Today in History - January 4
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838 Jan 4,
Babak, Persian social and religious reformer, was martyred.
(MC, 1/4/02)
871 Jan 4, Ethelred of Wessex
was defeated by Danish forces at Reading.
(PCh, 1992, p.72)
1493 Jan 4, Columbus departed
La Navidad, Hispaniola, and sailed eastward along the coast. He left
behind 38 men, all of whom were later killed in disputes with the
local Indians.
(ON, 8/09, p.2)
1493 Jan 4, Ivan III, Grand
Duke of Moscow, announced the 1st war with Lithuania. In fact the
war had begun in 1487.
(LHC, 1/4/03)
1581 Jan 4, James Ussher
(d.1656), Irish prelate and scholar, Archbishop of Armagh, was born.
According to Ussher and Dr. John Lightfoot of Cambridge, the world
was created on Oct 23, 4004BC, a Sunday, at 9 a.m.
(WUD, 1994, p.1574)(NG, Nov. 1985, edit.
p.559)(HN, 10/23/98)(MC, 1/4/02)
1642 Jan 4, King Charles I
attacked the English parliament with 400 soldiers.
(MC, 1/4/02)
1643 Jan 4, (NS) Sir Isaac
Newton, scientist, was born. He developed the laws of gravity and
planetary relations [See Dec 25, 1642].
(HN,
1/4/01)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Newton)
1710 Jan 4, Giovanni Battista
Pergolesi (d.1736), Italian composer (Il Prigioniero Superbo), was
born.
(MC, 1/4/02)(SFC, 6/24/02, p.B6)
1754 Jan 4, Columbia University
was founded as Kings College in NYC. [see July 7]
(MC, 1/4/02)
1757 Jan 4, Robert Francois
Damiens made an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate King Louis XV of
France.
(HN, 1/4/01)
1785 Jan 4, Jacob Ludwig Carl
Grimm, German philosopher who wrote Grimm’s Fairy Tales, was born.
(HN, 1/4/99)(MC, 1/4/02)
1786 Jan 4, Mozes Mendelssohn
(56), Jewish-German philosopher (Haksalah), died.
(MC, 1/4/02)
1790 Jan 4, President
Washington delivered the 1st "State of the Union" address.
(MC, 1/4/02)
1809 Jan 4, Louis Braille
(d.1852), inventor of a universal reading system for the blind, was
born in Coupvray, France.
(AP, 1/4/98)(HN, 1/4/99)
1813 Jan 4, Isaac Pitman,
inventor (stenographic shorthand), was born in Britain.
(MC, 1/4/02)
1821 Jan 4, Elizabeth Ann
Seton, the first native-born American saint, died in Emmitsburg, Md.
(AP, 1/4/98)
1838 Jan 4, Charles Sherwood
Stratton (d.1883), later known as the dwarf Tom Thumb, was born in
Bridgeport, Conn. In 1842, P.T. Barnum discovered Charles, who
measured 25
inches
and weighed 15 pounds, only six pounds more than his birth weight.
(www.barnum-museum.org)
1843 Jan 4, Gaetano Donizetti's
opera "Don Pasquale," premiered in Paris.
(MC, 1/4/02)
1862 Jan 4, In the Romney
Campaign Stonewall Jackson occupied Bath.
(MC, 1/4/02)
1863 Jan 4, General Halleck, by
direction of President Lincoln, ordered U.S. Grant to revoke his
infamous General Order No. 11 that expelled Jews from his
operational area.
(HN, 1/4/99)
1863 Jan 4, Roller skates with
4 wheels were patented by James Plimpton of NY.
(MC, 1/4/02)
1865 Jan 4, The New York Stock
Exchange opened its first permanent headquarters at 10-12 Broad
Street near Wall Street in NYC. The Corinthian-style structure would
serve the Exchange until 1903 when more spacious quarters opened at
18 Broad Street.
(http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/today/jan04.html)
1874 Jan 4, Josef Suk, Czech
violinist and composer (Asrael), was born.
(MC, 1/4/02)
1877 Jan 4, Cornelius
Vanderbilt (b.1794), US financier, railroad and shipping magnate,
robber baron, died. His estate at $105 million was worth more than
all the money in the US Treasury. His value in 2007 dollars would be
$143 billion. In 2007 Edward J. Renehan Jr. authored “Commodore: The
Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornelius_Vanderbilt)(SFC, 5/30/98,
p.E4)(WSJ, 12/19/07, p.D9)
1881 Jan 4, The "Academic
Festival Overture" by Johannes Brahms premiered in Breslau.
(MC, 1/4/02)
1883 Jan 4, Benjamin Butler
(1818-1893) began serving as the 33rd governor of Massachusetts and
continued until January 3, 1884.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Franklin_Butler_%28politician%29)
1885 Jan 4, Dr. William W.
Grant of Davenport, Iowa, performed what is believed to have been
the first appendectomy; the patient was 22-year-old Mary Gartside.
(AP, 1/4/00)
1890 Jan 4, Alfred G. Jodl,
German Wehrmacht general and chief of staff, was born.
(MC, 1/4/02)
1893 Jan 4, US president
Cleveland granted amnesty to Mormon polygamists.
(MC, 1/4/02)
1896 Jan 4, Utah was
admitted to the Union as the 45th state.
(AP, 1/4/98)
1902 Jan 4, The French offered
to sell their Nicaraguan Canal rights to the U.S.
(HN, 1/4/99)
1903 Jan 4, Topsy the elephant
was poisoned electrocuted in Luna Park, Coney Island, NYC. The
10-foot elephant had killed 3 keepers over the last 2 years. Edison
used the opportunity to demonstrate the lethal potential of
alternating current, promoted by rival George Westinghouse.
(Econ, 7/26/03, p.33)(Internet)
1904 Jan 4, The US Supreme
Court, in Gonzalez v. Williams, ruled that Puerto Ricans were not
aliens and could enter the US freely; however, the court stopped
short of declaring them US citizens.
(AP, 1/4/08)
1907 Jan 4, George Bernard
Shaw's "Don Juan in Hell" scene from "Man and Superman" premiered in
London.
(MC, 1/4/02)
1908 Jan 4, Angela Maria "Geli"
Raubal, Austrian nude model, Hitler's cousin and lover, was born.
(MC, 1/4/02)
1908 Jan 4, Antony Winkler
Prins (70), writer (Grolier Encyclopedia), died.
(MC, 1/4/02)
1910 Jan 4, Leon Walrus
(b.1834), French economist, died. In 1874 he wrote and published the
first edition of his magnum opus, the “Elements of Pure Economics.”
(http://cepa.newschool.edu/het/profiles/walras.htm)(http://tinyurl.com/pdw34)
1914 Jan 4, Jane Wyman, U.S.
film actress who was the first wife of President Ronald Reagan, was
born.
(HN, 1/4/99)
1920 Jan 4, William Egan Colby,
CIA director under Nixon, was born.
(MC, 1/4/02)
1920 Jan 4, The Negro National
League, the first black baseball league, was organized by Rube
Foster.
(HN, 1/4/99)
1921 Jan 4, Congress overrode
President Wilson’s veto, reactivating the War Finance Corps to aid
struggling farmers.
(HN, 1/4/99)
1923 Jan 4, Emile Coué
(1857-1926), French pharmacist, arrived in NYC. Coue was a proponent
of "auto-suggestion," and believed positive thinking could cure
disease. He recommended chanting "every day, in every way, I'm
getting better and better."
(http://tinyurl.com/4ke2gvp)
1923 Jan 4, The Paris
Conference on war reparations hit a deadlock as the French insisted
on the hard line and the British insisted on Reconstruction.
(HN, 1/4/99)
1934 Jan 4, President Franklin
D. Roosevelt asked Congress for $10.5 billion to fund recovery
programs over the next 18 months.
(SSFC, 1/18/09, p.D6)
1935 Jan 4, President Franklin
D. Roosevelt claimed in his State of the Union message that the
federal government would provide jobs for 3.5 million Americans on
welfare.
(HN, 1/4/99)
1935 Jan 4, Ft. Jefferson
National Monument was established in Florida.
(MC, 1/4/02)
1936 Jan 4, Billboard magazine
published its first music hit parade.
(HN, 1/4/99)
1937 Jan 4, Grace Bumbry,
soprano (Venus, in "Tannhauser"), was born in St. Louis.
(MC, 1/4/02)
1939 Jan 4, Hermann Goering
appointed Reinhard Heydrich as head of Jewish Emigration.
(MC, 1/4/02)
1941 Jan 4, On the
Greek-Albanian front, the Greeks launched an attack towards Valona
from Berat to Klisura against the Italians.
(HN, 1/4/00)
1942 Jan 4, Japanese forces
began the evacuation of Guadalcanal
(HN, 1/4/00)
1944 Jan 4, The British Fifth
Army attacked Monte Cassino, Italy.
(HN, 1/4/99)
1944 Jan 4, Soviet troops
crossed the former Polish border.
(HN, 1/4/99)
1945 Jan 4, The last German
offensive in Bastogne, Belgium, failed.
