Today in History - January 29
Return to home
1559 Jan 29,
Thomas Pope (~52), English politician, benefactor, died.
(MC, 1/29/02)
1663 Jan 29, Robert Sanderson,
Bishop of Lincoln (1660-63), died.
(MC, 1/29/02)
1700 Jan 29, Daniel Bernoulli,
mathematician (10 time French award), was born in Basel,
Switzerland.
(MC, 1/29/02)
1728 Jan 29, The Beggar’s Opera
by John Gay (d.1732), with music arranged by John Christopher
Pepusch, had its premier at the Lincoln's Inn Fields in London. Gay
intended it to be a parody of Italian opera and a satirization of
the Walpole administration. He wrote new lyrics to popular tunes and
his "ballad opera" was a great success.
(LGC-HCS, p.45)(ON, 2/04, p.11)
1737 Jan 29, Thomas Paine,
political essayist, was born. He wrote "The Rights of Man" and "The
Age of Reason."
(HN, 1/29/99)
1802 Jan 29, John Beckley of
Virginia was appointed 1st Librarian of Congress.
(MC, 1/29/02)
1813 Jan 29, Jane Austin
published "Pride and Prejudice," a blend of instruction and moral
entertainment.
(HN, 1/29/99)
1820 Jan 29, Britain's King
George III (b.1760) died insane at Windsor Castle at age 81, ending
a reign that saw both the American and French revolutions. He
was succeeded by his son George IV (1762-1830), who as Prince of
Wales had been regent for 9 years during his father’s insanity. In
2005 scientists reported high levels of arsenic in the hair of King
George III and said the deadly poison may be to blame for the bouts
of apparent madness he suffered. In 2006 Stella Tillyard authored “A
Royal Affair: George III and His Troublesome Siblings” and Jeremy
Black authored “George III: America’s Last King.”
(http://tinyurl.com/gsbuj)(AP, 1/29/98)(WSJ,
12/26/06, p.D8)(Econ, 1/28/06, p.80)
1834 Jan 29, President Jackson
ordered the 1st use of US troops to suppress a labor dispute.
Jackson ordered the War Department to put down a "riotous assembly"
near Willamsport, Maryland, among Irish laborers constructing the
Chesapeake and Ohio Canal.
(HNQ, 1/23/99)(MC, 1/29/02)
1839 Jan 29, Charles Darwin
married Emma Wedgwood.
(MC, 1/29/02)
1843 Jan 29, William McKinley,
the 25th president of the United States (1897-1901), was born in
Niles, Ohio. McKinley was the last Civil War veteran to serve as
President of the United States. He had served with the 23rd
Regiment, Ohio Volunteers, eventually rising to the rank of brevet
major. He saw action at South Mountain, Antietam, Winchester and
Cedar Creek. For a time he served on Rutherford B. Hayes' staff.
McKinley was elected the 25th president in 1896. He led the country
in the Spanish-American War. He died in Buffalo, New York, on
September 14, 1901, after being shot by an anarchist assassin on
September 6.
(AP, 1/29/98)(HNQ, 11/13/98)
1845 Jan 29, Edgar Allan Poe's
poem "The Raven" was first published, in the New York Evening
Mirror.
(AP, 1/29/98)
1850 Jan 29, Lawrence Hargrave,
inventor of the box kite, was born.
(MC, 1/29/02)
1850 Jan 29, Ebenezer Howard,
pioneer of garden cities, was born in London.
(MC, 1/29/02)
1850 Jan 29, Henry Clay
introduced in the Senate a compromise bill on slavery that included
the admission of California into the Union as a free state.
(AP, 1/29/98)
1850 Jan 29, Luigi Sabatelli
(b.1772), Italian artist, died in Milan.
(www.artnet.com/library/07/0748/T074823.asp)
1861 Jan 29, Kansas was
admitted into the Union as the 34th state.
(HFA, '96, p.22)(AP, 1/29/98)(HN, 1/29/99)
1862 Jan 29, William Quantrill
and his Confederate raiders attack Danville, Kentucky.
(HN, 1/29/00)
1874 Jan 29, John David
Rockefeller Jr, philanthropist, was born in Cleveland, Ohio.
(MC, 1/29/02)
1877 Jan 29, A highly partisan
Electoral Commission, made up of eight Republicans and seven
Democrats, was established by Congress to settle the issue of
Democrat Samuel Tilden for president against Republican Rutherford
B. Hayes. Under the terms of the Tilden-Hayes Election Compromise,
Hayes became president and the Republicans agreed to remove the last
Federal troops from Southern territory, ending Reconstruction. On
election night, 1776, it was clear that Tilden had won the popular
vote, but it was also clear that votes in Florida, Louisiana, South
Carolina and Oregon were fraudulent because of voter intimidation.
Republicans knew that if the electoral votes from these four states
were thrown out, Hayes would win. The country hovered near civil war
as both Democrats and Republicans claimed victory. Illustrator
Thomas Nast drew his cartoon, ”Tilden or Blood," showing the
Democrats threatening violence.
(HNPD, 1/29/99)(PCh, 1992, p.542)
1880 Jan 29, W.C. Fields,
comedian and actor, was born in Philadelphia as Claude William
Dukinfield [Dukenfield]. His films included “David Copperfield” and
“My Little Chickadee.” [see Apr 9 1879]
(HN, 1/29/99)(MC, 1/29/02)
1886 Jan 29, 1st successful
gasoline-driven car was patented by Karl Benz in Karlsruhe. [see Jan
26]
(MC, 1/29/02)
1900 Jan 29, The American
League, consisting of eight baseball teams, was organized in
Philadelphia with teams from Buffalo, Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit,
Indianapolis, Kansas City, Milwaukee and Minneapolis. [see Feb 2]
(SFC, 7/7/96, Z1 p.5)(AP, 1/29/98)
1904 Jan 29, The 1st athletic
letters were given to the Univ. of Chicago football team.
(MC, 1/29/02)
1912 Jan 29, "Professor" Irwin
Corey, comedian (Car Wash, Doc), was born in Brooklyn, NY.
(MC, 1/29/02)
1916 Jan 29, 1st bombings of
Paris by German Zeppelins took place.
(MC, 1/29/02)
1916 Jan 29, Grigori Rasputin,
Russian mystic, shaman, grubby peasant, and influential favorite of
the Romanov court, survived a failed attempt to poison him. Prince
Felix Yussoupov, an effete, wealthy young aristocrat, shot and
killed Rasputin and in effect, brought down the Russian Empire. The
prince dined out on his story for many decades, becoming a jet-set
celebrity. He restored his old wealth, lost in the Soviet
Revolution, by suing anyone who wrote about Rasputin without his
permission. [see Dec 16, Dec 30, 1916]
(MC, 1/29/02)
1918 Jan 29, John Forsythe
(d.2010), actor (Bachelor Father, Charlie's Angels, Dynasty), was
born in NJ.
(SFC, 4/3/10, p.C2)
1918 Jan 29, The Supreme Allied
Council met at Versailles.
(HN, 1/29/99)
1921 Jan 29, A hurricane hit
Washington and Oregon.
(MC, 1/29/02)
1924 Jan 29, An ice cream cone
rolling machine was patented by Carl Taylor in Cleveland.
(MC, 1/29/02)
1926 Jan 29, Violette Neatley
Anderson became the first African-American woman admitted to
practice before the U.S. Supreme Court.
(HN, 1/29/99)
1928 Jan 29, Lithuania and
Germany signed a boundary agreement that established the Nemunas
River as a border up to Klaipeda.
(Voruta #27-28, 7/1996, p.2)(LHC, 1/29/03)
1929 Jan 29, The first
seeing-eye Dog Guide School in the United States received their
charter. Seeing Eye, Inc., was founded in Morris Township, New
Jersey, by Dorothy Harrison Eustus. In February Morris Frank and
Jack Humphrey began operating the 1st Seeing Eye school in the US in
Nashville, Tenn. Frank had trained under Humphrey in Switzerland at
a kennel owned by Dorothy Eustis. Buddy was Frank's 1st dog and in
1936 became the 1st seeing-eye dog to ride as a passenger on an
American commercial airline.
