This Day in History – January 9
Today is the ninth day of 2013. There are 356 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight
2011: Men and women walk to election stations in the middle of the night to create a new nation, Southern Sudan, after a two-decade civil war with the north, a conflict that left two million people dead.
Other Events
1992: Serbs in Bosnia-Herzegovina proclaim their own state.
1951: The UN headquarters opens in New York.
1962: The Soviet Union and Cuba sign trade pact.
1973: White-ruled country of Rhodesia closes its borders with Zambia to try to cut off black liberation forces.
1978: Islamic revolution erupts in Iran.
1995: Russian forces close in on the Chechen presidential palace in Grozny.
1996: Chechen rebels demanding an end to the war in their breakaway republic seize a hospital and at least 2,000 hostages in Kizlyar, Dagestan, and battle Russian troops in the town’s streets. At least 40 people die.
2000: An investigation into leaks in Switzerland’s vaunted bank secrecy turns up 13 people in eight countries who illegally received data on other people’s Swiss bank accounts.
2001: Some British schools begin handing out the morning-after pill to students, setting off a debate over parental rights as the government tries to curb an alarming rate of teenage pregnancy.
2002: Hamid Karzai, head of the interim Afghan government, announces a plan to disarm Afghan citizens and create a national army.
2004: US National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice admits that the US has no credible evidence that Iraq moved weapons of mass destruction into Syria early in 2003 before the US-led war that drove Saddam Hussein from power.
2005: Mahmoud Abbas is elected Palestinian Authority president by a wide margin, winning a decisive mandate to renew peace talks with Israel, rein in militants and try to end more than four years of Mideast bloodshed.
2008: Kosovo’s parliament elects former rebel leader Hashim Thaci as prime minister in a vote foreshadowing a declaration of independence from Serbia.
2009: A US federal appeals court reinstates a human rights lawsuit against Mohamed Ali Samantar of Fairfax, Virginia. He is a former prime minister of Somalia who is accused of overseeing killings and other atrocities.
2010: Gunmen spray bullets at Togo’s national team, killing three people and forcing its withdrawal from the African Cup of Nations soccer tournament, a chance host Angola hoped to use to show it was recovering from decades of war.
2012: Panama promises economic aid for protesters who participated in 1964 riots that many believe eventually spurred the US to hand over control of the Panama Canal in 1999.
Today’s Birthdays
Pope Gregory XV (Allesandro Ludovisi) (1554-1623); Thomas Warton, English poet laureate (1728-1790); Karel Capek, Czechoslovak author (1890-1938); Richard M. Nixon, U.S. president (1913-1994); Sekou Toure, first president of Guinea (1922-1984); Joan Baez, US folk singer (1941-); Jimmy Page, English guitarist w/rock group Led Zeppelin (1944-).
— AP