(HN, 1/4/99)
1945 Jan 4, Ricardo Jimenez
Oreamuno (b.1859), 3-term president of Costa Rica, died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricardo_Jim%C3%A9nez_Oreamuno)
1947 Jan 4, J. Danforth Quayle
(Sen-R-Ind, 44th VP 1989-93) was born. [see Feb 4]
(MC, 1/4/02)
1948 Jan 4, Britain granted
independence to Burma (later renamed to Myanmar). Aung San had
arranged for national independence on this day but was assassinated
before the event by political rivals.
(SFEC, 1/19/97, Par p.4)(AP, 1/4/98)
1951 Jan 4, During the Korean
conflict, North Korean and Communist Chinese forces captured the
city of Seoul. UN forces abandoned Seoul, Korea, to the Communists.
(AP, 1/4/98)(HN, 1/4/99)
1952 Jan 4, The French Army in
Indochina launched Operation Nenuphar in hopes of ejecting a Viet
Minh division from the Ba Tai forest.
(HN, 1/4/00)
1954 Jan 4, Elvis Presley
recorded a 10 minute demo in Nashville.
(MC, 1/4/02)
1960 Jan 4, Albert Camus
(1913-1960), French writer, died in an automobile accident at age
46. He won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1957. His work included
the play “Caligula” and a collection of journalistic pieces for the
clandestine newspaper Combat (1944-1947). In 1997 Oliver Todd wrote
the biography “Albert Camus.” In 1979 Herbert Lottman also wrote a
biography: “Albert Camus.” In 2006 Camus’ WW II pieces, edited by
Jacqueline Levi-Valensi, were published as ”Camus at Combat.” In
2010 Virgil Tanase authored “Albert Camus.”
(SFC, 12/25/96, p.A22)(WSJ, 12/12/97, p.A16)(AP,
1/4/98)(WSJ, 2/11/06, p.P10)(Econ, 1/9/10, p.83)
1961 Jan 4, The Danish barbers'
assistants strike ended after 33 yrs. It was the longest strike on
record.
(MC, 1/4/02)
1962 Jan 4, The 1st automated
(unmanned) subway train ran in NYC.
(MC, 1/4/02)
1965 Jan 4, President Johnson
outlined the goals of his "Great Society" in his State of the Union
address. The “Great Society” was to be achieved through a vast
program that included an attack on diseases, a doubling of the war
on poverty, greater enforcement of Civil Rights Law, immigration law
reform and greater support of education.
(AP, 1/4/98)(HNQ, 9/11/99)
1965 Jan 4, T.S. Eliot, English
poet, died in London at age 76. In 1995 Anthony Julius published
“T.S. Eliot, Anti-Semitism and Literary Form.” Julius was the lawyer
who won a divorce settlement of $23 million for Princess Diana in
1996. “Little Gidding” is an Eliot work.
(SFC, 7/17/96, p.E6)(NH, 8/96, p.57)(AP, 1/4/98)
1967 Jan 4, Mohamed Khider
(b.1912), Algerian politician and a leading figure in the FLN, was
assassinated in Madrid, Spain.
(Econ, 12/31/11,
p.67)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohamed_Khider)
1969 Jan 4, Spain returned the
Ifni province to Morocco.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ifni)
1974 Jan 4, President Nixon
refused to hand over tape recordings and documents subpoenaed by the
Senate Watergate Committee.
(AP, 1/4/98)
1975 Jan 4, Pres. Ford’s signed
Executive Order No. 11828 on CIA Activities within the US. He
directed the Commission, chaired by VP Nelson A. Rockefeller, to
determine whether or not any domestic CIA activities exceeded the
Agency's statutory authority and to make appropriate
recommendations.
(www.archives.gov/federal-register/executive-orders/1975.html)(http://tinyurl.com/5ukhxo)
1976 Jan 4, "Candide" closed at
Broadway Theater in NYC after 740 performances.
(www.sondheim.org/php/news.php?id=1675)
1978 Jan 4, Said Hammami, the
PLO representative in London, was assassinated. It was initially
believed to be the work of Abu Nidal but was later reported to have
been organized by Yasser Arafat.
(WSJ, 1/10/02,
p.A12)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_attacks_attributed_to_Abu_Nidal)
1978 Jan 4, Chile’s Gen.
Pinochet held a National Consultation, "in defense of the dignity of
Chile," which took place one week after it was first announced, on
December 27.
(www.chipsites.com/derechos/1978_eng.html)
1979 Jan 4, Ohio officials
approved an out-of-court settlement awarding $675,000 to the victims
and families in the 1970 shootings at Kent State University, in
which four students were killed and nine wounded by National Guard
troops.
(HN,
1/4/99)(http://members.aol.com/nrbooks/chronol.htm)
1979 Jan 4, Charles Mingus
(56), the most accomplished bassist in jazz history, died of Lou
Gehrig’s disease. In 1999 the film "Charles Mingus: Triumph of the
Underdog" was written and directed by Don McGlynn. In 2000 Gene
Santoro authored “Myself when I Am Real: the Life and Music of
Charles Mingus.”
(WSJ, 4/18/97, p.A16)(SFC, 4/27/98, p.E3)(SFC,
5/21/99, p.C3)(SFEC, 8/20/00, BR p.9)(WSJ, 8/22/00, p.A24)(MC,
1/4/02)
1986 Jan 4, Christopher
Isherwood, British born author, died of prostate cancer in Santa
Monica, Ca. He was best know for his 1935 semi-autobiographical "The
Berlin Stories," which was the basis for the 1966 musical Cabaret
and made into a 1972 film. His life-partner was painter Don
Bachardy. His "Diaries: Volume II, 1939-1960" were published in
1997. In 2005 Peter Parker authored “Isherwood: A Life Revealed.”
(www.booksfactory.com/writers/isherwood.htm)(SFC,
1/16/97, p.E3)(SFC, 5/11/99, p.B6)
1987 Jan 4, An Amtrak train
bound from Washington to Boston collided with Conrail engines
approaching from a side track in Chase, Md., and 16 people were
killed.
(AP, 1/4/98)
1988 Jan 4, Drinking water
began to dry up in Pittsburgh suburbs because of a massive diesel
oil spill two days earlier that fouled the Monongahela and Ohio
rivers.
(AP, 1/4/98)
1989 Jan 4, US Navy F-14s shot
down 2 Libyan jet fighters over Mediterranean.
(www.history.navy.mil/wars/foabroad.htm)
1990 Jan 4, Charles Stuart, who
had claimed a gunman had killed his pregnant wife and wounded him,
leaped to his death from a Boston Harbor bridge after he became a
suspect.
(AP, 1/4/00)
1990 Jan 4, Deposed Panamanian
leader Manuel Noriega was arraigned in federal district court in
Miami on drug-trafficking charges.
(AP, 1/4/00)
1990 Jan 4, In Sindh Province,
Pakistan, an overcrowded 16-car passenger train collided with
standing freight train and more than 210 people were killed.
(SFC, 6/4/98, p.A15)(AP, 2/18/04)
1991 Jan 4, With a week and
a-half left before a U-N deadline for Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait,
Iraq agreed to hold its first high-level talks with the United
States since the start of the Persian Gulf crisis.
(AP, 1/4/01)
1992 Jan 4, President Bush,
visiting Singapore as part of a Pacific trade tour, announced plans
to shift to Singapore the Navy logistics command that was being
evicted from the Philippines.
(AP, 1/4/02)
1993 Jan 4, President-elect
Clinton spoke by telephone with Russian President Boris Yeltsin
about the newly signed START II treaty; Clinton pledged to do all he
could to get early ratification.
(AP, 1/4/98)
1993 Jan 4, Junk bond king
Michael Milken was released from jail after 22 months.
(www.nybooks.com/articles/article-preview?article_id=2223)
1994 Jan 4, Treasury Secretary
Lloyd Bentsen announced a plan to drive most gun dealers out of
business by proposing sharp increases in the licensing fee and
stricter controls on people who buy and sell weapons.
(AP, 1/4/04)
1995 Jan 4, The 104th Congress
convened, the first entirely under Republican control since the
Eisenhower era; Newt Gingrich was elected speaker of the House.
(SFC, 11/7/98, p.A4)(AP, 1/4/00)
1995 Jan 4, Eduardo Mata (52),
Mexican conductor, died in air crash.
(www.imdb.com/name/nm0557996/)
1996 Jan 4, Bowing to pressure
from NATO and the United States, Bosnian Serbs freed 16 civilians
who had entered Serb-held territory after NATO forces had declared
roads in Bosnia open to all.
(AP, 1/4/01)
1996 Jan 4, The Boeing Sikorsky
Comanche helicopter was unveiled.
(NPub, 2002, p.26)
1996 Jan 4, Ramon Vinay (83),
operatic tenor, baritone, died.
(www.grandi-tenori.com/tenors/vinay.php)
1997 Jan 4, President Clinton,
in his weekly radio address, took credit for policies reducing
teen-age pregnancy and said he would work for even greater
reductions over the next four years.