(HNQ,
3/10/01)(www.seeingeye.org/aboutus/?M_ID=472)(ON, 12/03, p.5)
1930 Jan 29, North American
Co. was again removed from the Dow Jones and Johns Manville was
added.
(WSJ, 5/28/96, R45)(WSJ, 4/8/04, p.C4)
1931 Jan 29, Winston Churchill
resigned as Stanley Baldwin's aide.
(HN, 1/29/99)
1934 Jan 29, Fritz Haber (65),
German chemist (Nobel 1918), died. In the 1920s Haber exhaustively
searched for a method to extract gold from sea water, and published
a number of scientific papers on the subject. However, after years
of research, he concluded that the concentration of gold dissolved
in sea water was much lower than those concentrations reported by
earlier researchers, and that gold extraction from sea water was
uneconomic. In 2005 Daniel Charles authored “Master Mind: The Rise
and Fall of Fritz Haber, the Nobel Laureate Who Launched the Age of
Chemical Warfare.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritz_Haber)(SSFC,
8/7/05, p.C6)
1936 Jan 29, The first members
of baseball's Hall of Fame: Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Honus Wagner,
Christy Mathewson & Walter Johnson were named in Cooperstown,
N.Y.
(AP, 1/29/98)(http://tinyurl.com/33ko5fd)
1939 Jan 29, Germaine Greer,
feminist, author (Female Eunuch), was born in Melbourne, Australia.
(MC, 1/29/02)
1950 Jan 29, Ann Jillian,
actress (Mr. Mom, Jennifer Slept Here), was born in Cambridge, Mass.
(MC, 1/29/02)
1942 Jan 29, German and Italian
troops took Benghazi in North Africa.
(HN, 1/29/99)
1944 Jan 29, The world's
greatest warship, the Missouri, was launched.
(HN, 1/29/99)
1950 Jan 29, Ann Jillian,
actress (Mr. Mom, Jennifer Slept Here), was born in Cambridge, Mass.
(www.imdb.com/name/nm0422713/)
1950 Jan 29, Riots broke out in
Johannesburg, South Africa, over Apartheid.
(HN, 1/29/99)
1950 Jan 29, The French
National Assembly approved legislation granting autonomy to Bao
Dai's State of Vietnam.
(www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/pentagon/pent1.html)
1951 Jan 29, Liz Taylor's 1st
divorce was from Conrad Hilton Jr.
(MC, 1/29/02)
1954 Jan 29, Oprah Winfrey,
actress, TV host (Color Purple, Oprah), was born in Mississippi.
(MC, 1/29/02)
1958 Jan 29, Actors Paul Newman
and Joanne Woodward were married in Las Vegas.
(AP, 1/29/08)
1959 Jan 29, Walt Disney's
"Sleeping Beauty" was released.
(MC, 1/29/02)
1963 Jan 29, The first members
of football's Hall of Fame were named in Canton, Ohio.
(AP,
1/29/98)(www.profootballhof.com/hof/years.jsp)
1963 Jan 29, Poet Robert Frost
(b.1874) died in Boston at age 88. In 1999 Jay Parini published
"Robert Frost: A Life." Lawrance Thompson authored a 3-volume
biography (1966-1976).
(AP, 1/29/98)(SFEC, 4/18/99, BR p.3)
1963 Jan 29, Kuwait’s
constitution came into force as the new National Assembly convened.
but only a select few were eligible to vote. Power rested with the
royal family.
(www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/gulf/kuwait-legislature.htm)(Econ,
7/8/06, p.40)
1966 Jan 29, "Sweet Charity"
opened on Broadway for 608 performances. Cy Coleman composed the
music.
(www.prigsbee.com/Musicals/shows/sweetcharity.htm)(SFC, 11/20/04,
p.B6)
1966 Jan 29, A snow storm in
north east US killed 165.
(MC, 1/29/02)
1967 Jan 29, Thirty-seven
civilians were killed by a U.S. helicopter attack in Vietnam.
(HN, 1/29/99)
1968 Jan 29, A court convened
in Vietnam for the murder of Cambodian, triple agent Inchin Lam, by
Special Forces Captain John J. McCarthy Jr. Murder charges were
later dropped due to exculpatory evidence and proven prosecutorial
fraud on the court. A civil action for $1.3 billion in US Federal
District Court, Washington D.C. against the CIA and associated
agencies was dismissed in 2003.
(www.copvcia.com/Mac.htm)(http://johnmccarthy90066.tripod.com/id299.html)
1968 Jan 29, Leonard Tsuguharu
Foujita (b.1886), painter and engraver born in Tokyo, Japan, died in
Zurich, Switz. He applied French oil techniques to Japanese-style
paintings. In 2006 Phyllis Birnbaum authored “Glory in a Line: A
Life of Foujita – The Artist Caught Between East and West.”
(SSFC, 11/26/06,
p.M1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsuguharu_Foujita)
1969 Jan 29, An undersea oil
well off Santa Barbara, Ca., suffered a blowout and over the next 11
days released some 200,000 gallons of oil that spread over 800
square miles of ocean and soiled 35 miles of coastline.
(www.geog.ucsb.edu/~jeff/sb_69oilspill/69oilspill_articles2.html)
1971 Jan 29, "My Sweet Lord" by
George Harrison hit #1 on UK pop chart.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UK_No.1_Hits_of_1971)
1973 Jan 29, Emily Howell
Warner (b.1939) became the 1st woman pilot permanently employed by a
commercial airline. Her first flight as co-pilot was on the Frontier
Airlines DHC-6 Twin Otter August 1, 1974.
(SSFC, 12/14/03,
p.D2)(http://members.tripod.com/~LAMKINS/Emily_Howell_Warner.txt)
1977 Jan 29, Freddie Prinze
(b.1954), American comedian and TV actor, shot himself and died. His
work included the TV show “Chico & the Man” (1974-1977).
(http://us.imdb.com/name/nm0697905/)
1979 Jan 29, President Jimmy
Carter commuted the sentence of Patty Hearst (24) from 7 to 2 years.
She had served 23 months in prison.
(HN, 1/29/99)(SFC, 1/23/04, p.E2)
1979 Jan 29, President Carter
formally welcomed Chinese Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping to the White
House, following the establishment of diplomatic relations.
(AP, 1/29/98)
1979 Jan 29, The 9-part TV
miniseries "Backstairs" premiered. It was based on the 1961 book "My
Thirty Years Backstairs at the White House" by Lillian Rogers Parks
(d.1997 at 100).
(SFC,11/12/97,
p.A22)(www.imdb.com/title/tt0078565/)
1979 Jan 29, Brenda Spencer
(b.1962), a teenager in San Diego, shot up an elementary school,
killing 2 people and wounding 9. She told police she did it because,
"I don’t like Mondays."
(SFC, 3/6/01,
p.A4)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brenda_Ann_Spencer)
1980 Jan 29, Jimmy Durante
(b.1893), ‘Schnozzel,’ actor and comedian, died in NYC.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Durante)
1981 Jan 29, Pres. Reagan’s
executive order 12288 terminated wage and price controls.
(www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/speeches/1981/12981c.htm)
1984 Jan 29, President Ronald
Reagan announced that he would run for a second term.
(HN, 1/29/99)
1984 Jan 29, It was reported
that SF Muni administrators were rushing to implement a $1.9 million
security plan due to major losses from lax security at its
maintenance yards.
(SSFC, 1/25/09, DB p.50)
1984 Jan 29, The Soviets issued
a formal complaint against alleged U.S. arms treaty violations.
(HN, 1/29/99)
1985 Jan 29, In SF the US Army
trucked the historic Goldie Shack from 485 34th Ave. to the
Presidio, where it will be stored and eventually reopened to the
public. It was one of 5,610 shacks built in 1906-1907 to house
earthquake refugees. The 34th Ave site will be used for a shopping
mall.
(SSFC, 1/24/10, DB p.42)
1988 Jan 29, A Boston-bound
Amtrak train derailed in Chester, Penn., injuring 25 people.
