooting deaths of their
wealthy parents. They were later retried, convicted of murder and
sentenced to life in prison without parole.
(AP, 1/28/99)
1994 Jan 28, Helicopter crashed
into an office building in San Jose, Calif. 1 person was killed.
(http://tinyurl.com/8c32g)
1995 Jan 28, President Clinton was
host to a 5 1/2-hour "work session" of governors, legislators and local
officials, both Democrats and Republicans, to discuss welfare reform.
(AP, 1/28/00)
1996 Jan 28, In Super Bowl XXX the
Dallas Cowboys captured their third Super Bowl victory in four years,
beating the Pittsburgh Steelers 27-to-17.
(AP, 1/28/01)
1996 Jan 28, In California Gunner
Lindberg, head of the supremacist gang Insane Criminal Posse, murdered
Thien Minh Ly (24) at Tustin high school. It was a racially motivated
attack where he stabbed Ly 50 times, slashed his throat and pounded his
head. Lindberg was convicted in 1997 and sentenced to death.
(SFC,12/13/97, p.A20)
1996 Jan 28, Joseph Brodsky
(b.1940), Russian-born poet, died at age 55. He was a winner of the
Nobel Prize in 1987. In 2000 his “Collected Poems in English” was
published.
(WSJ, 1/29/96, p. A-1)(SFEC, 10/8/00, BR p.5)
1997 Jan 28, O.J. Simpson's fate
was placed in the hands of a civil court jury that was charged with
deciding whether Simpson should be held liable for the slayings of
Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman. The jury found that Simpson
was liable, and ordered him to pay $33.5 million.
(AP, 1/28/98)
1997 Jan 28, In Algeria union
leader Abdelhak Benhamouda was killed by an assassin. Separately a bomb
in the marketplace at Blida killed 15 people.
(USAT, 1/29/97, p.8A)
1997 Jan 28, In Chechnya Aslan
Maskhadov claim victory in the elections.
(SFC, 1/29/97, p.A6)
1997 Jan 28, PepsiCo Inc. said it
was ending business in Myanmar due to human rights problems. It joined
Eddie Bauer, Levi Strauss and Liz Claiborne.
(USAT, 1/29/97, p.8A)
1997 Jan 28, Five former police
officers in South Africa admitted to killing anti-apartheid activist
Stephen Biko, who died in police custody in 1977. His death had been
officially listed as an accident.
(MC, 1/28/02)
1997 Jan 28, In Sudan the
government faced a new rebel offensive.
(SFC, 1/28/97, p.A8)
1998 Jan 28, The day after his
State of the Union address, President Clinton barnstormed in the
nation's heartland, where he was warmly received; accompanying him was
Vice President Al Gore, who urged Americans to "join me in supporting
him and standing by his side."
(AP, 1/28/99)
1998 Jan 28, Michelangelo's
"Christ & the Woman of Samaria" sold for $7.4 million.
(MC, 1/28/02)
1998 Jan 28, In Algeria the
military reported 3 more civilian massacres that killed 34 people and
said that 18 Muslim rebels were killed.
(WSJ, 1/29/98, p.A1)
1998 Jan 28, In Burundi Colonel
Firmin Sinzoyiheba, the Tutsi minister of defense, was killed in a
helicopter crash in the Gihinga Hills.
(SFC, 1/29/98, p.A11)
1998 Jan 28, In the Czech Republic
prime minister Josef Tosovsky’s government won a vote of confidence in
the parliament 123-71.
(SFC, 1/29/98, p.A11)
1998 Jan 28, Israel’s finance
minister, Yaakov Neeman, met with US officials and outlined a plan to
end the $1.2 billion annual economic package over 10-12 years with an
increase in annual military aid from $1.8 billion to 2.4 billion.
(SFC, 1/29/98, p.A10)
1998 Jan 28, From Kenya it was
reported that 77 people died in the month in attacks aimed at ethnic
Kikuyus, who opposed Pres. Moi’s re-election.
(WSJ, 1/28/98, p.A1)
1998 Jan 28, In India the 26
people accused of the May 21, 1991 assassination of Prime Minister
Rajiv Gandhi were sentenced to death by hanging. Authorities braced for
possible unrest. Only 2 of the 26 were charged with murder, the rest
were charged with conspiracy.
(WSJ, 1/28/98, p.A1)(SFC, 1/29/98, p.A10)
1998 Jan 28, In Japan two more
finance ministry officials resigned and a 3rd committed suicide.
Separately the lower house passed a $16 billion income tax cut.
(SFC, 1/29/98, p.A11)
1998 Jan 28, In Chiapas, Mexico,
Rubicel Ruiz Gamboa, a peasant organizer in Ocosingo, was gunned down
in an ambush.
(SFEC, 2/1/98, p.A22)
1998 Jan 28, In Mexico federal
police in Guerrero came upon the anti-kidnapping squad of Morelos with
the tortured body of a 17-year-old member of a kidnapping gang. They
suspected that the body was to be dumped and arrested the state
officers that included Armando Martinez Salgado, chief of the squad.
(SFC, 2/10/98, p.A10)
1998 Jan 28, From Switzerland 3
balloonists set out to circle the globe in the Breitling Orbiter 2.
They failed to get clearance from flying over China in time and were
forced down in Burma on Feb 7 after traveling a record 4,730 miles.
(SFC, 2/7/98, p.11)
1998 Jan 28, In Thailand officials
at Chulalongkorn Univ. posted posters forbidding the wearing of
miniskirts.