(AP, 1/4/98)
1997 Jan 4, Harry Helmsley
(87), self-made billionaire and husband to Leona, died in
Scottsdale, Ariz. His vast real estate holdings included the Empire
State Building. His entire $1.7 billion estate was left to his wife
except for $25k left to a longtime secretary.
(SFC,1/6/97, p.A17)(WSJ, 1/3/97, p.A1)(SFC,
1/10/97, p.A3)(AP, 1/4/98)
1997 Jan 4, In Argentina
thieves tunneled into a Buenos Aires bank and robbed as much as $25
million.
(SFC, 1/16/97, p.A12)
1997 Jan 4, In Brazil some 54
people were killed during 4 days of torrential rain in the
southeastern state of Minas Gerais.
(SFEC, 1/5/97, p.A13)
1997 Jan 4, Czech President
Vaclav Havel married his girlfriend Dagmar Veskrnova, less than a
year after the death of his first wife Olga Havlova.
(SFEC, 7/6/97, p.B4)
1997 Jan 4, In New Zealand
during the week Cyclone Fergus, the worst to hit in 8 years,
produced heavy rains and wind damage along the northern coast.
(SFC, 1/4/97, p.A19)
1998 Jan 4, The History of the
Future Museum, a part of the Star Trek: The Experience, a $70
million attraction, was scheduled to open at the Las Vegas Hilton.
(SFEC,12/28/97, Par p.18)
1998 Jan 4, Actress Mae Questel
(89), who had supplied the voices of cartoon characters Betty Boop
and Olive Oyl, died in New York.
(AP, 1/4/08)
1998 Jan 4, In Canada Nirmal
Singh Gill (65) was found beaten and bleeding in the parking lot of
a Sikh temple in Surrey near Vancouver. He soon died. 5 young men
linked to a white supremacist group, White Power, were later
jailed on charges of murder.
(SFC, 4/23/98, p.A16)
1998 Jan 4, In Israel David
Levy, the foreign minister, resigned. He denounced Netanyahu’s
government for abandoning the peace process and not addressing
problems with the poor and unemployed.
(SFC, 1/5/98, p.A1)
1999 Jan 4, The US stance
towards Cuba was reported to be easing following the completed
report by the Council on Foreign Relations. It was proposed to
restore mail service, increase flights, permit food sales to
non-government entities, and allow more Americans to send money.
(SFC, 1/5/99, p.A1)(WSJ, 1/5/99, p.A1)
1999 Jan 4, The US mint began
distributing a new series of commemorative state quarters. The first
one from Delaware marked the 1776 ride of Caesar Rodney from Dover
to Philadelphia to vote for the Declaration of Independence. Rep.
Michael Castle of Delaware dreamed up the program in 1996.
(SFC, 1/5/99, p.A2)(WSJ, 12/29/03, p.A4)
1999 Jan 4, Former professional
wrestler Jesse Ventura was sworn in as Minnesota's 37th governor.
(AP, 1/4/00)
1999 Jan 4, Elizabeth Dole quit
as the head of the American Red Cross and it was speculated that she
might run as the Republican candidate for president.
(SFC, 1/5/99, p.A2)
1999 Jan 4, In Nevada a sniper
hit at least 4 vehicles on I-80 between Reno and the California
border. Police arrested Christopher Lee Merritt (20) of Mankato,
Minn., who hoped to rob the drivers after they crashed. Merritt
pleaded guilty in 1999.
(SFC, 1/5/99, p.A3)(SFC, 1/6/99, p.A2)(SFC,
11/6/99, p.A6)
1999 Jan 4, The euro, the new
money of 11 European nations, got off to a strong start on its first
trading day, rising against the dollar on world currency markets and
closed in New York at $1.181. A founding principal of the euro area
held that national central banks be independent of their
governments.
(SFC, 1/5/99, p.C2)(AP, 1/4/00)(HN, 1/4/01)(Econ,
2/25/06, p.77)
1999 Jan 4, In Angola UNITA
rebels denied shooting down 2 UN planes and claimed that there were
no survivors.
(WSJ, 1/5/99, p.A1)
1999 Jan 4, A footbridge in
Chongqing, China, collapsed and killed 40 people. A week later
another bridge in Fujian province collapsed and killed 7. Bridge
officials were arrested on suspicion of graft or using shoddy
materials. A Party official in Chongqing was later convicted of
taking bribes and sentenced to death.
(SFC, 3/2/99, p.D1)(WSJ, 4/5/99, p.A1)
1999 Jan 4, Chevron received
word of an attack on its Searrex oil rig. Soldiers dispatched to the
rig allegedly fired on Opia village from a helicopter and 2
villagers were killed. 2 more villagers were killed a short time
later at Ikenyan. A day later Chevron was invoiced $109.25 for the
services of the soldiers.
(SFC, 8/4/05, p.A4)
1999 Jan 4, In Sha Jamal,
Pakistan, in the eastern Punjab gunmen on motorcycle opened fire on
Shiite Muslim worshipers and killed 16 people and wounded at least
25.
(SFC, 1/4/99, p.A22)(SFC, 1/5/99, p.A8)
1999 Jan 4, In Sierra Leone
Nigerian troops repelled a rebel attack on Freetown's airport.
Gambia and Mali agreed to send troops to join the Nigerian forces.
(WSJ, 1/5/99, p.A1)
2000 Jan 4, Former presidential
rival Elizabeth Dole endorsed fellow Republican George W. Bush.
(AP, 1/4/01)
2000 Jan 4, In China the State
Development Planning Commission announced that private enterprise
should be put on "equal footing with state-owned enterprises."
(SFC, 1/5/00, p.A6)
2000 Jan 4, In Colombia Red
Cross work shut down after peasant refugees took 40 hostages in
Bogota and demanded homes.
(WSJ, 1/5/00, p.A1)
2000 Jan 4, In Indonesia at
least 17 people were killed when troops opened fire on Christian and
Muslim mobs on Seram Island in Maluku province. Thousands of people
fled violence and poured into Ternate, the capital of North Maluku.
Refugees claimed that hundreds of people died in fighting over 2
days.
(SFC, 1/5/00, p.A6)(SFC, 1/7/00, p.D3)
2000 Jan 4, Israel and
Palestine agreed on an Israeli troop pullback and the transfer of an
additional 5% of West Bank land.
(SFC, 1/5/00, p.A6)(AP, 1/4/01)
2000 Jan 4, In Srinagar,
Kashmir, 13 people and a horse were blown up in an explosion set by
insurgents in a vegetable market used by Indian troops.
(SFC, 1/22/00, p.A10)
2000 Jan 4, In Namibia gunmen
attacked a family of French tourists, killed 3 children and wounded
the parents. Unita rebels were blamed.
(WSJ, 1/5/00, p.A1)
2000 Jan 4, In Norway 2
passenger trains collided 110 miles north of Oslo. At least 20
people were believed to have died.
(WSJ, 1/5/00, p.A1)(SFC, 1/6/00, p.A10)
2000 Jan 4, In Colombo, Sri
Lanka, a suicide bomber set off explosives strapped to her body and
killed herself and 19 [12] others near the prime minister's office.
A Tamil politician was shot dead by motorcycle assassin nearby.
(SFC, 1/5/00, p.A8)(WSJ, 1/6/00, p.A1)
2001 Jan 4, It was announced
that George, the politics and lifestyle magazine founded by the late
John F. Kennedy Jr., would fold.
(AP, 1/4/02)
2001 Jan 4, California state
regulators approved raising electricity rates by an average 10% as
state utilities stood near bankruptcy.
(SFC, 1/5/01, p.A1)
2001 Jan 4, Orchestra leader
Les Brown, known for his “Band of Renown,” died at age 88.
(AP, 1/4/02)
2001 cJan 4, In Colombia a
right-wing death squad killed 11 people in a northeast town.
(WSJ, 1/05/01, p.A1)
2001 Jan 4, India test flew its
1st locally developed jet fighter.
(WSJ, 1/05/01, p.A1)
2001 Jan 4, In Indonesia rival
villages clashed on Lombok and 9 people were killed. 7 others were
killed in fighting between rival villages in North Sulawesi.
(SFC, 1/5/01, p.D2)(WSJ, 1/05/01, p.A1)
2001 Jan 4, It was reported
that Russia had moved nuclear warheads into storage areas at its
Kaliningrad naval base over the past year. Russia called the charges
a dangerous joke.
(SFC, 1/4/01, p.A8)(SFC, 1/5/01, p.A20)
2001 Jan 4, In Sri Lanka the
defense ministry announced that the civil war left 3,753 people dead
in 2000, including 87 civilians.
(SFC, 1/5/01, p.D2)
2002 Jan 4, The US Postal
Service announced an increase in 1st class stamps to 37 cents from
34 to take place June 30.
(SFC, 1/5/02, p.A3)
2002 Jan 4, A WSJ editorial by
former US Army officer Ralph Peters blamed Saudi Arabia as the
source of fundamentalist terrorism. “We must be prepared to seize
the Saudi oil fields and administer them for the greater good.”