(AP, 1/29/98)
1988 Jan 29, Nicaraguan
President Daniel Ortega received a coolly polite reception from Pope
John Paul II at the Vatican.
(AP, 1/29/98)
1989 Jan 29, West German
Chancellor Helmut Kohl's Christian Democratic Union suffered a major
setback in West Berlin municipal elections.
(AP, 1/29/99)
1990 Jan 29, Former Exxon
Valdez skipper Joseph Hazelwood went on trial in Anchorage, Alaska,
on charges stemming from the nation's worst oil spill; Hazelwood
later was acquitted of the major charges and convicted of a
misdemeanor.
(AP, 1/29/00)
1991 Jan 29, In his State of
the Union address, President Bush assured Americans that the war
against Iraq would be won and that the recession at home would end
in short order. Extraordinary security measures were in effect for
the first wartime State of the Union address since the Vietnam era.
(AP, 1/29/01)
1991 Jan 29, Iraqi forces
attacked into Saudi Arabian town of Kafji, but were turned back by
Coalition forces.
(HN, 1/29/99)
1992 Jan 29, President Bush
presented a $1.2 trillion budget plan.
(AP, 1/29/02)
1992 Jan 29, Willie Dixon (76),
blues composer (Backdoor Man), died.
(www.imdb.com/name/nm0229006/)
1992 Jan 29, Russian President
Boris Yeltsin unveiled an ambitious plan to cut nuclear weapons
spending and said his republic's weapons would no longer be aimed at
any U.S. targets.
(AP, 1/29/02)
1992 Jan 29, A multinational
Middle East peace conference ended in Moscow with participants
sounding upbeat.
(AP, 1/29/02)
1993 Jan 29, President Clinton
announced that he was ordering the draft of a formal directive by
July 15 to end the longstanding ban on homosexuals in the U.S.
military.
(AP, 1/29/98)
1994 Jan 29, Japan's Parliament
approved watershed measures to stem political corruption.
(AP, 1/29/99)
1994 Jan 29, In South Africa,
Nelson Mandela kicked off his party's campaign for the country's
first multiracial elections.
(AP, 1/29/99)
1995 Jan 29, The San Francisco
49ers became the first team in NFL history to win five Super Bowl
titles, beating the San Diego Chargers, 49-26.
(AP, 1/29/00)
1996 Jan 29, The FDA was about
to approve Redux, a drug to help reduce obesity. It was to be
marketed by American Home Products. It is chemically known as
dexfenfluramine, a close cousin of Prozax. This class of drugs raise
the levels of serotonin in the brain, which provides a feeling of
fullness and satisfaction.
(WSJ, 1/29/96, p. C-1)
1996 Jan 29, A Navy F-14
fighter jet crashed in Nashville, Tennessee, demolishing three
houses and killing five people.
(AP, 1/29/01)
1996 Jan 29, French President
Jacques Chirac ordered an early end to underground nuclear tests in
the South Pacific.
(AP, 1/29/01)
1996 Jan 29, In Venice, Italy,
the 204-year-old La Felice opera house burned down. It was scheduled
to be reconstructed and finished by Sep 27, 1999. It was later
determined by experts to have been caused by arson. In 2003 Italy's
top criminal court upheld convictions on arson charges for Enrico
Carella and fellow electrician Massimiliano Marchetti, sentencing
them to seven and six years in jail respectively. In 2005 John
Berendt authored “The City of Falling Angels,” which centered on the
burning of La Fenice. In 2007 Carella was arrested in Mexico.
(SFC, 6/27/96, p.D3)(SFC, 7/1/97, p.E4)(AP,
1/29/01)(WSJ, 9/24/05, p.P12)(AP, 3/3/07)
1997 Jan 29, Threatened with
lawsuits across the country, America Online agreed to give refunds
to frustrated customers unable to log on after AOL offered a flat
$19.95-a-month rate.
(AP, 1/29/98)
1997 Jan 29, Thomas Daniel
Young, professor of English at Vanderbilt and leading authority on
literature of the American South, died. His work included: “The
Literature of the South,” “Conversations With Malcolm Cowley,”
“Tennessee Writers,” and “Gentleman in a Dustcoat: A Biography of
John Crowe Ransom.”
(SFC, 2/10/97, p.A20)
1997 Jan 29, In China the
Supreme People’s Court upheld the death sentence for businesswoman
Han Yuji, the former president of the Jilin province Yuquan
Industrial and Trade Co., for fraud that involved as much as $43
million. She was immediately executed.
(SFC, 2/1/97, p.C1)
1997 Jan 29, In Japan Tatsuo
Tomobe, member of the upper house of parliament, was arrested and
accused of fraud. He had raised $75 million by offering high yields
on deposits and using it to finance political ambitions.
(SFEC, 2/2/97, p.A17)
1997 Jan 29, Mongolia joined
the World Trade Organization (WTO).
(www.wto.org/English/thewto_e/countries_e/mongolia_e.htm)
1997 Jan 29, In Pakistan the
Supreme Court upheld Bhutto’s dismissal and ordered new elections to
proceed.
(SFC, 1/30/97, p.A9)
1997 Jan 29, In Sierra Leone
the UN World Food Program announced a 6-month $19.4 million food aid
operation.
(SFC, 1/30/97, p.A10)
1997 Jan 29, In South Africa
Wouter Basson, retired brigadier general, was arrested for selling
1,000 tablets of the drug Ecstasy to undercover police.
(SFC, 2/1/97, p.C1)
1998 Jan 29, The judge in the
Paula Jones case ruled that allegations in the current
Clinton-Lewinsky scandal will not be admitted in the Jones case.
(SFC, 1/30/98, p.A1)
1998 Jan 29, In Birmingham,
Ala., the New Woman, All Woman Health Care [abortion] Clinic was
bombed. Robert Sanderson (35), a moonlighting police officer, was
killed and Emily Lyons, a nurse, was critically injured. A note was
later received claiming the "Army of God" was responsible. Suspect
Eric Robert Rudolph (31) of North Carolina was arrested May 31,2003.
Rudolph was convicted and sentenced to life in prison in 2005.
(SFC, 1/30/98, p.A3)(SFC, 2/3/98, p.A2)(SSFC,
6/1/03, p.A1)(SFC, 7/19/05, p.A9)
1998 Jan 29, The US, Russia and
13 other nations of the European Space Agency agreed to cooperate on
building an int’l. space station.
(SFC, 1/30/98, p.A7)
1998 Jan 29, The 3-day Muslim
Eid al-Fitr festival began celebrating the closing of the holy month
of Ramadan.
(SFC, 1/30/98, p.A12)
1998 Jan 29, In Japan Finance
Vice Minister Takeshi Komura stepped down in the bribery scandal and
said “the responsibility is all mine.”
(SFC, 1/30/98, p.A12)
1998 Jan 29, A gas explosion on
a Russian nuclear sub killed the captain and injured at least 4
sailors.
(SFC, 1/30/98, p.A14)
1999 Jan 29, The Senate
delivered subpoenas for Monica Lewinsky and two presidential
advisers for private, videotaped testimony in the impeachment trial.
(AP, 1/29/00)
1999 Jan 29, Attorney General
Janet Reno rejected a special prosecutor investigation of Harold
Ickes, saying there was clear and convincing evidence that the
former White House aide did not intend to lie to a Senate committee
looking into campaign finances.
(AP, 1/29/00)
1999 Jan 29, In Virginia Paul
Warner Powell (20) stabbed and killed Stacie Reed (16). He also
raped and attempted to kill her sister (14). Powell was executed on
March 18, 2010.
(SFC, 3/19/10, p.A8)
1999 Jan 29, The US and major
European allies set Feb 19 as a deadline for Serbia to accept a
peace plan in Kosovo or face NATO bombing.
(SFC, 1/30/99, p.A1)
1999 Jan 29, From China it was
reported that police were ordered to arrest people posting
anti-government remarks on computer networks.
(SFC, 1/30/99, p.A14)
1999 Jan 29, Amnesty Int'l.
reported that Ethiopia had forcefully deported 52,000 Eritreans
since the eruption of war in 1998.