(SFC, 1/29/98, p.A11)
1999 Jan 28, The Senate voted
54-44 to allow the video-taping of witness depositions for the Clinton
impeachment trial.
(SFC, 1/29/99, p.A1)
1999 Jan 28, Missouri Governor Mel
Carnahan honored a personal request for mercy from Pope John Paul II
and commuted the death sentence of triple murderer Darrel Mease (52) to
life without parole.
(SFC, 1/29/99, p.A1)(AP, 1/28/00)
1999 Jan 28, Ford Motor Co,
confirmed the acquisition of the passenger car division of Volvo AB for
$6.47 billion.
(SFC, 1/28/99, p.B1)(WSJ, 1/3/00, p.R12)
1999 Jan 28, Scientists announced
the creation of Element 114 with about 184 neutrons in its nucleus.
(SFC, 1/29/99, p.A9)
1999 Jan 28, The council of the
American Geophysical Union, an int'l. organization with 35,000 members,
issued a warning that the pace of global warning was increasing due to
greenhouse gases.
(SFC, 1/29/99, p.A3)
1999 Jan 28, NATO allies warned
Pres. Milosevic that they were ready to use immediate force, and
Britain and France said they were prepared to send in ground troops to
enforce a peace settlement in Kosovo.
(SFEC, 4/18/99, p.A3)
1999 Jan 28, In Burundi officials
reported that at least 178 civilians had been killed over the last 2
weeks in clashes between rebels and government troops.
(SFC, 1/29/99, p.E9)
1999 Jan 28, In Colombia Pres.
Pastrana ordered in 2,700 soldiers and police to restore order. 2 human
rights activists were kidnapped by right-wing militia. They were
released Feb 18.
(WSJ, 1/29/99, p.A1)
1999 Jan 28, From Iraq a UN
official reported that hoof-and-mouth disease had crippled 1 million
sheep and cattle in the country and that 50,000 kids and calves had
died from the viral disease. The vaccine supply was exhausted due to
the 1993 destruction of a vaccine laboratory by the UN commission.
(SFC, 1/29/99, p.E9)
1999 Jan 28, In Cape Town, South
Africa, a bomb exploded at the main police station and wounded 11
people. It was the 3rd bombing in 5 months.
(SFC, 1/29/99, p.E9)
2000 Jan 28, Sister Jeanne
O’Laughlin, the Florida nun selected by Attorney General Janet Reno as
a neutral party in the custody battle over Elian Gonzalez, sought
unsuccessfully to persuade Reno to change her mind about returning the
six-year-old to Cuba.
(AP, 1/28/01)
2000 Jan 28, In Karachi, Pakistan,
a bomb exploded in a Mosque and killed 4 people with 28 wounded.
(SFC, 1/29/00, p.C1)
2000 Jan 28, In Turkey police
uncovered 7 more bodies at a Hezbollah hideout and the government
ordered clerics to read a sermon denouncing violence. Captured
militants in Batman led police to a cache of small arms that included
26 AK-47 assault rifles.
(SFC, 1/29/00, p.A9)
2001 Jan 28, Super Bowl XXXV was
played in Tampa. The Baltimore Ravens defeated the New York Giants 34-7.
(SSFC, 12/24/00, p.T8)
2001 Jan 28, Marc Rich, fugitive
financier pardoned by outgoing Pres. Clinton, said he would return to
the US to face tax evasion charges.
(SSFC, 12/30/01, p.D2)
2001 Jan 28, In Algeria an armed
group killed 2 dozen people in Oued Fares in the Chlef region. 16 of
the dead were children.
(SFC, 1/29/01, p.A14)
2001 Jan 28, In Colombia gunmen
killed at least 10 people in Hato Nuevo.
(SFC, 1/29/01, p.A14)
2001 Jan 28, In Israel state
workers under the Histadrut labor federation expanded their strike with
a walkout by workers at Ben-Gurion airport over pay demands.
(SFC, 1/29/01, p.A12)
2001 Jan 28, In Karachi, Pakistan,
masked gunmen ambushed a religious school’s van and killed 5 Sunni
Muslims.
(SFC, 1/29/01, p.A14)
2001 Jan 28, In Peshawar,
Pakistan, an angry mob torched the English language newspaper, the
Frontier Post. It had just published a letter to the editor titled "Why
Muslims hate Jews."
(LSA, Fall/03, p.38)
2001 Jan 28, Only a week after
naming a record-setting 37 new cardinals, Pope John Paul II named 5 new
cardinals, two Germans, and one each from South Africa, Bolivia and
Ukraine. He also revealed the identities of 2 others from the former
Soviet Union.
(SFC, 1/29/01, p.A14)(AP, 1/28/02)
2001 Jan 28, Weekend clashes in
Zanzibar (Tanzania) killed 39 opposition supporters as protesters
demanded new elections.
(WSJ, 1/29/01, p.A1)(Econ, 12/13/03, p.43)
2002 Jan 28, Hamid Karzai became
the first Afghan leader to visit Washington in 39 years; President
George W. Bush promised a "lasting partnership" with Afghanistan.
(AP, 1/28/03)
2002 Jan 28, US forces and Afghan
militiamen attacked and killed 6 al Qaeda gunmen, who had been holed up
at the Mir Wais Hospital in Kandahar.