(WSJ, 1/4/02, p.A12)
2002 Jan 4, Florida coach Steve
Spurrier resigned to pursue an NFL job, two days after leading the
Gators to victory over Maryland in the Orange Bowl.
(AP, 1/4/07)
2002 Jan 4, The WSJ quoted Ali
K. Shukri, retired Jordanian general: a strike on Iraq “is not a
question of whether it’s going to happen, but when—and it is
coming.” Action in the spring was suggested.
(WSJ, 1/4/02, p.A6)
2002 Jan 4, George and Marisol
Gari, members of the Wasp network Cuban spy ring, were sentenced in
Florida to 7 and 3.5 years.
(SFC, 1/5/02, p.A6)
2002 Jan 4, US Army Special
Forces Sgt. Ross Chapman (31) was killed by enemy fire near Khost,
Afghanistan. He became the 1st US soldier to die there by enemy
fire.
(SFC, 1/5/02, p.A1)
2002 Jan 4, Antonio Todde, an
Italian shepherd listed by Guinness as the world’s oldest man, died
just shy of his 113th birthday. “Just love your brother and drink a
good glass of red wine every day.”
(SFC, 1/5/02, p.A22)
2002 Jan 4, In Argentina Pres.
Duhalde acknowledged that the nation will devalue the peso.
(SFC, 1/5/02, p.A6)
2002 Jan 4, In England a
twin-engine Bombardier Challenger plane crashed at Birmingham
International Airport. Pilots Thomas Boydston (51) Robert Norton
(58) and Timothy Vandevort (41) were killed along with John Shumejda
(56) the president and chief executive of agricultural giant AGCO,
and Ed Swingle (60), the company's senior VP for sales and
marketing. A 2004 report said that the crash was caused by the
crew's failure to de-ice the wings before takeoff.
(AP, 8/19/04)
2002 Jan 4, India reported the
death of 15 soldiers and a number of civilians near Amritsar due to
the mishandling of an ammunition filled truck.
(SSFC, 1/13/02, p.A18)
2002 Jan 4, Pakistan continued
to round up alleged militants. Some 200 were said to have been
arrested in the last 10 days. Key leaders of Lashkar-e-Tayyaba and
Jaish-e-Mohammed were among the detained. Pakistan also handed over
senior al Qaeda trainer al-Shaykh al-Libi to the US military.
(SFC, 1/5/02, p.A3,15)
2002 Jan 4, Dolly the 1996
Scotland-born cloned sheep, was reported to be suffering from
arthritis, a sign of premature aging.
(SFEC, 2/23/96, p.C1)(SFC, 1/5/02, p.A2)
2002 Jan 4, Russia announced
that it would reduce its military by over 15%.
(SFC, 1/5/02, p.A6)
2002 Jan 4, South Asian leaders
began a 2-day meeting in Nepal.
(SFC, 1/4/02, p.A3)
2002 Jan 4, It was reported
that $54 million in short term food aid was needed to ward off
widespread starvation in Zimbabwe. The AIDS epidemic, called
“Nkondombera” (a Shona word for “no condom”) was claiming over 2,000
people per week. Inflation was running at over 100% per month.
Unemployment was estimated at 50%.
(SFC, 1/5/02, p.A5)
2003 Jan 4, Pres. Bush said he
will ask Congress to boost federal education aid for poor children
by $1 billion. As Bush put the finishing touches on an economic
growth package costing $674 billion over 10 years, Democrats who
wanted his job, pledged to scuttle what they characterized as a plan
that would help the wealthy without reviving the economy.
(AP, 1/4/03)(AP, 1/4/04)
2003 Jan 4, Clonaid, the
company that claims to have produced the first human clone, said a
second child was born to a Dutch lesbian Jan 3.
(AP, 1/5/03)(SSFC, 1/5/03,
p.A22)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clonaid)
2003 Jan 4, Conrad L. Hall
(76), Oscar-winning cinematographer, died in Santa Monica, Calif.
(AP, 1/4/04)
2003 Jan 4, In Algeria Islamic
militants (GSPC) ambushed a military convoy in the northeast village
of Theniet el-Abed. 43 soldiers were killed and 19 wounded.
(AP, 1/5/03)
2003 Jan 4, In southern Iran a
bus carrying university students overturned on a rain-slick road,
killing 15 people and injuring 18 others.
(AP, 1/5/03)
2003 Jan 4, Ivory Coast's main
rebel movement agreed to respect an oft-violated cease-fire and to
resume peace talks with the government later this month in Paris.
(AP, 1/4/03)
2003 Jan 4, A boat from Somalia
to Yemen developed engine trouble and capsized and at least 80
people were feared dead.
(AP, 1/16/03)
2004 Jan 4, Louisiana State
University won college football's Sugar Bowl, defeating Oklahoma
21-14.
(AP, 1/4/05)
2004 Jan 4, In Iowa, seven of
the nine Democratic presidential hopefuls participated in a feisty,
first debate of the election year.
(AP, 1/4/05)
2004 Jan 4, Michael Straight
(87), former US State Dept employee (1938) and later editor of the
new Republic, died. In 1983 he authored "After Long Silence." He had
passed reports to the Russians in 1938.
(Econ, 1/17/04, p.76)
2004 Jan 4, John Toland (91),
historian, died in Danbury, Conn. His books included "The Rising
Sun" (1971), an account of Japan from 1936-1945, and "Adolph Hitler:
The Definitive Biography" (1976).
(SFC, 1/6/04, p.A19)y
2004 Jan 4, Rival Afghan
factions agreed to a new national constitution. 502 delegates
accepted a system with a strong president and a weaker parliament.
(AP, 1/4/04)(SFC, 1/5/04, p.A1)
2004 Jan 4, In Denmark
residents who openly bought and sold hashish at a famous hippie
enclave in Copenhagen abruptly demolished their booths, trying to
head off a Danish government crackdown on illegal drug sales.
(AP, 1/4/04)
2004 Jan 4, The former Soviet
republic of Georgia voted for a successor to President Eduard
Shevardnadze. Mikhail Saakashvili, Georgia's young firebrand
opposition leader, declared himself the victor in presidential
elections with some 85% of the vote.
(AP, 1/5/04)(SFC, 1/5/04, p.A3)
2004 Jan 4, Israeli Prime
Minister Ariel Sharon issued an order to dismantle two West Bank
settlement outposts.
(AP, 1/4/04)
2004 Jan 4, In the southern
Philippines a bomb exploded at a packed basketball game, killing 11
people and wounding at least 68 including Parang Mayor Vivencio
Bataga, who was the likely target of the attack.
(AP, 1/4/04)(SFC, 1/5/04, p.A3)
2004 Jan 4, South Korean
prosecutors, investigating corruption in the bidding on government
contracts by an affiliate of IBM Corp., indicted 48 government and
company officials.
(AP, 1/4/04)
2004 Jan 4, In southern
Thailand assailants set fire to 18 schools and stormed a military
armory, killing four soldiers in nearly simultaneous raids.
(AP, 1/4/04)
2005 Jan 4, The 109th US
Congress convened and took up tsunami aid. The Republican edge was
55 to 45.
(WSJ, 1/5/05, p.A1)
2005 Jan 4, In the Orange Bowl
#1 Southern California overwhelmed #2 Oklahoma 55-19.
(AP, 1/4/06)
2005 Jan 4, Wade Boggs was
elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in his first year of
eligibility, and Ryne Sandberg made it with just six votes to spare
on his third try.
(AP, 1/4/06)
2005 Jan 4, Kelbessa Negewo
(54), an Ethiopian immigrant suspected of torturing and murdering
more than a dozen political opponents of the Ethiopian government in
the 1970s, was arrested at his home near Atlanta. Negewo has lived
in the US since fleeing Ethiopia in 1987.
(Reuters, 1/4/05)
2005 Jan 4, Robert Heilbroner
(b.1919), author of the 1953 economics classic “Worldly
Philosophers,” died.
(WSJ, 1/11/05, p.A1)
2005 Jan 4, Cuban Foreign
Minister Felipe Perez Roque said the island nation was renewing
contacts with France, Britain, Germany, Italy, Austria, Greece,
Portugal and Sweden after an EU panel recommended that member states
stop inviting dissidents to their National Day celebrations at their
embassies in Havana.
(AP, 1/4/05)
2005 Jan 4, Diplomats said the
U.N. atomic watchdog agency has found evidence of secret nuclear
experiments in Egypt that could be used in weapons programs.
(AP, 1/4/05)
2005 Jan 4, Doctors at Haiti's
largest public hospital extended a weeklong strike to protest
overdue paychecks.
(AP, 1/4/05)
2005 Jan 4, Insurgents
assassinated the highest-ranking Iraqi official in eight months,
gunning down the governor of Baghdad province and six of his
bodyguards. A suicide truck bomber killed 10 people at an Interior
Ministry commando headquarters. 5 US soldiers were killed in
assaults elsewhere.