(SFC, 1/30/99, p.A12)
1999 Jan 29, In Kosovo Serbian
police killed 24 ethnic Albanians following the death of one Serbian
officer.
(SFC, 1/30/99, p.A10)
1999 Jan 30, The UN Security
Council agreed to establish panels to assess Iraqi disarmament and
adherence to other UN resolutions.
(SFEC, 1/31/99, p.A17)
2000 Jan 29, Joe Montana and
Ronnie Lott, architects of San Francisco’s Super Bowl dynasty, were
among five individuals elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
(AP, 1/29/01)
2000 Jan 29, In Arris, Algeria,
11 community guards were killed by Islamic militants of the Salafist
Group for Preaching and Combat led by Hassan Hattab.
(SFC, 2/1/00, p.B2)
2000 Jan 29, In Montreal,
Canada, the first int'l. agreement on genetically modified
agricultural products was produced. The UN-sponsored "Cartagena
Protocol on Biosafety" required exporters to label modified products
with the label "May contain living modified organisms."
(SFEC, 1/30/00, p.A1)(AP, 1/29/01)
2000 Jan 29, In Switzerland
Pres. Clinton addressed the World Economic Forum at Davos and urged
corporate leaders to help lift the burden of debt from developing
countries and to examine environmental concerns. Some 1000
protestors demonstrated outside.
(SFEC, 1/30/00, p.A16)
2001 Jan 29, President Bush
promised to “act boldly and swiftly” to address the nation's energy
problems, and directed Vice President Dick Cheney to head a task
force to develop an energy strategy.
(AP, 1/29/02)
2001 Jan 29, Pres. Bush signed
an executive order creating a new white House Office of Faith-based
and Community Initiatives.
(SFC, 1/30/01, p.A1)
2001 Jan 29, Al DeGuzman (19)
was arrested in San Jose after a photo lab clerk reported pictures
of him in front of an arsenal of weapons. A 158-page diary was found
labeled “Plan X2” for a Jan 30 attack at De Anza College in
Cupertino. DeGuzman was found guilty in 2002 of 108 felony accounts.
He was sentenced to 7 years in prison.
(SFC, 4/27/02, p.A1)(SFC, 10/2/02, p.A17)
2001 Jan 29, DaimlerChrysler
announced it was eliminating 26,000 jobs at its money-losing
Chrysler division.
(AP, 1/29/02)
2001 Jan 29, At least 110
Afghan refugees froze to death in camps near Herat.
(WSJ, 2/1/01, p.A1)(SFC, 2/2/01, p.D4)
2001 Jan 29, In Chile Judge
Guzman reinstated his case against Gen. Pinochet.
(SFC, 1/30/01, p.A10)
2001 Jan 29, In Indonesia some
10,000 protesters marched in Jakarta over corruption scandals that
allegedly involved Pres. Wahid.
(SFC, 1/30/01, p.A10)
2001 Jan 29, In Israel an
Israeli motorist was killed in the West Bank as Yasser Arafat
reversed earlier rhetoric and sent a message for peace.
(SFC, 1/30/01, p.A11)
2001 Jan 29, Demonstrators in
Turin clashed with police following an agreement between France and
Italy to establish a high-speed rail line between Turin and Lyon.
(SFC, 1/30/01, p.A12)
2001 Jan 29, Serb thrown hand
grenades hit an ethnic Albanian home in Kosovo. 1 person was killed,
2 injured and NATO peacekeepers broke up an ensuing riot.
(SFC, 1/30/01, p.A11)
2001 Jan 29, Tanzanian police
regained control in Zanzibar following weekend street battles that
left 40 people dead.
(WSJ, 1/30/01, p.A1)
2002 Jan 29, Pres. Bush made
his 1st State of the Union address and declared that the "war
against terror is only beginning." Bush singled out Iran, Iraq and
North Korea as an "axis of evil." He also appealed to Americans to
volunteer for community services. The “axis of evil” phrase was
co-coined by Bush’s speechwriter David Frum.
(SFC, 1/30/02, p.A1)(SFC, 1/31/02, p.A1)(SFC,
2/1/02, p.A3)(Econ, 4/21/07, p.36)
2002 Jan 29, Actor Harold
Russell (88), who received two Oscars for his sensitive portrayal of
a disabled veteran in "The Best Years of Our Lives," died in
Needham, Mass.
(AP, 1/29/03)
2002 Jan 29, In Albania PM Ilir
Meta (32) resigned following months of disputes with party leaders.
(SFC, 1/30/02, p.A9)
2002 Jan 29, In China Xu Zerong
(David Tsui), a Hong Kong-based historian, was sentenced to 13 years
in prison for providing classified historical documents, pertaining
to Chinese operations during the Korean war, to unspecified overseas
parties. Zerong (57) was released on June 23, 2011, from Guangzhou
Prison in southern Guangdong province's capital city.
(SSFC, 2/3/02, p.A17)(AP, 6/23/11)
2002 Jan 29, In Japan PM
Koizumi fired foreign minister Makiko Tanaka. Yoriko Kawaguchi was
soon chosen to replace her.
(SFC, 1/30/02, p.A8)(SFC, 2/1/02, p.A15)
2002 Jan 29, Israeli troops
raided the Palestinian village of Artas and arrested Mohammed Eyosh
(31), a local Jihad leader. 4 others were wounded in gunfire.
(SFC, 1/30/02, p.A8)
2002 Jan 29, In South Africa
Doctors Without Borders defied patent law and imported a generic
AIDS drug from Brazil.
(WSJ, 1/30/02, p.A1)
2003 Jan 29, The Congressional
Budget Office predicted the current year's federal deficit would
soar to $199 billion even without President Bush's new tax cut plan
or war against Iraq.
(AP, 1/29/04)
2003 Jan 29, AOL Time Warner
posted a record $98.7 billion loss, the biggest in corporate
history. It included a $45.5 billion write down on the value of AOL.
(SFC, 1/30/03, p.A1)(WSJ, 1/2/04, p.R8)
2003 Jan 29, In Kinston, NC, 6
people were killed and dozens injured in an explosion at West
Pharmaceuticals.
(SFC, 1/30/03, p.A3)(WSJ, 1/31/03, p.A1)(AP,
1/29/04)
2003 Jan 29, Leslie Fiedler
(85), author and literary critic, died in Buffalo, NY. His 1960
"Love and Death in the American Novel" analyzed the work of mark
Twain, Ernest Hemingway and others.
(SFC, 1/31/03, p.A26)
2003 Jan 29, Frank Moss
(b.1911), liberal Utah Democratic Senator (1958-1976), died. His
efforts included the addition of Capitol Reef and Canyonlands to the
national park system.
(SFC, 2/3/03, p.B4)
2003 Jan 29, US troops took
Haji Shahzada (50) from his rural Afghan home in the early hours of
the morning and sent him on a bizarre journey to prison in Cuba.
Shahzada spent 4 years in jail before being returned home with a
letter of innocence.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shahzada_%28Guantanamo_Bay_detainee_952%29)(AFP,
1/9/12)
2003 Jan 29, Britain, the Czech
Republic, Denmark, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Portugal and Spain,
signed an open letter calling on the peace camp, implicitly Germany,
France and Russia, to rally to the U.S. standard against Iraq.
(WSJ, 1/30/03, p.A1)
2003 Jan 29, The body of
Abdelmalek Benbara (41), a member of the Algerian prime minister's
party reported missing Jan 17, was found in a car in Paris.
(AP, 1/30/03)
2003 Jan 29, Belgium said oil
leaking from the sunken cargo ship Tricolor (Dec 14) is washing up
on the Belgian coastline, damaging wildlife and beaches.
(AP, 1/30/03)
2003 Jan 29, In Cambodia
protesters looted and set fire to the Thai Embassy in Phnom Penh.
The protest was against a Thai TV star who was quoted in the media
as saying Cambodia had stolen the famous Angkor Wat temple from
Thailand.