(SFC, 1/28/02, p.A9)(SFC, 1/29/02, p.A10)(NW,
8/26/02, p.39)
2002 Jan 28, Palm Inc. introduced
its $449 i705 handheld computer with wireless e-mail and message
service.
(SFC, 1/28/02, p.E1)
2002 Jan 28, An Ecuadoran TAME
Airlines Boeing 727-100 crashed along the Colombia border with 92
people aboard. The wreckage was found on a glacier of the Nevado de
Cumbal volcano and there were no survivors.
(SFC, 1/29/02, p.A8)(SFC, 1/30/02, p.A8)
2002 Jan 28, Israeli police killed
a Palestinian car thief as he barreled through an army checkpoint in a
stolen car.
(SFC, 1/29/02, p.A8)(WSJ, 1/29/02, p.A1)
2002 Jan 28, In Sweden Astrid
Lindgren (b.1907), author of “Pippi Longstocking” (1945), died in
Stockholm.
(SFC, 1/29/02, p.A17)
2002 Jan 28, In Zimbabwe Pres.
Mugabe’s government announced plans for compulsory national youth
service training.
(SFC, 1/29/02, p.A8)
2003 Jan 28, Pres. Bush in his
State of the Union vowed to use the "full force and might of the U.S.
military" if needed to disarm Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Bush pledged of
$15 billion for AIDS assistance in Africa, a domestic agenda of tax
cuts, medical malpractice caps and a ban on certain late abortions.
Bush also announced a $1.2 billion hydrogen fuel initiative.
(www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/02/20030206-2.html)(AP,
1/29/03)(WSJ, 1/29/03, p.A1)
2003 Jan 28, Oregon voters
defeated a proposed 3-year income tax hike designed to forestall $310
million in cuts to schools and social services.
(SFC, 1/29/03, p.A3)
2003 Jan 28, John Philip Thompson
(77) died. He expanded his family's business into the nationwide
7-Eleven chain.
(AP, 1/28/04)
2003 Jan 28, US and Afghan forces
battled rebels aligned with renegade leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar in the
largest-scale fighting in 10 months. 18 enemy fighters were killed in 2
days of fighting. Norwegian F-16s participated in bombing enemy targets.
(AP, 1/28/03)(WSJ, 1/29/03, p.A1)(SFC, 1/29/03, p.A8)
2003 Jan 28, A Chinese company
began distributing generic drugs for an anti-AIDS cocktail.
(SFC, 1/29/03, p.A5)
2003 Jan 28, In eastern India a
passenger bus caught fire after colliding with a truck carrying paint
in dense fog, killing at least 42 people and injuring 13 others.
(AP, 1/28/03)
2003 Jan 28, An explosion leveled
a Gaza City house, killing three Palestinians, including a teenage
brother and sister, and wounding 11. In Jenin four Palestinians were
killed in battles with Israeli troops.
(AP, 1/28/03)
2003 Jan 28, In Israel PM Ariel
Sharon's Likud won with 38 seats, but still needed coalition partners
to reach a 61-spot majority in the 120-seat parliament.
(AP, 1/29/03)(AP, 2/4/03)
2003 Jan 28, Ivory Coast's army
said it opposed a new peace deal with rebel forces. Ethnic fighting
flared amid violent protests over the proposed peace accord. A 4th day
of ethnic clashes reportedly killed 10 people.
(AP, 1/28/03)(AP, 1/29/03)
2003 Jan 28, Mauritania, an
Arab-dominated West African nation, banned anti-U.S. protests and
deployed hundreds of security forces in the capital to enforce the
prohibition.
(AP, 1/29/03)
2003 Jan 28, In Mexico, gunmen in
San Juan Chamula ambushed police trying to arrest murder suspects,
sparking a gunbattle that left 5 people dead.
(AP, 1/28/03)
2003 Jan 28, Rwanda began
releasing 19,000 genocide suspects and former rebels in an effort to
ease intense overcrowding in the country's prisons and foster national
reconciliation.
(AP, 1/28/03)
2003 Jan 28, In Sweden Keith
Jarrett was named winner of the $117,000 Polar Music Prize, founded in
1989 by Stig Anderson, manager of ABBA.
(SFC, 1/29/03, p.D8)
2004 Jan 28, David Kay, former
head of the CIA's weapons search team in Iraq, told Congress no weapons
of mass destruction had been found and that prewar intelligence was
"almost all wrong." In 2007 Bob Drogin authored “Curveball: Spies,
Lies, and the Con Man Who Caused a War.” Curveball was the code name
for an Iraqi chemical engineer who turned up in Germany in 1999 and
served as the source for Iraq’s chemical and biological weapons
programs.
(SSFC, 4/11/04, p.A22)(WSJ, 10/13/07, p.W8)(Econ,
11/3/07, p.100)
2004 Jan 28, A new strain of the
Mydoom virus emerged. Mydoom.B was programmed to launch an attack
against Microsoft's web site the following week.
(SFC, 1/29/04, p.B1)
2004 Jan 28, Scientists said they
had created a new form of matter, called a fermionic condensate, and
predicted it could help lead to the next generation of superconductors
for use in electricity generation, more efficient trains and countless
other applications. It is the sixth known form of matter, after gases,
solids, liquids, plasma and a Bose-Einstein condensate, created only in
1995.
(Reuters, 1/29/04)
2004 Jan 28, The UN was shut down
and more than one million children had the day off school on the heels
of a storm that dumped as much as 36 cm. of snow in the Northeast.