(AP, 1/4/05)(WSJ, 1/5/05, p.A1)
2005 Jan 4, Two Israeli tank
shells slammed into a field in response to Palestinian mortar fire,
killing seven Palestinians youths working in a strawberry field.
(AP, 1/4/05)(SFC, 1/4/05, p.A3)
2005 Jan 4, In Peru the leader
of an armed nationalist group that seized a remote police station,
took 10 officers hostage and allegedly killed four others was
detained while most of his 125 followers were rounded up.
(AP, 1/4/05)
2005 Jan 4, Polish PM Marek
Belka arrived in Tripoli for a two-day visit that will include talks
on cooperation in the oil sector and a meeting with Libyan leader
Moamer Kadhafi.
(AFP, 1/5/05)
2005 Jan 4, Portugal’s national
meteorology office said many regions, including the southernmost
province of Algarve, the country's main tourism center, are facing
their worst drought in over a decade.
(AP, 1/5/05)
2005 Jan 4, Venezuela's
left-leaning government promised to grant poor farmers at least
100,000 plots of land carved from either state property or large
private holdings, a step toward implementing a controversial
agrarian reform law.
(AP, 1/4/05)
2006 Jan 4, The US Supreme
Court allowed federal prosecutors to take custody of “enemy
combatant” Jose Padilla so he could face criminal charges.
(SFC, 1/5/06, p.A5)
2006 Jan 4, A US federal
appeals court in Atlanta reinstated a $54.6 million verdict against
two retired Salvadoran generals, Carlos Eugenio Vides Casanova (67),
and Jose Guillermo Garcia (72), accused of torture during the civil
war (1980-1992) in their home country.
(AP, 1/8/06)
2006 Jan 4, The Univ. of Texas
Longhorns scored a 41-38 win over Southern California in the Rose
Bowl. Official tickets sold for $175 and resellers on the internet
hawked them for as much as $3000.
(AP, 1/5/06)(Econ, 1/7/06, p.58)
2006 Jan 4, In a
triple-overtime game that began Jan. 3 and finished after midnight,
No. 3 Penn State beat No. 22 Florida State 26-23 in the Orange Bowl.
(AP, 1/4/07)
2006 Jan 4, Scientists said
protected ocean areas are needed to save deep-sea fish which have
been driven to near extinction by commercial fishing.
(Reuters, 1/4/06)
2006 Jan 4, Chad's President
Idriss Deby urged the UN to take control of Sudan's volatile Darfur
region because he said Khartoum was using the conflict there to
destabilize neighboring states.
(Reuters, 1/4/06)
2006 Jan 4, In China’s central
province of Hunan a mismanaged silt clean-up project allowed the
industrial chemical cadmium, which can cause neurological disorders
and cancer, to flood out of a smelting works and into the Xiangjiang
River.
(AFP, 1/8/06)
2006 Jan 4, Two Egyptian guards
were shot dead at the border with Gaza after armed Palestinians made
a hole in the border wall. Palestinian militants angry at the
jailing of their leader stole two bulldozers and smashed through the
border wall between Gaza and Egypt.
(AP, 1/4/06)
2006 Jan 4, French Interior
Minister Nicolas Sarkozy said France will create a special police
force to ensure security for railway passengers after a band of
marauding youths robbed and sexually assaulted train travelers Jan 1
in southeast France.
(AP, 1/4/06)
2006 Jan 4, In Indonesia
landslides triggered by heavy rains swept down on a village on Java
island, burying homes beneath tons of mud and leaving dozens of
people missing and feared dead. The number of dead or missing from
days of wet weather rose to over 200.
(AP, 1/5/06)
2006 Jan 4, An Iraqi Interior
Ministry official said more than 7,000 Iraqis, most of them
civilians, were killed in violence in 2005, the first year that
Iraqi officials have kept such records.
(AP, 1/4/06)
2006 Jan 4, In Iraq a suicide
bomber killed 32 mourners and wounded dozens at a funeral for the
nephew of a Shiite politician, one of several attacks across the
country that killed a total of 53 people.
(AP, 1/4/06)
2006 Jan 4, Israel’s PM Ariel
Sharon was rushed to an operating room to staunch a brain
hemorrhage; his official powers were transferred to his deputy, Ehud
Olmert.
(WSJ, 1/5/06, p.A1)(AP, 1/4/07)
2006 Jan 4, The world’s largest
bank, the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ (MUFG), opened for business
with $1.6 trillion in assets.
(Econ, 1/7/06, p.64)
2006 Jan 4, The Russian and
Ukrainian natural gas companies agreed on a plan to resume gas
shipments to Ukraine that allowed both sides to claim victory after
a commercial and political dispute that had raised fears of gas
shortages in Europe.
(AP, 1/4/06)
2006 Jan 4, In Tanzania rocks
and boulders tumbled down Mount Kilimanjaro and crashed into tents
where tourists were sleeping, killing 3 American climbers and
seriously injuring 2.
(AP, 1/5/06)
2006 Jan 4, Sheik Maktoum bin
Rashid Al Maktoum (62), the emir of Dubai and prominent owner and
breeder of thoroughbred horses, died during a visit to Australia.
(AP, 1/4/06)
2006 Jan 4, Intel asked the
Vietnamese government for a license to build a chip plant worth 605
million dollars in southern Ho Chi Minh City. Regulators approved
the plans in February.
(AFP, 1/5/06)(WSJ, 2/24/06, p.A6)
2007 Jan 4, The 110th Congress
convened with Democrats in control of both the House and Senate for
the first time in a dozen years. "Today we make history. Today we
change the direction of our country," exulted Rep. Nancy Pelosi,
poised to become the first woman speaker in history. The House of
Representatives, after installing its new Democratic leadership,
voted to ban lawmakers from flying on corporate jets and accepting
gifts and meals from lobbyists. Keith Ellison of Minnesota's 5th
District became the first Muslim member of Congress.
(AP, 1/4/07)(AP, 1/4/08)
2007 Jan 4, The US Federal
Trade Commission fined the marketers of four weight loss pills $25
million for making false advertising claims ranging from rapid
weight loss to reducing the risk of cancer.
(AP, 1/4/07)
2007 Jan 4, Harriet Miers
resigned as White House counsel.
(AP, 1/4/08)
2007 Jan 4, Vincent Sardi Jr.
(91), owner of Sardi's restaurant, the legendary Broadway watering
hole, died in Berlin, Vt.
(AP, 1/4/08)
2007 Jan 4, NATO and Afghan
forces fought a three-hour ground battle with suspected Taliban
militants in southern Afghan mountains, killing 15 of them. 3
suspected Taliban died when a land mine they were planting on a
highway in Grieshk district exploded prematurely.
(AP, 1/5/07)
2007 Jan 4, US officials said
Colombia has extradited to the US a police officer and a former
policeman charged with helping smuggle more than 2 tons of cocaine
into the US on cargo flights in 2005 and 2006.
(AP, 1/4/07)
2007 Jan 4, Pieces of a spent
Russian rocket reentered the atmosphere over Colorado and Wyoming,
showering parts of the western United States with space debris.
(Reuters, 1/5/07)
2007 Jan 4, John W. Simpson
(1914-2007), former president of Westinghouse (1969-1977), died. He
had worked with Adm. Rickover to create a nuclear US Navy.
(WSJ, 1/20/07, p.A5)
2007 Jan 4, Victor Ramirez
(27), a day laborer from El Salvador, was gunned down by 2 black
teenagers in Richmond, Ca. Ramirez was taken off life support after
2 weeks and died Jan 19.
(SFC, 1/30/07, p.A1)
2007 Jan 4, Overshadowed by an
Israeli raid into the Palestinian territories, a summit between
Israel and Egypt achieved little in reviving the long-stalled
Mideast peace process, highlighting instead the disagreements
between Israel and its Arab neighbors.
(AP, 1/5/07)
2007 Jan 4, Two car bombs
exploded near a fuel station, killing 13 people and wounding 25 amid
a relative downturn in violence in Baghdad during an Islamic holiday
that ended this week.
(AP, 1/4/07)
2007 Jan 4, Israeli troops and
Palestinian gunmen exchanged heavy fire in downtown Ramallah after
undercover Israeli forces tried to arrest fugitives in the city's
vegetable market. Four Palestinians were killed and 20 wounded.
Pres. Abbas demanded $5 million in compensation for the damage to
shops and cars in Ramallah. Fatah Col. Mohammed Ghayeb and six of
his bodyguards were killed in factional fighting in the Gaza Strip.
(AP, 1/4/07)(AP, 1/5/07)
2007 Jan 4, Musir Salem Jawher
(28) from Bahrain won the 30th International Tiberias Marathon,
around the Sea of Galilee. The Kenyan runner (Leonard Mucheru),
adopted by Bahrain 4 years earlier, faced anger from Bahrain for
running in an Israeli marathon.
(WSJ, 4/16/07,
p.A1)(www.tiberias-marathon.co.il/en/)
2007 Jan 4, Kenya said it has
closed its border with Somalia in an apparent effort to keep Islamic
militants and refugees from entering the country.