(AP, 1/29/03)
2003 Jan 29, Iraq responded to
chief inspector Hans Blix's tough assessment of its disarmament,
accusing him of misrepresenting its record of compliance, offering
some new information and pledging continued cooperation.
(AP, 1/30/03)
2003 Jan 29, Montenegro
lawmakers voted to abolish Yugoslavia and replace it with a loose
union of semi-independent states called Serbia and Montenegro.
(SFC, 1/30/03, p.A8)
2003 Jan 29, Russia's Border
Guard Service said the US led anti-terror operation in Afghanistan
has done nothing to reduce the flow of illegal drugs from that
country.
(AP, 1/29/03)
2004 Jan 29, The US freed 3
juvenile Afghan detainees (13-15) from Guantanamo, Cuba.
(WSJ, 1/30/04, p.A1)
2004 Jan 29, In
Afghanistan an arms dump blast killed 8 American soldiers in a what
was likely an accident.
(SFC, 1/30/04, p.A3)(AP, 1/31/04)
2004 Jan 29, It was reported
that Angolan troops and police have driven at least 10,000 Congolese
from northern Angola's diamond zones in a bloody month-old campaign.
(AP, 1/30/04)
2004 Jan 29, M.M. Kaye (95),
British author, died in Lavenham, England.
(AP, 1/29/05)
2004 Jan 29, In Colombia gunmen
shot and killed Marta Lucia Hernandez, the director of one of
Colombia's most famous national parks. It was the second
high-profile attack in the coastal city of Santa Marta this week.
(AP, 1/30/04)
2004 Jan 29, Egypt expelled
American journalist Charles Levinson. He had written articles on
torture and deaths in Egyptian prisons. Levinson was allowed to
return in February.
(SFC, 2/19/04, p.A14)(SFC, 2/21/04, p.A2)
2004 Jan 29, In central Iraq a
roadside bomb exploded in Baqouba, wounding 11 Iraqis.
(AP, 1/29/04)
2004 Jan 29, Israel released
435 prisoners in a swap, mediated by Germany, with the Lebanese
guerrilla group Hezbollah in exchange for an Israeli businessman and
the bodies of 3 Israeli soldiers. The businessman was Elchanan
Tannenbaum, a colonel in Israel’s reserves, who was kidnapped in
Dubai in 2000 and had knowledge of an advanced Israeli weapons
system.
(AP, 1/29/04)(Econ, 9/6/08, p.99)
2004 Jan 29, Janet Frame
(b.1924), author, died in Dunedin, New Zealand. Her books included
“Faces in the Water” (1961). Her 3-volume autobiography was
dramatized in the 1990 film "An Angel at My Table."
(SFC, 1/31/04, p.A1)(Econ, 2/14/04, p.81)
2004 Jan 29, A Palestinian
suicide bomber detonated a bag of explosives on a crowded Jerusalem
bus outside Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's residence, killing 10
passengers and wounding 50 bystanders.
(AP, 1/29/04)
2004 Jan 29, In Saudi Arabia
some 2 million Muslims from around the world gathered at the start
of the annual Hajj.
(AP, 1/29/04)
2004 Jan 29, Somalia's feuding
leaders signed an agreement to form a new government based along
clan lines, the first deal of its kind to include all armed groups
that have torn the country apart for the last 13 years.
(AP, 1/29/04)
2004 Jan 29, Widespread drought
was reported across southern Africa. Lesotho, Malawi, South Africa
and Zimbabwe were all affected.
(SFC, 1/29/04, p.A16)
2005 Jan 29, Clint Eastwood won
the Directors Guild prize for his boxing saga “Million Dollar Baby.”
(SSFC, 1/30/05, p.A2)
2005 Jan 29, Ashley McElhiney,
the first female coach of a men's pro basketball team, was fired
after an on-court dispute with Sally Anthony, co-owner of the
Nashville Rhythm of the ABA.
(AP, 1/29/06)
2005 Jan 29, Nine Afghan
soldiers died and another was seriously injured when a mine exploded
near their vehicle as they traveled close to the Pakistani border.
(AP, 1/29/05)
2005 Jan 29, Chinese jetliners
touched down in Taiwan, completing the first nonstop flights between
the rivals since a bloody civil war split the two sides 56 years
ago.
(AP, 1/29/05)
2005 Jan 29, In Colombia
government troops discovered one of the biggest FARC rebel munitions
factories in the jungles of southern Guaviare state.
(AP, 2/2/05)
2005 Jan 29, A UN spokesman
said militiamen armed with guns and machetes killed 16 people and
kidnapped at least 34 girls in attacks this week on a remote area of
eastern Congo.
(AP, 1/29/05)
2005 Jan 29, In insurgency-hit
Indian Kashmir voters turned out in big numbers to cast ballots in
the first leg of municipal polls to be held in over a quarter of a
century.
(AFP, 1/29/05)
2005 Jan 29, In northern Kenya
fighting over the last 2 weeks between the Garre and Murule clans
forced 30,000 people to flee and left 30 people dead. Recent
fighting between Masai and Kikuyu left 10-30 people dead.
(Econ, 1/29/05, p.46)
2005 Jan 29, A suicide bomber
attacked a police station in a Kurdish town, killing 8 people, and
insurgents blasted polling places in several cities on the eve of
landmark elections.
(AP, 1/29/05)
2005 Jan 29, Libya granted its
first oil exploration licenses in over four decades, awarding 15
permits to foreign companies, with US companies taking the lion's
share. PM Shukri Ghanem said Libya has opted for a policy of open
communication with total transparence."
(AP, 1/29/05)
2005 Jan 29, In Russia the
fragmented opposition gathered pace as thousands of communists,
liberals and radical youth activists joined forces to protest
against the loss of Soviet-era benefits.
(Reuters, 1/29/05)
2005 Jan 29, In Sudan police
clashed with rioting tribesmen in the Red Sea coastal city of Port
Sudan, leaving at least 17 people dead and 16 injured. A tribal
representative claimed 23 people were dead and 100 others were
wounded.
(AP, 1/29/05)(Econ, 10/1/05, p.43)
2006 Jan 29, Nam June Paik
(74), the avant-garde artist credited with inventing video art in
the 1960s by combining multiple TV screens with sculpture, music and
live performers, died in Miami, Fla. In a 1974 report commissioned
by the Rockefeller Foundation, Paik wrote of a telecommunications
network of the future he called the "Electronic Super Highway,"
predicting it "will become our springboard for new and surprising
human endeavors."
(AP, 1/30/06)
2006 Jan 29, Heavy rains in
Brazil led to the deaths of 12 people in Rio de Janeiro, including
six people killed when an underground shopping mall garage filled
with water.
(AP, 1/29/06)
2006 Jan 29, The Chinese New
Year ushered in the year of the Dog. As many as 10 million dogs were
slaughtered annually for food consumption in China. Fireworks
explosions killed 36 people and injured hundreds more in China as
traditional Lunar New Year celebrations led to much mayhem as well
as joy across the nation.
(SSFC, 1/29/06, p.A3)(AFP, 1/30/06)
2006 Jan 29, In eastern Congo
rebels in Rutshuru forced a local radio station off the air after a
wave of fighting and looting in the troubled Central African nation.
(AP, 2/1/06)
2006 Jan 29, Denmark's PM said
his government could not act against satirical cartoons of the
Prophet Mohammed after Libya closed its embassy in Copenhagen amid
growing Muslim anger over the dispute.
(Reuters, 1/29/06)
2006 Jan 29, Finland's first
female president said she was confident of re-election in a runoff
vote. Polls suggested a close race after a steady surge in support
for her conservative challenger. Pres. Tarja Halonen clinched a
narrow re-election victory over a rival with a pro-alliance agenda.
She won a new six-year term with 51.8 percent of the vote.
(AP, 1/29/06)(AFP, 1/30/06)
2006 Jan 29, Avalanches swept
away skiers and at least one hiker in the French Alps, killing five
people over the weekend.
(AP, 1/29/06)
2006 Jan 29, In Iraq ABC news
anchor Bob Woodruff and camera operator Doug Vogt were seriously
injured in a roadside bombing near Taji.