(AP, 1/28/04)
2004 Jan 28, Lloyd “Pete” Bucher
(76), former U-S Navy commander who helped his USS “Pueblo” crew
survive brutal captivity in North Korea then faced criticism back home,
died in Poway, California.
(AP, 1/28/05)
2004 Jan 28, Elroy "Crazy Legs"
Hirsch (80), a pro football Hall of Famer and later the athletic
director at Wisconsin, died.
(AP, 1/28/04)
2004 Jan 28, In Afghanistan a
suicide car bomber blew himself up in a taxi next to British
peacekeepers patrolling the Kabul, killing one soldier and wounding
four.
(AP, 1/28/04)
2004 Jan 28, Arab prisoners began
their journey to Germany under a long-awaited prisoner swap between
Israel and Hezbollah guerrillas.
(AP, 1/28/04)
2004 Jan 28, Bosnia's
international administrator imposed a decree to unify the ethnically
divided city of Mostar, a precondition for Bosnia to join international
organizations and perhaps even the European Union.
(AP, 1/28/04)
2004 Jan 28, British PM Tony Blair
won vindication when a judge said the BBC was wrong to report the
government had “sexed up” intelligence to justify war in Iraq.
(AP, 1/28/05)
2004 Jan 28, Businesses shut down,
schools closed and streets emptied for a 48-hour strike to protest the
Dominican Republic's worst economic crisis in decades.
(AP, 1/28/04)
2004 Jan 28, In the Dominican
Republic at least 4 protesters died from gunshot wounds suffered in
clashes with security forces.
(AP, 1/29/04)
2004 Jan 28, In Haiti one student
was shot and killed as protests mounted against President Jean-Bertrand
Aristide.
(AP, 1/28/04)
2004 Jan 28, In Iraq some ten
thousand Shiite Muslims protested in the south to demand the
resignation of the U.S.-appointed provincial governor.
(AP, 1/29/04)
2004 Jan 28, In Iraq a suicide
bomber blew up a van disguised as an ambulance in front of the Shaheen
Hotel after speeding through a security barrier in the heart of
Baghdad, killing three people, including a South African, and injuring
17.
(AP, 1/28/04)(SFC, 1/28/04, p.A9)
2004 Jan 28, Israeli troops
clashed with Palestinian militants in fierce, prolonged street battles
across Gaza City, killing eight Palestinians.
(AP, 1/28/04)(SFC, 1/29/04, p.A7)
2004 Jan 28, Italian police said
they cracked a drug smuggling ring spanning four continents, arrested
more than 150 people and seized more than five tons of cocaine.
(AP, 1/28/04)
2004 Jan 28, Nigeria said North
Korea had agreed to share its missile technology. Nigerian VP
Atiku Abubakar reached the accord with Yang Hyong Sop, the visiting VP
of North Korea's Presidium of the Supreme People's Assembly. Nigeria
rejected the offer under US pressure.
(AP, 1/28/04)(WSJ, 2/4/04, p.A1)
2005 Jan 28, Senate Democrats
criticized President Bush's plan to add personal accounts to Social
Security and accused his administration of improperly using the Social
Security Administration to promote the idea.
(AP, 1/28/06)
2005 Jan 28, Procter & Gamble,
under CEO Alan G. Lafley (b.1947), announced the largest acquisition in
its history, agreeing to buy Gillette in a $57 billion deal. Gillette
CEO James Kilts stood to reap over $153 million.
(WSJ, 1/31/05, p.A1)(WSJ, 6/1/05, p.A16)
2005 Jan 28, According to an
insider's written account, female interrogators tried to break Muslim
detainees at the US prison camp in Guantanamo Bay by using techniques
such as sexual touching, wearing a miniskirt and thong underwear.
(AP, 1/28/05)
2005 Jan 28, Bolivia’s Pres. Mesa
agreed to allow Santa Cruz residents to elect their own local leaders
and hold a national referendum that could extend greater autonomy to
other provinces.
(AP, 1/28/05)
2005 Jan 28, In Chile Retired Gen.
Manuel Contreras, the chief of the feared security service of former
dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet, was forcefully arrested at his home and
sent to prison with four of his top aides after being convicted in an
emblematic human rights case.
(AP, 1/28/05)
2005 Jan 28, Colombia and
Venezuela announced a settlement in a bitter dispute over the capture
of a Colombian rebel on Venezuelan soil.
(AP, 1/29/05)
2005 Jan 28, India took a major
step to reform its financial sector and boost the country's stock
markets by allowing non-government pension funds to invest up to 5
percent of their portfolios in equities.
(AP, 1/28/05)
2005 Jan 28, Iraq battened down
for the 1st free balloting in half a century, imposing a 7 p.m.-6 a.m.
curfew and closing Baghdad Int’l Airport. 5 US soldiers were killed in
the capital and insurgents blasted polling stations across the country.
Iraqis overseas began three days of voting in 14 nations.
(AP, 1/28/05)
2005 Jan 28, Authorities in Iraq
said they have arrested three close associates of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
In southern Iraq a roadside bomb hit an Iraqi police vehicle, killing
one officer. 2 American soldiers were killed in two separate incidents
in Baghdad.
(AP, 1/28/05)
2005 Jan 28, Israel's army chief
ordered troops to halt operations in the Gaza Strip and to scale back
raids in the West Bank, as hundreds of Palestinian police deployed in
the volatile central and southern parts of the territory.