(AP, 1/4/07)
2007 Jan 4, Jorge Bajos
Valverde, a Mexican state legislator, was gunned down in the center
of Acapulco on his way to an interview at a radio and TV station.
(AP, 1/5/07)
2007 Jan 4, Nigeria’s President
Olusegun Obasanjo said Nigeria has repaid 1.4 billion dollars (1.12
billion euros) to the so-called London Club of private creditors and
that the rest of the debt will be cleared by March. At least 3
people were killed in violent clashes between farmers and nomads in
the northwestern state of Zamfara. A 4th died in hospital the next
day.
(AFP, 1/4/07)(AFP, 1/6/07)
2007 Jan 4, Authorities lifted
a ban on kite-flying in Pakistan’s Punjab province after the sport
was forbidden last year following a series of deaths caused by
glass-coated or metal reinforced kite strings. The ban was lifted
ahead of Basant, Feb 25, an annual festival that heralds spring.
(AP, 1/4/07)
2007 Jan 4, Polish newspapers
reported that Stanislaw Wielgus (67), who is poised to be sworn in
as archbishop of Warsaw, was a "secret and conscious" collaborator
with Poland's hated communist-era security forces from 1973-1978.
(AFP, 1/4/07)
2007 Jan 4, A Somali government
spokesman said government troops, backed by Ethiopian soldiers, were
fighting about 600 Islamic militiamen in the south.
(AP, 1/4/07)
2007 Jan 4, Marais Viljoen
(91), former president of South Africa (1979-1984), died. The post
of president in the then apartheid state was largely ceremonial
during his term.
(AP, 1/5/07)
2007 Jan 4, Police in the
Basque region said they had found a bomb in northern Spain, five
days after a Madrid car bombing, blamed on the separatist group ETA,
killed 2 people.
(AP, 1/4/07)(AP, 1/6/07)
2007 Jan 4, Sudan described the
alleged sexual abuse of children by UN peacekeepers in south Sudan
as "outrageous" and said it would launch its own investigation into
the affair.
(AP, 1/4/07)
2007 Jan 4, In Uzbekistan Elena
Urlayeva, a prominent human rights advocate, was attacked and beaten
by a group of women she said were sent by police. Urlayeva has
accused the tightly controlled ex-Soviet state of abuse and torture.
(AP, 1/5/07)
2008 Jan 4, The US Labor
Department said hiring practically stalled in December, driving the
nation's unemployment rate up to a two-year high of 5 percent and
fanning fears of a recession. The DJIA fell 256.54 to 12800.18.
(AP, 1/4/08)(WSJ, 1/5/08, p.A1)
2008 Jan 4, The United States
700 MHz FCC wireless spectrum auction, officially known as Auction
73, was started by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).
AT&T, Verizon and others paid close to $20 billion for the
700MHZ band covering channels 52-69 on the television dial.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_2008_wireless_spectrum_auction)
2008 Jan 4, Flights were
grounded and trucks overturned in Northern California as wind gusted
to 80 mph during the second wave of the arctic storm that has sent
trees crashing onto houses, cars and roads. Hundreds of thousands of
customers lost power from central California into Oregon and
Washington. An estimated 1.9-2.1 million PG&E customers lost
power.
(AP, 1/5/08)(SFC, 1/8/08, p.A1)
2008 Jan 4, In Texas Jana
Shearer (21), the girlfriend of Christopher Lee McCuin (25), was
taken by McCuin from her home and killed. McCuin was arrested Jan 5
after police found that he had cooked parts of her body and may have
tried to eat them. On Dec 7 McCuin was found dead in his jail cell.
(AP, 1/7/08)(AP, 12/8/08)
2008 Jan 4, In Oakland, Ca.,
Jessica Birden (19) died from wounds suffered on Jan 1, when she was
found unconscious on a trail in the King Estates Recreation Area in
the Oakland Hills. On Jan 8 Kenneth Jovan Washington, a man
suspected in her assault and that of others in the Bay Area, was
charged with her murder and another attack on Dec 24.
(SFC, 1/8/08, p.B3)(SFC, 1/9/08, p.B3)
2008 Jan 4, Mort Garson
(b.1983), Canadian-born composer and arranger, died in SF. He
co-wrote the 1963 hit “Our Day Will Come,” performed by Ruby and the
Romantics. He also fused the Moog synthesizer with orchestral music
and composed music that was used by CBS-TV in 1969 in film footage
of NASA spaceflights as Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon.
(SFC, 1/16/08, p.B9)
2008 Jan 4, In Afghanistan’s
Uruzgan province a clash between NATO troops and Taliban insurgents
near Tirin Kot, the provincial capital, left two civilians dead and
five others wounded.
(AP, 1/7/08)
2008 Jan 4, Young men stormed
the streets of Guinea, hurling rocks and setting tires ablaze as
labor unions called for a strike, threatening to throw the African
nation into gridlock.
(AP, 1/5/08)
2008 Jan 4, P. Chidambaram,
India’s finance minister, urged state-run banks to reduce lending
rates by half a percentage point to spur consumption and investment
as signs emerge of a slowdown in consumer spending. Police arrested
14 men for allegedly harassing two women outside a five-star hotel
in Mumbai during New Year's celebrations, a case that drew
widespread criticism after police initially refused to pursue it.
(AP, 1/4/08)(AFP, 1/5/08)
2008 Jan 4, Israeli troops on a
night mission in the Gaza Strip killed two Hamas gunmen in the early
hours as Israel responded to Palestinian rocket fire with strikes
against militants that left 11 dead in 24 hours.
(AP, 1/4/08)
2008 Jan 4, Kenya's opposition
called for a new presidential election to settle a dispute that has
sparked deadly riots from the capital to the coast, but a government
spokesman said a new vote could come on only on orders from the
highest court. The World Food Program warned that 100,000 people
faced starvation in western Kenya.
(AP, 1/4/08)(SFC, 1/5/08, p.A3)
2008 Jan 4, Kosovo's
legislators were sworn in at the first session of a new parliament
that is widely expected to declare independence from Serbia early
this year.
(AP, 1/4/08)
2008 Jan 4, A Moroccan court
sentenced 51 Islamists of the Ansar El Mahdi group to between two
and 25 years in jail for plotting to overthrow the government here
and install an Islamist regime.
(AFP, 1/4/08)
2008 Jan 4, Myanmar's
Independence Day was marked by opposition calls for the freeing of
democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi and other political prisoners as the
military rulers urged national discipline.
(AP, 1/4/08)
2008 Jan 4, Russian rescuers
saved 11 people stranded for nearly three months in a remote area of
the Pacific coast after a fishing trip went wrong. Their two boats
were damaged in a storm on October 10 during a fishing expedition
off the Kamchatka Peninsula.
(Reuters, 1/4/08)
2008 Jan 4, The annual 5,760
Dakar Rally was canceled on the eve of the race across the Sahara
Desert because of terror threats and the recent Christmas Eve
killings of a French family in Mauritania blamed on al-Qaida-linked
militants. The race, organized by the France-based Amaury Sport
Organization (ASO), had been due to start in Lisbon, Portugal, and
finish in Dakar, Senegal, on Jan. 20.
(AP, 1/4/08)(WSJ, 1/5/08, p.A1)
2008 Jan 4, Fresh fighting
erupted between southern Sudanese forces and Khartoum-backed Arab
tribesmen near key oil areas of the country, former southern rebels
said, further denting hopes of an end to north-south hostilities.
(AP, 1/4/08)
2008 Jan 4, Taiwan's ties with
its ally Malawi were shaky after the African country snubbed the
island's top diplomat in an aborted visit to the African nation
aimed at persuading it to resist diplomatic wooing by China.
(AP, 1/4/08)
2008 Jan 4, A private plane
carrying 14 people, including 8 Italians, crashed into the sea after
taking off from Venezuela's Los Roques islands.
(AP, 1/5/08)(AP, 1/7/08)
2008 Jan 4, The Zambian
government awarded a 1.2 billion dollar crude oil deal to a Kuwait
firm to supply over 1.4 million tons of oil to the southern African
nation.
(AP, 1/5/08)
2008 Jan 4, Zimbabwe’s
state-owned The Herald daily reported that a diarrhea outbreak has
hit Harare following weeks of uncollected garbage, sewer blockages
and erratic water supplies.
(AFP, 1/4/08)
2009 Jan 4, Pres. Obama signed
a law expanding SCHIP, a health scheme covering children in poor
families.
(Econ, 2/7/09, p.26)
2009 Jan 4, New Mexico Gov.
Bill Richardson, Obama's choice for commerce secretary, withdrew
under pressure of a federal investigation into how his political
donors landed a lucrative transportation contract.
(AP, 1/5/09)(SFC, 1/5/09, p.A5)
2009 Jan 4, In Louisiana 8
people were killed when a PHI Inc. helicopter, bound for offshore
oil fields, crashed about 100 miles southwest of New Orleans.