(AP, 1/29/06)
2006 Jan 29, Car bombs exploded
in a synchronized spree of attacks outside at least four churches in
Baghdad and the northern city of Kirkuk, killing at least three
Iraqis and wounding 9. US troops killed three suspected insurgents
wearing Iraqi police uniforms in Kirkuk. A bomb killed 11 people in
a shop selling sweets in the town of Iskindiraya south of Baghdad
overnight. Violence killed at least 20 people, including 13 Iraqi
policemen and soldiers. A car bomb killed 4 Iraqi soldiers in Uja.
Former Lt. Gen. Mahmoud Idham was assassinated near Tikrit.
(AP, 1/29/06)(Reuters, 1/29/06)(SFC, 1/30/06,
p.A7)
2006 Jan 29, Sheik Sabah IV Al
Ahmad Al-Jaber Al Sabah was sworn in as the new emir of Kuwait.
(AP,
1/29/06)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabah_Al-Ahmad_Al-Jaber_Al-Sabah)
2006 Jan 29, The Mexican
government said the US Border Patrol in New Mexico arrested
Francisco Javier Gutierrez, a Mexican immigration official, who was
allegedly trying to help a group of undocumented migrants sneak into
the US.
(AP, 1/30/06)
2006 Jan 29, A Pakistani
express train with up to 600 passengers aboard derailed, killing at
least three people and injuring as many as 40.
(AP, 1/29/06)
2006 Jan 29, Republic of Congo
President Denis Sassou-Nguesso launched his role as a top African
peace mediator, meeting with the prime minister of civil war-divided
Ivory Coast days after taking over as African Union head.
(AP, 1/29/06)
2006 Jan 29, In Bucharest,
Romania, a stray dog killed a Japanese businessman. The mayor called
for a crash program of canine sterilization and euthanasia to
control the city’s 60,000 stray dogs.
(www.inyourpocket.com/romania/bucharest/en/)(Econ, 2/4/06, p.48)
2006 Jan 29, Russia resumed
sending natural gas to Georgia after finishing repairs to a major
pipeline damaged by mysterious blasts a week earlier.
(AP, 1/29/06)
2007 Jan 29, Deeply distrustful
of Iran, President Bush said "we will respond firmly" if Tehran
escalated its military actions in Iraq and threatened American
forces or Iraqi citizens.
(AP, 1/29/08)
2007 Jan 29, Lauren Nelson, an
aspiring Broadway star, was crowned Miss America, the second year in
a row that a Miss Oklahoma has won the crown.
(AP, 1/30/07)
2007 Jan 29, Bayer said the US
Food and Drug Administration has approved a new use of Bayer
Schering Pharma AG's drug YAZ to allow it to be used to treat
moderate acne in women who also want to use an oral contraceptive
for birth control.
(AP, 1/29/07)
2007 Jan 29, Kentucky Derby
winner Barbaro was euthanized because of medical complications eight
months after his gruesome breakdown at the Preakness.
(AP, 1/29/08)
2007 Jan 29, Australia’s
Queensland state planned to introduce recycled sewage to its
drinking water as a record drought threatens water supplies around
the nation.
(AP, 1/29/07)
2007 Jan 29, An official said
at least 33,000 people have been arrested in Bangladesh by the army,
police and security forces since a state of emergency was imposed
earlier this month.
(AP, 1/29/07)
2007 Jan 29, Paris City Hall
announced it has selected French outdoor advertising firm JCDecaux
SA to operate a new free bicycle service in the capital.
(AP, 1/30/07)
2007 Jan 29, The African Union
chose Ghana to head the 53-member bloc, turning aside Sudan's bid
for the second year in a row because of the worsening bloodshed in
Darfur.
(AP, 1/29/07)
2007 Jan 29, The International
Criminal Court (ICC) ruled there was enough evidence against Thomas
Lubanga, a Congolese militiaman accused of recruiting child
soldiers, to launch the new court's first trial.
(Reuters, 1/29/07)
2007 Jan 29, In Iraq a
prominent Shiite leader said that setting up federal regions in Iraq
would solve the country's problems, adding that Shiites are being
subjected to mass killings but they should not retaliate by using
violence. Bombings and mortar attacks targeting Shiites killed at
least 15 people. A parked car bomb struck a bus carrying Shiites to
a holy shrine in northern Baghdad, killing at least four people.
Mortar rounds rained down on a Shiite neighborhood in the
Sunni-dominated town of Jurf al-Sakhar. 10 people were killed,
including three children and four women, and five other people were
wounded. A US Marine was killed in fighting in Anbar province and an
American soldier died in an accident northwest of Nasiriyah.
(AP, 1/29/07)(AP, 1/30/07)
2007 Jan 29, Libya will not
execute five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor sentenced to
death last month, the son of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi said in a
newspaper interview, calling their trial "unfair."
(AP, 1/29/07)
2007 Jan 29, A truck crashed in
northern Nigeria's Yobe state killing at least 35 people and
seriously injuring another 37. A burst tire caused the truck loaded
with cement as well as 72 people to veer off the road.
(AFP, 1/30/07)
2007 Jan 29, In northwestern
Pakistan 2 rockets exploded near a Shiite Muslim mosque in the city
of Bannu, wounding 11 people, two seriously. A suicide bomber killed
a police officer protecting a Shiite Muslim procession. In eastern
Pakistan 2 brothers beat to death their sister and her lover with
bricks for bringing shame upon the family with their out-of-wedlock
affair. The woman had lived with her brothers in the village of
Donga Bonga, Punjab province.
(AP, 1/29/07)(AP, 1/30/07)(AP, 2/1/07)
2007 Jan 29, A Palestinian
suicide bomber attacked a bakery in Eilat, a southern Israeli resort
town, killing three people and himself. The Palestinian who blew
himself up was unemployed, despondent over the death of his baby
daughter and driven to avenge his best friend's killing by Israeli
troops. Hamas and Fatah gunmen battled each other across the Gaza
Strip, attacking security compounds, knocking out an electrical
transformer and kidnapping several local commanders in some of the
most extensive factional fighting in recent weeks.
(AP, 1/29/07)
2007 Jan 29, Saudi Arabia said
it would begin a 158,000 barrel-a-day cut in oil production
effective Feb 1.
(WSJ, 1/30/07, p.A1)
2007 Jan 29, Turkish police
arrested 46 suspected Islamic militants in operations in five
provinces across the country.
(AP, 1/29/07)
2008 Jan 29, Pres. Bush signed
an executive order for federal agencies to ignore “earmarks” that
aren’t explicitly enacted into law.
(SFC, 1/30/08, p.A6)
2008 Jan 29, In Florida Sen.
John McCain won the Republican primary with 36% of the vote. Mitt
Romney was 2nd with 31% and Rudi Giuliani 3rd with 15%.
(SFC, 1/30/08, p.A1)
2008 Jan 29, Federal fishery
regulators said the number of chinook salmon returning to
California's Central Valley has reached a near-record low, pointing
to an "unprecedented collapse" that could lead to severe
restrictions on West Coast salmon fishing this year.
(AP, 1/29/08)
2008 Jan 29, Robert M. Ball
(93), considered to be the father of the US Medicare system, died.
(WSJ, 1/31/08, p.A1)
2008 Jan 29, Margaret Truman
Daniel (b.1924), the only daughter of former Pres. Harry Truman,
died in Chicago. From 1980 to 1996 Daniel wrote 13 murder mysteries
beginning with “Murder in the White House,” which became a best
seller.
(SFC, 1/30/08, p.A2)
2008 Jan 29, In southern
Afghanistan roadside bombings killed three civilians.
(AP, 1/30/08)
2008 Jan 29, In northern
Algeria a car loaded with explosives and headed for a police station
exploded after officers stopped the attack with bullets. At least
two people were killed and 23 wounded.
(AP, 1/29/08)
2008 Jan 29, Gold prices hit a
record high 933.33 dollars in London as the market was driven higher
by production problems in key producer South Africa and the weak US
dollar.