(AP, 1/28/05)
2005 Jan 28, In Nicaragua Eugenio
Hernandez, who served as mayor of El Ayote from 1990 to 2000, was
sentenced to 25 years in prison in the Nov 9 slaying of Maria Jose
Bravo (26), a reporter who was investigating an electoral dispute.
(AP, 1/29/05)
2005 Jan 28, Election officials
said the Hamas won an overwhelming victory in local elections in Gaza
towns in a setback for the Fatah Party of Palestinian leader Mahmoud
Abbas.
(AP, 1/28/05)
2006 Jan 28, A 20-million US
dollar FA-18 Hornet strike fighter jet was lost when it crashed during
a training exercise off the Queensland coast.
(AFP, 1/30/06)
2006 Jan 28, Close to 200 teams in
NYC participated in the 3rd annual Idiotarod, a race of shopping carts
pulled by a human team.
(WSJ, 2/2/06, p.A1)
2006 Jan 28, In southern Arkansas
police found the bodies of 3 children lying side-by-side on a bed in
their home after Paula Eleazar Mendez (43), their mother, said she
smothered them.
(AP, 1/29/06)
2006 Jan 28, Warren Mundine,
previously an advisor on Aboriginal issues to the conservative
government of PM John Howard, took over the role of Australian Labor
Party president. The first Aborigine to be elected president of an
Australian political party, Mundine said that he wanted to enter
parliament after his term finishes.
(AFP, 1/28/06)
2006 Jan 28, A 2-day European
conference on the future of the EU ended in Salzburg, Austria. European
Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said that Europe must face
globalization head-on and not shy away from the issue.
(AP, 1/28/06)
2006 Jan 28, Beijing prepared to
usher in the Lunar New Year with bang, after authorities lifted a
12-year ban on fireworks.
(AP, 1/28/06)
2006 Jan 28, China’s state-owned
CNOOC began gas production at the Chunxiao field near the disputed
border region with Japan.
(WSJ, 4/6/06, p.A13)
2006 Jan 28, Karnataka Governor
T.N. Chaturvedi invited H.D. Kumaraswamy (b.1959), son of former Indian
PM H.D. Deve Gowda, to form the government in the state after Dharam
Singh resigned earlier in the day.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.D.Kumaraswamy)
2006 Jan 28, The UN Children Fund
(UNICEF) said 3 more children have contracted polio in Indonesia,
bringing the total cases to 302 since the crippling disease resurfaced
last year.
(AFP, 1/28/06)
2006 Jan 28, Iran's foreign
minister said Tehran and Moscow have agreed to expand the number of
countries participating in the plan to enrich Iranian uranium in
Russia, describing a compromise that could satisfy U.S. concerns about
the nuclear program.
(AP, 1/28/06)
2006 Jan 28, According to a new
tape the kidnappers of four Christian peace activists threatened to
kill them unless all Iraqi prisoners are released from Iraqi and US
prisons. The aired tape was date Jan 21. The 4 workers disappeared last
Nov 26.
(AP, 1/28/06)
2006 Jan 28, A Sunni Arab leader
condemned recent police crackdowns on Sunni neighborhoods in the Iraqi
capital and demanded government protection from further raids. At least
eight people were killed in attacks across Iraq. A US soldier was
killed in a roadside bomb blast in Baghdad.
(AP, 1/28/06)(SFC, 1/30/06, p.A7)
2006 Jan 28, At least 8 people
were killed in a gunfight between Indian security forces and Kashmir
rebels.
(AP, 1/28/06)
2006 Jan 28, Rabbi Yitzhak Kadouri
(106), a leader of the Kabbalah school of Jewish mystical thought who
wielded great influence over Israeli politics, died in Jerusalem.
(AP, 1/30/06)
2006 Jan 28, North Korea warned of
nuclear war and vowed to strengthen its deterrent forces as it demanded
that Washington show evidence backing its allegation that the communist
regime is counterfeiting US money.
(AP, 1/28/06)
2006 Jan 28, In Pakistan suspected
tribal rebels have fired rockets at a major gas field, blasted a main
power line and tried to blow up a rail track in the restive
southwestern province of Baluchistan.
(AFP, 1/28/06)
2006 Jan 28, Fatah activists
marched to Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas' compound, police briefly
stormed the parliament building in Gaza and security forces clashed
with Hamas gunmen as the long-ruling party lashed out in anger for its
devastating election loss.
(AP, 1/28/06)
2006 Jan 28, In southern Poland an
exhibition hall collapsed during a racing pigeon show in Katowice,
killing at least 65 people and injuring 160. On June 26 three men, who
helped design the exhibition hall, were arrested on suspicion of
endangering lives by failing to meet building codes.
(AP, 1/31/06)(SFC, 2/1/06, p.A3)(AP, 6/26/06)
2007 Jan 28, The comedy "Little
Miss Sunshine" won the top prize at the Screen Actors Guild Awards.
Forest Whitaker won for his portrayal of Uganda's brutal dictator Idi
Amin in "The Last King of Scotland" and Helen Mirren won for her
performance as Britain's Queen Elizabeth II in "The Queen."
(Reuters, 1/29/07)
2007 Jan 28, Jim Gray (63), an
acclaimed computer scientist, was last heard from shortly after he set
out from San Francisco for the shark-infested waters of the Farallon
Islands, about 25 miles west of the Golden Gate Bridge.
(AP, 2/1/07)
2007 Jan 28, Rev. Robert Drinan
(b.1920), former Jesuit congressman from Massachusetts (1971-1981),
died.