(SFC, 1/5/09, p.A3)
2009 Jan 4, In Syracuse, NY,
Shawn Rhines (15) killed public works department employee Casimir
Snyder (47). Police later said Ja-Le Johnson and Rhines would often
hang out in an attic across the street and shoot target practice
with rifles from a window. Police recovered two rifles from the
attic. Rhines confessed and faced 10 years to life in prison.
(SFC, 4/17/09, p.A6)
2009 Jan 4-2009 Jan 5, In
Afghanistan 12 insurgents and 11 civilians were killed in fighting
in central Uruzgan province.
(AP, 1/7/09)
2009 Jan 4, British PM Gordon
Brown pledged to create 100,000 jobs through a public works program
and said he would press banks to resume normal lending as Britain
faces its sharpest economic downturn in decades.
(AP, 1/4/09)
2009 Jan 4, A northern
Guatemala mudslide left at least 37 people dead. At least 50 people
were still missing in Aquil Grande.
(AP, 1/5/09)(AP, 1/6/09)(AP, 1/7/09)
2009 Jan 4, In eastern
Indonesia a series of powerful earthquakes toppled or badly damaged
more than 100 buildings and left one person dead and dozens injured.
(AP, 1/4/09)(AP, 1/5/09)
2009 Jan 4, In Iraq a female
suicide bomber blew herself up among a crowd of pilgrims worshipping
at a revered Shiite shrine in northern Baghdad, killing at least 38
people and wounding about 72.
(AP, 1/4/09)
2009 Jan 4, Israeli ground
troops and tanks cut swaths through the Gaza Strip, cutting the
coastal territory into two and surrounding its biggest city as the
new phase of a devastating offensive against Hamas militants gained
momentum. Gaza officials said at least 31 civilians were killed in
the onslaught. Israel reported one soldier was killed by mortar
fire. The new deaths brought the death toll in the Gaza Strip to
more than 500 since Dec 27. At least 45 missiles fell on southern
Israel, wounding five people. 2 women waving white flags were killed
in the Juher a-Dik neighborhood in Gaza City. The incident occurred
when the Abu Hajaj family evacuated their home after it was hit by a
tank shell.
(AP, 1/4/09)(AP, 1/5/09)(AP, 6/16/10)
2009 Jan 4, In a densely
forested region of Indian Kashmir a gun battle between government
forces and suspected Islamic insurgents raged for a fourth day
leaving at least seven combatants killed.
(AP, 1/4/09)
2009 Jan 4, In eastern Nepal
dozens of people were missing after an overcrowded boat carrying
mostly women and children capsized in the Saptakosi river. More than
50 people were believed on board the boat and only 14 were rescued.
(AP, 1/4/09)(SFC, 1/5/09, p.A12)
2009 Jan 4, Gunmen hijacked a
vessel and 9 crewmen belonging to French oil services group Bourbon
off Nigeria's Niger Delta as it traveled toward a Royal Dutch Shell
offshore oilfield. The 9 crewmen: five Nigerians, two Ghanaians, one
Cameroonian and one Indonesian aboard. were released on Dec 7.
(Reuters, 1/4/09)(AP, 1/6/09)(AP, 1/7/09)
2009 Jan 4, In northwest
Pakistan a suicide bomber attacked police as they rushed to treat
civilians injured by an earlier explosion, killing seven people and
wounding at least 25 others. During a raid elsewhere in northwest
Pakistan, the army discovered a van packed with 880 pounds (400
kilograms) of explosives. Six suspected militants were arrested in
the raid on a house in the Khyber tribal region.
(AP, 1/4/09)
2009 Jan 4, Russia's military
leaders approved a plan by the navy to station warships permanently
in friendly ports across the globe.
(AP, 1/4/09)
2009 Jan 4, Russia asked the EU
to provide monitoring of Ukraine's gas transit system and charged
Ukraine was stealing gas bound for Europe, as Kiev leveled its own
charges. Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller said that the state-controlled
company wanted $450 per 1,000 cubic meters, up from its last offer
of $418. The reductions in gas supplies spread to the Czech Republic
and Turkey.
(AP, 1/4/09)(Reuters, 1/4/09)
2009 Jan 4, A French warship
foiled attempts by Somali pirates in the Gulf of Aden to seize two
cargo vessels and intercepted 19 people.
(AFP, 1/5/09)
2009 Jan 4, Sri Lanka’s
rebel-affiliated TamilNet Web site reported that the insurgents
stalled a military advance on the road to Mullaittivu, killing 53
soldiers and wounding 80 others.
(AP, 1/5/09)
2009 Jan 4, Jimmy Mohlala, a
South African official who blew the whistle on alleged corruption in
the building of a stadium for the 2010 World Cup, was shot dead by
unknown gunmen. The 46,000-capacity Mbombela stadium, scheduled for
completion this year, is one of 10 venues for the 2010 World Cup.
(AFP, 1/6/09)
2009 Jan 4-2009 Jan 5, In South
Africa a lethal storm on the eastern coast killed 18 people over the
weekend, including four family members struck dead by lightning.
(AFP, 1/6/09)
2010 Jan 4, James Cameron's
science-fiction epic "Avatar" had another stellar weekend with $68.3
million domestically, shooting past $1 billion worldwide, only the
fifth movie ever to hit that mark. Along with "Titanic," the others
are "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King" at $1.13
billion, "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest" at $1.06
billion and "The Dark Knight" at a fraction over $1 billion,
according to box-office tracker Hollywood.com.
(AP, 1/4/10)
2010 Jan 4, The US Census
Bureau kicked off its $300 million campaign to prod, coax and cajole
the nation's more than 300 million residents to fill out their
once-a-decade census forms.
(AP, 1/4/10)
2010 Jan 4, Solis Palma, a
Mexican migrant, was shot and killed after he reportedly attacked a
US Border Patrol agent in southern Arizona with rocks.
(AP, 1/6/10)
2010 Jan 4, Bobby DeLaughter
(55), a former Mississippi prosecutor and judge whose legal
conquests became the subject of books and a movie, reported to
federal prison for lying to the FBI in a judicial bribery
investigation. DeLaughter was sentenced to 18 months in November
after pleading guilty to lying about secret conversations he had
with a lawyer while presiding over a dispute between wealthy
attorneys over legal fees. As part of a plea deal, prosecutors
dropped conspiracy and mail fraud charges.
(AP, 1/4/10)
2010 Jan 4, In Nevada Las Vegas
Johnny Lee Wicks (66), disgruntled over cuts in his Social Security
benefits, opened fire in the lobby of the federal court house in Las
Vegas killing a court security officer and wounding a deputy. Police
officers returned fire and Wicks was killed as he fled across the
street.
(SFC, 1/5/10, p.A6)
2010 Jan 4, Novartis, a Swiss
drug company, agreed to buy a controlling 52% stake in Alcon, an
American listed but Swiss-based eyecare company, from food giant
Nestle Corp.
(Econ, 1/9/10, p.66)
2010 Jan 4, NASA scientists
reported that the new Kepler space telescope has discovered 5
fiery-hot planets in the depths of the Milky Way, each far larger
than Earth.
(SFC, 1/5/10, p.A5)
2010 Jan 4, Edward Nathan
(1919), longtime grantmaker for the Zellerbach Family Foundation,
died in Oakland, Ca.
(SFC, 1/15/10, p.C5)
2010 Jan 4, In Algeria an
Algerian employee of Canadian construction firm SNC-Lavalin was
kidnapped by insurgents southeast of Algiers. The engineer was freed
on Jan 7.
(Reuters, 1/10/10)
2010 Jan 4, A new report by
Canada's Alzheimer Society said Canadians are developing dementia at
such a rapid rate that dealing with the problem will cost a total of
more than C$870 billion ($835 billion) over the next 30 years unless
preventive measures are taken.
(Reuters, 1/4/10)
2010 Jan 4, In northern China
21 workers were killed by a gas leak at the Hebei Puyang Iron and
Steel Co. Company officials initially said 16 workers were poisoned
and seven died while nine were sent to a hospital. On Jan 7 senior
executives "confessed" that they had covered up the death toll.
(AP, 1/8/10)
2010 Jan 4, Dubai inaugurated
the world's tallest skyscraper, the Burj Khalifa, hoping to shift
international attention away from the Gulf emirate's deep financial
crisis and rekindle the optimism that fueled its turbocharged
growth. The name was secretly switched from Burj Dubai and unveiled
to the public as the Burj Khalifa, after the emir of Abu Dhabi and
UAE president Sheik Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan. The observation
deck was the only part of the tower that opened. It was closed in
February following an elevator malfunction that left visitors
trapped. The deck reopened on April 4. Work continued on the rest of
the building's interior.
(AP, 1/4/10)(AFP, 1/5/10)(AP, 1/6/10)(AP, 4/4/10)
2010 Jan 4, In Iran dozens of
Tehran University professors appealed to the supreme leader to halt
the ongoing violence against protesters, adding a new and respected
voice in support of the opposition.
(AP, 1/4/10)
2010 Jan 4, In Iraq 3 policemen
were killed and eight people were wounded by two explosions in the
northern oil-rich city of Kirkuk.