(AFP, 1/29/08)
2008 Jan 29, In China deadly
winter storms, the worst in five decades, showed no signs of letting
up, where cities were blacked out, transport systems were paralyzed
and a bus crash on an icy road killed at least 25 people during the
nation's busiest travel season.
(AP, 1/29/08)
2008 Jan 29, Congolese Tutsi
rebels and a rival Mai Mai militia group pledged to respect a
recently-signed peace accord, a day after clashes between their
fighters broke the ceasefire.
(AP, 1/29/08)
2008 Jan 29, A Cairo court
ruled to allow Egyptian Bahais to leave their religion blank on
official documents, in effect restoring their access to jobs,
schools and medical and financial services.
(AP, 1/29/08)
2008 Jan 29, Cars and trucks
traveled freely across the border from Gaza to Egypt for a seventh
day. Egyptians living near the breached border with Gaza warned that
chaos was brewing and demanded the crisis be resolved.
(AP, 1/29/08)
2008 Jan 29, Iran’s state media
reported that more than 50 followers of the minority Baha'i faith
were convicted of distributing propaganda against the country's
Islamic regime. The faith was banned after the 1979 Islamic
revolution, and it is not recognized in the Iranian constitution as
a religious minority.
(AP, 1/29/08)
2008 Jan 29, A suicide car
bomber targeted a US patrol in Mosul, killing at least one Iraqi and
wounding as many as 15. Iraqi police north of Baghdad found 19
bullet-riddled bodies near the former insurgent stronghold of
Muqdadiyah. In Baghdad a bombing at a checkpoint wounded five
American soldiers and three civilians. Iraqi officials claimed it
was a suicide bombing and said two people were killed. An Iraqi
television cameraman and his driver were killed in a roadside
bombing north of Baghdad. The female correspondent and camera
assistant traveling with them were wounded.
(AP, 1/29/08)(AP, 1/30/08)
2008 Jan 29, Japan's coast
guard said it has sent a team of officers to protect its whaling
fleet against intensifying protests by environmentalists.
(AFP, 1/29/08)
2008 Jan 29, Japan said it was
setting up a fund to help African countries enhance protection of
intellectual property rights, calling it key to boosting the
continent's economic potential.
(AP, 1/29/08)
2008 Jan 29, In Kenya former UN
chief Kofi Annan launched formal mediation efforts to end the
post-election crisis, where the killing of an opposition legislator
stoked bloody protests. Gunmen killed Mugabe Were, an opposition
lawmaker in Nairobi, triggering a new flare-up of the ethnic
fighting. A gang hefting machetes dragged a doctor from the
president's Kikuyu tribe from his clinic "and then cut and cut until
his head was off."
(Reuters, 1/29/08)(AP, 1/29/08)
2008 Jan 29, In Mexico City
Elvira Arellano, a deported Mexican migrant who holed up in a
Chicago church to fight for immigrants' rights, rallied support for
Flor Crisostomo (28), another woman now seeking refuge in the same
building. Four Mexican military officers and one soldier, were
turned over to prosecutors for alleged links to Alfredo Beltran
Leyva, but their cases weren't made public until Oct 31.
(AP, 1/30/08)(AP, 10/31/08)
2008 Jan 29, Scientists in New
Zealand reported that smoking a joint is equivalent to 20 cigarettes
in terms of lung cancer risk and warned of an "epidemic" of lung
cancers linked to cannabis.
(Reuters, 1/29/08)
2008 Jan 29, Pakistan’s
President Pervez Musharraf returned home after a weeklong trip to
Europe. Security forces exchanged gunfire with Islamic militants
holed up at a house in Karachi, with 3 militants and two policemen
dead. A fourth militant, who was wounded in the shootout, died later
in the day. Hundreds of students in Miran Shah protested Pakistan's
support for the US-led war on terror.
(AFP, 1/29/08)(AP, 1/29/08)(AP, 1/30/08)
2008 Jan 29, Saudi Arabia said
it had killed some 158,000 chickens after the deadly H5N1 bird flu
strain was found at an infected farm. The agriculture ministry also
said more than 4.5 million fowl have been killed in provinces around
the capital, but it did not specify when the killing took place.
(AP, 1/30/08)
2008 Jan 29, In Sri Lanka the
defense ministry said its troops smashed 16 guerrilla bunkers in the
district of Mannar and killed at least 22 rebels. Tamilnet said at
least 11 school children and the principal of the school were among
those killed when the Sri Lanka Army triggered a Claymore mine
targeting a bus carrying school children.
(AFP, 1/29/08)
2008 Jan 29, Officials in
impoverished Tajikistan said they would be forced to cut power to
much of the country as residents endured one of the coldest winters
in 25 years. Tajikistan is rich in water resources, but the cold
weather has frozen rivers flowing into the Nurek reservoir.
(AP, 1/29/08)
2008 Jan 29, In Venezuela 4
gunmen held more than 30 people hostage inside a bank during a
lengthy and tense standoff with police that began with a botched
robbery in the town of Altagracia de Orituco.
(AP, 1/29/08)
2009 Jan 29, President Barack
Obama signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act, an equal
pay bill, into law, declaring that it's a family issue, not just a
women's issue.
(AP, 1/29/09)(Econ, 2/7/09, p.25)
2009 Jan 29, In Illinois Pat
Quinn (60), the Democrat Lt. Gov., became governor after the state
Senate voted 59-0 to convict Rod Blagojevich (52) of abuse of power.
(AP, 1/30/09)(WSJ, 1/30/09, p.A1)
2009 Jan 29, A California judge
ruled that Gov. Schwarzenegger can force state workers to take
furloughs to help close the budget gap.
(WSJ, 1/30/09, p.A1)
2009 Jan 29, In southern
Afghanistan coalition troops killed four militants in a strike on a
bomb-making operation.
(AP, 1/30/09)
2009 Jan 29, The African Union
said the exclusion from its summit of Mauritania and Guinea, which
both suffered coups recently, proved the continent had moved on from
its checkered past. The summit was scheduled for Feb 1-3 in
Ethiopia.
(Reuters, 1/29/09)
2009 Jan 29, An Australian man
(36) was charged with murder after allegedly throwing his
four-year-old daughter from a Melbourne bridge into the Yarra River
during peak hour traffic. On April 11, 2011, Arthur Freeman was
sentenced to life in prison.
(AFP, 1/29/09)(AP, 4/11/11)
2009 Jan 29, In Bolivia the
last US drug enforcement agents left the country, ordered out by
Pres. Morales, even as police reported that coca cultivation and
cocaine processing were on the rise.
(SFC, 1/30/09, p.A4)
2009 Jan 29, Britain’s PM
Gordon Brown vowed to act with "purpose and determination" to
restore economic growth a day after the IMF said Britain would be
the country worst hit by the global recession.
(AP, 1/29/09)
2009 Jan 29, An international
rights group said Cameroon's government is employing extrajudicial
killings and torture to crush political opponents, and such violence
may escalate as the global economic crisis deepens.
(AP, 1/29/09)
2009 Jan 29, The first of more
than 6,000 Congolese rebels took part in a ceremony to integrate
their units into the regular army as part of a deal to end the
conflict in eastern DR Congo.
(AFP, 1/29/09)
2009 Jan 29, The ship
Monchegorsk arrived in Cyprus. It was examined twice after it
arrived under suspicion of ferrying weapons from Iran to Hamas
fighters in Gaza, and detained. The US military had stopped the ship
last month in the Red Sea, and said it found artillery shells and
other arms on board. But it could not legally detain the ship, which
continued to Port Said, Egypt, and then to Cyprus.
(AP, 2/10/09)
2009 Jan 29, The European Union
signed an agreement to give Ethiopia 251 million euros (322 million
dollars) in aid to boost development projects across the Horn of
Africa nation.
(AFP, 1/30/09)
2009 Jan 29, In France hundreds
of thousands of workers staged a nationwide strike to try to force
President Nicolas Sarkozy and business leaders to do more to protect
jobs and wages during the economic crisis.
(Reuters, 1/29/09)
2009 Jan 29, India began a plan
to issue a new biometric identity card to its whole 1.2 billion
population. On June 25 Nandan Nilekani, a co-founder of Infosys, was
given ministerial status and appointed to run the scheme.