(SFC, 1/30/07,
p.B5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Drinan)
2007 Jan 28, Afghan Pres. Karzai
told House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that his security forces need to be
stronger as the two discussed possible US troop increases.
(AP, 1/28/07)
2007 Jan 28, Officials said India
will set up an aerospace defense command to shield itself against
possible attacks from outer space.
(AP, 1/28/07)
2007 Jan 28, US-backed Iraqi
forces killed 263 militants in a daylong battle near Najaf against a
group called the Jund al-Samaa, or Soldiers of Heaven. The group's
leader and foreign fighters were among the dead. The US military
confirmed a report that a helicopter crashed during the battle and that
the two crew members were killed. Mortar shells rained down on a girls'
secondary school in a mostly Sunni area of western Baghdad, killing
five pupils and wounding 20. At least seven other people died in a
series of bombings and shootings across the capital, mostly in Shiite
areas. Drive-by shooters killed a high-ranking Shiite official at the
Iraqi industry and mines ministry, along with his 27-year-old daughter
and two other people. Two car bombs exploded within a half-hour of each
other in the northern oil city of Kirkuk, killing a total of 11 people
and wounding 34. US troops captured 21 suspected terrorists including
an al-Qaida courier in a series of raids in Baghdad and Sunni areas
north and west of the capital. At least 61 people were killed and
scores wounded across Iraq. Ghanim al-Qureyshi, the provincial police
chief of Diyala province, said the mayor of Baqouba and 1,500
provincial police officers have been fired in a bid to end the raging
violence.
(AFP, 1/28/07)(AP, 1/29/07)(AP, 1/30/07)
2007 Jan 28, The Israeli
government approved the appointment of Raleb Majadele, the country's
first Muslim Cabinet member.
(AP, 1/28/07)
2007 Jan 28, Some 50 Nigerian
rebels attacked a city centre police station in the Niger Delta and
freed George Sobomabo, a top commander, arrested earlier that day.
Militants released 125 inmates when they stormed the police station in
Port Harcourt.
(AFP, 1/28/07)(AFP, 1/30/07)
2007 Jan 28, Sinn Fein members
overwhelmingly voted to begin cooperating with the Northern Ireland
police, formally abandoning their decades-old hostility to legal law
and order in the British territory.
(AP, 1/28/07)
2007 Jan 28, In southern Pakistan
dozens of people sitting on the roof of a crowded passenger train were
by hit by an overhead power line. At least 15 people were killed and 40
were injured.
(AP, 1/28/07)
2007 Jan 28, Hamas and Fatah
gunmen battled each other in the streets in an increasingly bloody
power struggle that left more than two dozen Palestinians dead over the
weekend. Palestinian gunmen shot dead a member of a Hamas police force
and a senior Fatah intelligence official was abducted in Gaza as Saudi
Arabia called for talks to end the spiraling violence.
(AP, 1/28/07)(AFP, 1/28/07)
2007 Jan 28, In Somalia gunmen
attacked a police station in Mogadishu, sparking an hour-long battle
that killed two people just hours after two other stations were hit
with machine-guns and rocket-propelled grenades.
(AP, 1/28/07)
2008 Jan 28, Pres. Bush State in
his State of the Union speech called again for immigration reform, an
end to lawmakers' pet projects, control of Social Security spending and
making tax cuts permanent.
(AP, 1/29/08)
2008 Jan 28, The US Senate
confirmed former North Dakota Gov. Edward Schafer as secretary of
agriculture.
(WSJ, 1/29/08, p.A1)
2008 Jan 28, A US District judge
in Washington, DC, sentenced Ricardo Palmera, a Colombian rebel leader,
to 60 years in prison. Palmera admitted serving as FARC’s chief
negotiator during discussions over the release of 3 American hostages
captured in 2003.
(SFC, 1/29/08, p.A4)
2008 Jan 28, It was reported that
security costs for California Gov. Schwarzenegger and other top state
officials approached $38 million a year. A state senate panel rejected
a proposed $14.7 billion health-care plan supported by Gov.
Schwarzenegger.
(SFC, 1/28/08, p.D1)(WSJ, 1/29/08, p.A1)
2008 Jan 28, In SF one worker was
killed and 2 others badly injured when a 5-story tower of a
decommissioned power plant collapsed during demolition in the Hunters
Point neighborhood.
(SFC, 1/29/08, p.D2)
2008 Jan 28, Afghanistan’s Health
Ministry said as many as 300 Afghans had died over the past 10 days
from bitter cold and heavy snows.
(SFC, 1/29/08, p.A4)
2008 Jan 28, Abderrahmane
Bouzegza, leader of the Dec 11 attacks in Algiers, was killed by the
army at Boumerdes, east of the capital. 4 others responsible for the
attacks were arrested in February.
(AFP, 2/6/08)
2008 Jan 28, In London
demonstrators staged noisy protests as Pakistan's President Pervez
Musharraf held talks with PM Gordon Brown, amid criticism over human
rights and concern over elections.
(AP, 1/28/08)
2008 Jan 28, In Chile Patricia
Troncoso, an indigenous rights activist jailed for setting fire to a
farm once owned by Mapuche Indians, ended her 110-day hunger strike.
(AP, 1/28/08)
2008 Jan 28, Congolese Tutsi
rebels and Mai Mai militia clashed in eastern Democratic Republic of
Congo, breaking a ceasefire signed last week aimed at ending A
long-running conflict in the east.