(AFP, 1/4/10)
2010 Jan 4, Irish writer Colm
Toibin was named novelist of the year in Britain's lucrative Costa
Book Awards for his emigrant saga "Brooklyn."
(AP, 1/4/10)
2010 Jan 4, Israel approved
construction of four new apartment buildings in disputed east
Jerusalem, fueling tensions with the Palestinians at a time when the
US is laboring to get peace talks moving again.
(AP, 1/5/10)
2010 Jan 4, In Kenya US citizen
Sharon Brown (39) and her daughter Margaux (1) were trampled to
death when a lone elephant charged out of the brush just outside
Mount Kenya National Park.
(AP, 1/6/10)
2010 Jan 3, In Mexico Josefina
Reyes, a human rights activist, was been killed in the border city
of Ciudad Juarez.
(AP, 1/8/10)
2010 Jan 4, Myanmar's ruling
junta chief confirmed that the country's first general elections in
two decades will be held this year but gave no date for the
balloting, which is expected to exclude pro-democracy leader Aung
San Suu Kyi.
(AP, 1/4/10)
2010 Jan 4, Nigerian soldiers
shot 2 contract workers dead and injured 4 others at a Chevron plant
under construction. This led to a riot and left several buildings
destroyed and halted operations at the southern Escravos gas
project.
(www.poten.com/NewsDetails.aspx?id=10293513)(SFC,
1/7/10, p.A2)
2010 Jan 4, The Norwegian Chess
Federation said Magnus Carlsen (19) is the youngest person to hold
the title since ratings were introduced in 1971.
(AP, 1/4/10)
2010 Jan 4, Serbia filed a
lawsuit against Croatia at the International Court of Justice,
accusing it of genocide during the 1991-1995 Balkan war, which
killed or displaced thousands of people.
(AP, 1/5/10)
2010 Jan 4, A tsunami unleashed
by an earthquake plowed into the Solomon Islands with the crashing
waters devastating at least one village, leaving over a thousand
people homeless. The US Geological Survey recorded 8 earthquakes in
the region since late Jan 3. The magnitude 7.2 was centered 64 miles
(103 km) southeast of Gizo, and followed a 6.5 tremor less than two
hours earlier centered 54 miles (90 km) southeast of Gizo at a depth
of 6 miles (10 km).
(AP, 1/4/10)(AP, 1/5/10)
2010 Jan 4, In South Africa
Pres. Jacob Zuma formalized his marriage to a third wife in a
traditional ceremony in rural KwaZulu-Natal province.
(AP, 1/4/10)
2010 Jan 4, In South Korea
Seoul residents slogged through the heaviest snowfall in modern
Korean history after a winter storm dumped more than 11 inches (28
cm), forcing airports to cancel flights and paralyzing traffic in
the bustling capital.
(AP, 1/4/10)
2010 Jan 4, Yemeni security
forces killed two suspected al-Qaida militants in clashes outside
the capital Sanaa, as the US and British embassies extended their
closure for a second day because of threats of attack by the terror
group's offshoot here. France became the latest foreign mission to
close in Yemen as security around embassies and the airport was
boosted.
(AP, 1/4/10)(AFP, 1/4/10)
2011 Jan 4, Pres. Obama signed
a $1.4 billion overhaul of the nation’s food-safety system.
(SFC, 1/5/11, p.A4)
2011 Jan 4, The Internal
Revenue Service kicked off the US tax filing season, announcing that
taxpayers will have until April 18, 2011 to file their 2010 returns
and pay their tax bills because of a holiday on April 15.
(Reuters, 1/5/11)
2011 Jan 4, Owen Honors,
Captain of the US aircraft carrier Enterprise, was permanently
relieved of his command for making a series of ribald and offensive
videos that aired on the ship’s closed-circuit TV system when he was
second in command in 2006-207.
(SFC, 1/5/11, p.A4)
2011 Jan 4, Cornelius Dupree
Jr., a Texas man, was declared innocent after 30 years in prison. He
had at least two chances to make parole and be set free, if only he
would admit he was a sex offender. Dupree refused to do so, doggedly
maintaining his innocence in a 1979 rape and robbery. In the process
he serving more time for a crime he didn't commit than any other
Texas inmate exonerated by DNA evidence.
(AP, 1/4/11)
2011 Jan 4, Officials in
Louisiana said 500 birds were discovered dead, shortly after
thousands of birds were discovered dead in neighboring Arkansas.
(AFP, 1/5/11)
2011 Jan 4, The archdiocese of
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, filed for bankruptcy becoming the 8th in the
US to do so. It had become besieged by lawsuits related to priests
molesting boys.
(Econ, 2/12/11, p.36)
2011 Jan 4, Motorola Corp.
split into 2 companies: Motorola Mobility and Motorola Solutions.
(Econ, 1/1/11, p.57)
2011 Jan 4, Alireza Pahlavi
(44), the former shah of Iran's youngest son, died of an apparently
self-inflicted gunshot wound at his home in Boston. He was the
second of the four children of the late Shah Mohamed Reza Pahlavi
and former Empress Farah Pahlavi to die in exile. His sister Leila
was found dead of a drug overdose in 2001.
(AP, 1/5/11)
2011 Jan 4, Afghanistan's Pres.
Karzai told foreign powers to stop meddling in the country's
internal affairs. A bomb exploded in central Kabul, killing one
police officer and wounding three other people. Hundreds of police
swept through villages 220km northeast of Kabul, killing at least
eight rebels in an operation against militants. In Kandahar province
four rebels were killed when an IED they were planting on a road
went off prematurely.
(AP, 1/4/11)(AFP, 1/4/11)
2011 Jan 4, Mick Karn (52),
bass player in the 1980s group Japan, died in London. Karn, born in
Cyprus as Andonis Michaelides, was co-founder of Japan along with
David Sylvian and Steve Jansen. The group's 1982 album, "Tin Drum,"
included a hit song, "Ghosts."
(AP, 1/5/11)
2011 Jan 4, In China a gunfight
in Tai’an City of Shandong Province left four police officers dead
and five people injured.
(http://english.caing.com/2011-01-05/100214120.html)
2011 Jan 4, In India school
principal Rupan Pathak fatally stabbed Raj Kishore Kesri (51), a
Hindu nationalist lawmaker, while he was meeting with some of his
supporters at his residence in eastern Bihar state. Pathak accused
Kesri of sexually harassing her over a three-year period. Kesri's
guards overpowered Pathak, who is in her early 40s, and beat her up.
(AP, 1/4/11)
2011 Jan 4, Iran’s government
confirmed that it has invited world powers and its allies in the
Arab and developing world to tour Iranian nuclear sites before a
high-profile meeting late this month on its disputed nuclear
program.
(AP, 1/4/11)
2011 Jan 4, Italian protesters
rallied against the Brazilian president's refusal to extradite
ex-militant Cesare Battisti, amid government assurances that
relations with Brazil will not be affected.
(AFP, 1/4/11)
2011 Jan 4, Mediators said
Ivory Coast strongman Laurent Gbagbo has agreed to negotiate a
resolution to the crisis gripping the west African nation and lift a
blockade around his rival's headquarters.
(AFP, 1/4/11)
2011 Jan 4, Kenya's
industrialization minister resigned over a car imports scandal that
will see the country's anti-graft agency taking him to court on
corruption charges.
(AP, 1/4/11)
2011 Jan 4, Mexican federal
police announced they had arrested three US citizens in a sport
utility vehicle loaded with 159 packages of marijuana hidden in the
bodywork and gas tank. , Prosecutors said the David Romo, the leader
of Mexico's Death Saint cult, has been detained on suspicion of
participating in a kidnapping ring. Romo was one of nine suspects
placed under a form of house arrest for 30 days pending
investigation. The Mexican army detained the local operations leader
for the Sinaloa cartel, Jesus de la Cruz Lopez, alias "The Tomato."
(AP, 1/4/11)(AP, 1/5/11)
2011 Jan 4, Pakistan's main
opposition leader gave the government a three-day deadline to accept
a list of demands if it wants to avert its possible collapse after
the loss of its ruling majority in parliament. A gunman assassinated
the governor of Punjab province, a senior member of the ruling
party, in Islamabad. Salman Taseer was killed by Malik Mumtaz Qadri,
one of his guards, because of Taseer’s opposition to Pakistan's
controversial blasphemy law. On Oct 1 Qadri was convicted and
sentenced to death.
(AP, 1/4/11)(Reuters, 1/4/11)(Econ, 1/15/11,
p.45)(AP, 10/1/11)
2011 Jan 4, In Puerto Rico
police officers seized nearly 200 bags of cocaine and roughly 30
bags each of heroin and marijuana. A caiman was tied near the drugs,
which were found during a routine patrol in La Perla neighborhood of
historic Old San Juan.
(AP, 1/4/11)
2011 Jan 4, Zambian prosecutors
applied for arrest warrants after the mining officials Xiao Li Shan
and Wu Jiu Hua failed to attend the preliminary hearing regarding
the Oct 15 shooting of nearly a dozen miners at a Chinese-run coal
mine.
(AP, 1/4/11)
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