(AP, 1/28/08)
2008 Jan 28, Egyptian security
forces and Hamas militants strung barbed wire across one of the
openings in the Egypt-Gaza border, a sign that a days-long breaching of
the frontier may be nearing an end.
(AP, 1/28/08)
2008 Jan 28, The EU launched its
long-awaited peacekeeping force for Chad and the Central African
Republic to help protect hundreds of thousands of refugees from
strife-torn Darfur.
(AFP, 1/28/08)
2008 Jan 28, A French court
sentenced six French charity workers to 8 years in prison, after they
were convicted in Chad of trying to kidnap 103 children they said were
orphans from Darfur.
(AP, 1/28/08)
2008 Jan 28, Archbishop
Christodoulos (69), the leader of Greece's powerful Orthodox Church,
died. He eased centuries of tension with the Vatican but was viewed as
reactionary by his liberal critics.
(AP, 1/28/08)
2008 Jan 28, Iran received the
final shipment of uranium fuel from Russia for its first nuclear plant,
state media reported, a key step toward the launch of the reactor's
operations expected later this year.
(AP, 1/28/08)
2008 Jan 28, In Iraq a roadside
bomb struck a minibus carrying a coffin and mourners to a funeral in
the predominantly Shiite southeastern neighborhood of New Baghdad,
killing three passengers. Insurgents attacked 4 policemen heading home
from work south of Mosul, killing two and wounding the other two. US
troops detained 18 al-Qaida-linked militants in two days of operations
ending today north of Baghdad. 5 American soldiers were killed in a
complex attack in Mosul, described as one of al-Qaida in Iraq's last
strongholds.
(AP, 1/28/08)(AP, 1/29/08)
2008 Jan 28, In Nakuru, Kenya, the
provincial capital of the fertile Rift Valley, 64 bodies were counted
at the morgue. In Kisumu on the shore of Lake Victoria, armed mobs of
young men torched houses and buses, burning alive anyone inside and
blocking blood-spattered roadways.
(AP, 1/28/08)
2008 Jan 28, Pakistani authorities
found the body of Keith Ryan (37), a US immigration and customs
enforcement attache, with a bullet wound in his head at his home in
Islamabad and were investigating a suspected case of suicide. A US
missile from a Predator drone destroyed a suspected militant hideout in
Torkhali village in North Waziristan, killing 12 people inside. Later
reports said there were seven Arabs and six Central Asians killed. Abu
Laith al-Libi, a top al-Qaida commander, was among the dead.
(Reuters, 1/28/08)(Reuters, 1/31/08)(AP, 1/31/08)
2008 Jan 28, In Somalia 3 staff
members of Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF-Holland) were killed and one
wounded when their vehicle hit a land mine on a road between the
international staff members' home and the hospital where they worked in
the southern Somali town of Kismayo. In response Doctors Without
Borders evacuated its 87 employees from Somalia.
(AP, 2/1/08)
2008 Jan 28, In Sri Lanka security
forces killed 45 rebels along the northern frontlines.
(AFP, 1/29/08)
2008 Jan 28, Thailand’s parliament
chose Samak Sundaravej, representing ex-PM Shinawatra’s interests, as
premier easily beating the Democratic party candidate 310-163.
(SFC, 1/29/08, p.A4)
2009 Jan 28, President Barack
Obama signed requests from Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear and Arkansas
Gov. Mike Beebe for federal emergency declarations as crews worked
around the clock to resurrect power lines downed by thick ice in both
states. Since the storm began building on Jan 26, the weather has been
blamed for at least six deaths in Texas, four in Arkansas, three in
Virginia, six in Missouri, two in Oklahoma, and one each in Indiana and
Ohio.
(AP, 1/29/09)
2009 Jan 28, A White House
official said President Barack Obama will press Afghan President Hamid
Karzai to extend government control beyond the capital and fight
corruption under a new US policy with a "significant non-military
component."
(AP, 1/28/09)
2009 Jan 28, US federal regulators
guaranteed $80 billion in uninsured deposits at the institutions that
service the nation’s credit unions.
(WSJ, 1/29/09, p.A1)
2009 Jan 28, Peanut Corp. expanded
its recall to all peanut products produced at its Blakely, Ga., plant
since Jan 1, 2007, due to a salmonella outbreak.
(SFC, 1/29/09, p.A3)
2009 Jan 28, Billy Powell (56),
Lynyrd Skynyrd keyboard player, died in Florida. He played on such hits
as "Sweet Home Alabama" and survived the Oct 20, 1977, plane crash that
killed three band members.
(AP, 1/29/09)
2009 Jan 28, Five African and
international human rights groups called on the African Union to press
Senegal to move forward with the trial of former Chadian dictator
Hissene Habre.
(AP, 1/28/09)
2009 Jan 28, Albania awarded a
35-year concession to the British-Swiss Zumax AG group for a euro1.18
billion ($1.55 billion) container terminal for ships in southwestern
Albania.
(AP, 1/28/09)
2009 Jan 28, China’s state media
said at least 81 people have been detained as the country launched a
security sweep in Tibet ahead of one of the region's most sensitive
anniversaries in years.
(AP, 1/28/09)
2009 Jan 28, Cuba’s President Raul
Castro began the first visit to Russia by a Cuban leader since the end
of the Cold War, the latest sign of reviving ties between the two
countries.
(Reuters, 1/28/09)
2009 Jan 28, El Salvador police
said they found the remains of what they believe to be eight to 10 gang
victims at the bottom of a well in Tonacatepeque, located outside San
Salvador.
(AP, 1/29/09)
2009 Jan 28, The European Union
promised billions of dollars in aid to the world's poorest nations to
entice them to sign a new global climate change pact.
(AP, 1/28/09)
2009 Jan 28, French PM Francois
Fillon said 1,000 French 1,650 soldiers would be pulled out from the
EUFOR mission to protect refugees in Chad. He also says France's
1,800-strong contingent in Ivory Coast will be reduced by half.
(AP, 1/28/09)
2009 Jan 28, In Iceland both
parties of the new coalition government supported the appointment of
social affairs minister Johanna Sigurdardottir (66), an openly gay
former air hostess, as interim prime minister.
(SFC, 1/29/09, p.A8)(Econ, 5/2/09, p.52)
2009 Jan 28, In Iraq special
voting began for those needed on duty for Jan 31 elections, such as
security forces and government officials. Iraqis held in detention also
were expected to take part in the early voting.
(AP, 1/28/09)
2009 Jan 28, Israeli warplanes
struck Gaza smuggling tunnels and a weapons factory. There were no
reports of casualties. George Mitchell, Pres. Obama's new Mideast
envoy, said a long-term Gaza truce must be based on an end to weapons
smuggling to Hamas and the re-opening of the territory's blockaded
borders.
(AP, 1/28/09)(AP, 1/29/09)
2009 Jan 28, Israel’s chief
rabbinate cut ties with the Vatican to protest the reinstatement of
English-born Bishop Richard Williamson (b.1940), who has continued to
deny the Holocaust. Williamson was excommunicated by the Roman Catholic
Church in 1988 because of his unauthorized consecration by French
Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, deemed by the Holy See to be "unlawful" and
"a schismatic act."
(WSJ, 1/29/09,
p.A1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Williamson_(bishop))
2009 Jan 28, Japan's defense
minister ordered the dispatch of ships to fight pirates off the shores
of Somalia, joining other countries in the battle against the outlaws.
(AP, 1/28/09)
2009 Jan 28, Japan’s territorial
row with Russia was re-ignited as Japan announced that it had cancelled
humanitarian aid to the four disputed Russian-held islands, north of
Japan's main northern island of Hokkaido, following new Russian demand
that a disembarkation card be submitted in addition to the usual
procedures.
(AP, 1/28/09)
2009 Jan 28, Japan's former prime
minister Shinzo Abe signed a partnership accord with Iraq, on a rare
visit to the country for a senior leader of the close US ally.
(AFP, 1/28/09)
2009 Jan 28, In Kenya a massive
fire swept through a supermarket in downtown Nairobi. 28 shoppers were
burned alive.
(AP, 1/30/09)(AP, 2/3/09)(Econ, 2/7/09, p.42)
2009 Jan 28, In Madagascar
thousands of opposition supporters demanded the resignation of Pres.
Marc Ravalomanana. The director of the main hospital said 43 people had
burned to death as protesters set fires in political violence earlier
in the week.
(AP, 1/28/09)
2009 Jan 28, A new UN report said
Myanmar faced food shortages in many parts of the country, largely
because of last year's cyclone and a rat infestation that destroyed
crops. A human rights group said the Chin people, Christians
living in the remote mountains of northwestern Myanmar, are subject to
forced labor, torture, extrajudicial killings and religious persecution
by the country's military regime.
(AP, 1/28/09)
2009 Jan 28, Pakistan arrested
nine men suspected in a string of deadly bombings last year which
devastated the Danish Embassy, killed an army general and wounded
several FBI personnel. The day’s raids turned up about 220 pounds (100
kilograms) of explosives and other materials suitable for making vests
worn by suicide bombers.
(AP, 1/29/09)
2009 Jan 28, Russia’s military
said it has halted plans to deploy missiles near the Polish border, in
what could be a sign Moscow is seeking better ties with the new US
president.
(Reuters, 1/28/09)
2009 Jan 28, In Serbia the editor
of a popular liberal radio show, critical of Serb nationalism, said
attackers have disrupted the broadcasts of Pescanik (Hourglass) and
hacked into its Web site.
(AP, 1/28/09)
2009 Jan 28, Sri Lankan forces
fought their way into another village still held by Tamil Tiger rebels,
as neighboring India raised fears for civilians caught up in the war.
(AFP, 1/28/09)
2009 Jan 28, A Sudanese man,
Mohammed el-Sari, was jailed for 17 years on charges of trying to help
the International Criminal Court investigate a minister suspected of
war crimes in Darfur. He was arrested in June accused of trying to
solicit information about special police in Darfur, men trained and
paid by the government and supervised by current Minister of
Humanitarian Affairs Ahmed Haroun.
(AFP, 1/28/09)
2009 Jan 28, In Switzerland some
2,500 business and political leaders met at Davos for the World
Economic Forum, as the worst financial crisis since the Great
Depression served to mute the enthusiasm of previous years. China’s
Premier Wen Jiabao and Russia’s PM Vladimir Putin blamed the US-led
financial system for the global economic slump.
(AP, 1/28/09)(WSJ, 1/29/09, p.A1)
2009 Jan 28, A Thai court
convicted 66 barefoot, disheveled migrants detained at sea of illegally
entering the country, raising the prospect they could be sent back to
Myanmar despite fears they would be persecuted there.
(AP, 1/28/09)
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