(Econ, 7/4/09, p.36)(http://tinyurl.com/nvfahh)
2009 Jan 29, Iraq said it will
bar Blackwater Worldwide from providing security protection for US
diplomats because its contractors used excessive force, sanctioning
a company whose image was irrevocably tarnished by the 2007 killings
of 17 Iraqi civilians. Hazim Salim al-Zaidi (51), former Iraqi army
officer in Mosul, was among three Sunni candidates killed two days
ahead of elections. One of the other Sunnis was killed in a drive-by
shooting in western Baghdad. The third was abducted along with his
brother and cousin in the Diyala province town of Mandali near the
Iranian border. Their bullet-riddled bodies were found later in the
day.
(AP, 1/29/09)(AP, 1/31/09)
2009 Jan 29, George Mitchell,
President Barack Obama's Mideast envoy, turned his attention to the
Western-backed Palestinian government in the West Bank. Palestinians
fired a rocket into Israel, and residents of the south Gaza town of
Khan Younis said an Israeli airstrike there wounded an unidentified
man on a motorcycle and five passers-by, among them children walking
home from school. Senior officials in the Islamic group Hamas
indicated a willingness to negotiate a deal for a long-term truce
with Israel as long as the borders of Gaza are opened to the rest of
the world.
(AP, 1/29/09)
2009 Jan 29, Japan hanged four
convicted murderers, carrying out the country's first executions of
the year despite international criticism.
(AFP, 1/29/09)
2009 Jan 29, Madagascar's
president made a conciliatory gesture, promising to put a radio
station back on air after its closure sparked anti-government
rioting that left at least 43 dead. A US envoy later estimated over
100 dead while police said 76 had died in the rioting.
(AP, 1/29/09)(WSJ, 2/4/09, p.A10)
2009 Jan 29, Mexican police
detained an Ecuadorean man for carrying about $2.5 million in cash
in a suitcase at Mexico City's international airport.
(AP, 1/31/09)
2009 Jan 29, New Zealand’s
central bank lowered its key interest 1.5 percentage points to a
record low of 3.5%, in response to a decelerating global growth
outlook.
(WSJ, 1/30/09, p.A8)
2009 Jan 29, In Nigeria gunmen
kidnapped a Nigerian boy (9) in the oil city of Port Harcourt,
shooting dead a domestic worker who was taking him to school.
(AP, 1/29/09)
2009 Jan 29, Pakistani police
arrested three men who they alleged carried out a deadly 2006
bombing in Pakistan on the orders of India's intelligence agency.
(AP, 1/29/09)
2009 Jan 29, The UN launched an
emergency appeal for $613 million to help Palestinians recover from
Israel's three weeks of military operations in Gaza.
(AP, 1/29/09)
2009 Jan 29, In the Philippines
a powerful explosion destroyed a fireworks factory and a nearby
electronics plant south of Manila, killing at least six people and
injuring more than 40.
(AP, 1/29/09)
2009 Jan 29, Somali pirates
hijacked a German gas tanker, the MV Longchamp, and its 13-man crew
in the Gulf of Aden, the third ship captured off the Horn of Africa
this month. The ship was released along with its 13 crew members on
March 28.
(AP, 1/29/09)(SFC, 1/30/09, p.A16)(AP, 3/28/09)
2009 Jan 29, A South Korean
biotech company claimed to have cloned dogs using a stem cell
technology for the first time in the world.
(AP, 1/29/09)
2009 Jan 29, In Sri Lanka UN
workers evacuated hundreds of severely wounded civilians from behind
rebel lines as government troops fought to secure final victory over
the Tamil Tigers. Up to 250,000 civilians were trapped in the combat
zone in the northeast of the island.
(AFP, 1/29/09)
2009 Jan 29, Swiss police said
they stumbled across a large marijuana plantation last year while
using Google Earth, the search engine company's satellite mapping
software. They arrested 16 people and seized 1.1 tons (1.2 US tons)
of marijuana as well as cash and valuables worth 900,000 Swiss
francs ($780,000).
(AP, 1/29/09)
2009 Jan 29, At the economic
forum in Davos, Switzerland, Israel’s Pres. Peres (85) traded
accusations with Turkey’s PM Erdogan, who declared: “You kill
people,” and criticized Israel’s blockade of Gaza. Erdogan stalked
off stage after being cut short during the exchange.
(SFC, 1/30/09, p.A4)(WSJ, 1/30/09, p.A1)
2009 Jan 29, Zimbabwe Finance
Minister Patrick Chinamasa said citizens will be allowed to conduct
business in other currencies, alongside the Zimbabwean dollar. A UN
report said Zimbabwe's humanitarian disaster is far worse than
anticipated with only six percent of the population formally
employed and more than half in need of emergency food aid.
(Reuters, 1/29/09)(AFP, 1/29/09)
2010 Jan 29, President Barack
Obama engaged in a rare face-to-face showdown with Republican
critics and testily accused them of trying to block his policies
while urging them to "join with me" in creating jobs.
(Reuters, 1/30/10)
2010 Jan 29, A US storm that
toppled power lines, closed major highways and buried parts of the
southern Plains in heavy ice and snow began moving into the South,
leaving tens of thousands of people in the dark. Nearly 142,000
homes and businesses in Oklahoma were without power.
(AP, 1/29/10)
2010 Jan 29, According to a
newly released audiotape Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden called for
the world to boycott American goods and the US dollar, blaming the
United States and other industrialized countries for global warming.
(AP, 1/29/10)
2010 Jan 29, Afghan troops
backed by NATO attack helicopters battled Taliban fighters wearing
suicide vests who launched an assault in the heart of a Lashkar Gah
in southern Helmand province. 6 militants were killed in the
assault. In Ghazni province 2 Afghans were killed after failing to
stop their vehicle when ordered. An Afghan interpreter working for
the US military shot dead two American soldiers in Wardak province.
Iranian guards opened fire and killed 5 laborers as they crossed
into Iran from the southwestern province of Nimroz.
(AP, 1/29/10)(AFP, 1/30/10)(SFC, 1/30/10,
p.A3)(AP, 2/2/10)
2010 Jan 29, In Brazil leftists
who converged to protest what they view as uncontrolled capitalism
ended the World Social Forum with vows to take advantage of the
financial crisis to promote a global socialist agenda.
(AP, 1/30/10)
2010 Jan 29, Former British PM
Tony Blair said there had been no "covert" deal with then US
president George W. Bush to invade Iraq in 2003, and robustly
defended his decision to take Britain to war.
(AFP, 1/29/10)
2010 Jan 29, In China envoys of
exiled Tibetan Buddhist leader the Dalai Lama arrived in Beijing for
weekend talks amid subtle shifts in China's approach to its restive,
riot-scarred western regions of Tibet and Xinjiang.
(AP, 1/29/10)
2010 Jan 29, An Ethiopian judge
sentenced a journalist to prison in connection with a January 2008
column that criticized PM Meles Zenawi's statements about religious
affairs in Ethiopia. The journalist was later identified as Ezedin
Mohamed, editor of Al-Quds, a Muslim-orientated newspaper.
(AFP, 2/2/10)
2010 Jan 29, In Haiti US
soldiers halted a violent confrontation between looters and a
private security guard who shot and killed one man inside an
appliance store and appeared poised to shoot others.
(AP, 1/29/10)
2010 Jan 29, In the
Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir suspected Muslim rebels
ambushed army soldiers, killing two troops.
(AP, 1/29/10)
2010 Jan 29, Honda Motor Co.
said it would recall a total 646,000 units of the Fit/Jazz and City
models globally, including 140,000 in the United States. The recall
was to fix a defective master switch, which could cause water to
enter the power window switch and in some cases cause a fire.
(Reuters, 1/29/10)
2010 Jan 29, The office of
Lithuanian Pres. Dalia Grybauskaite said in a statement that she
would sign a decree to appoint Audronius Ažubalis as foreign
minister. The tough-talking Grybauskaite forced the resignation of
the last foreign minister Vygaudas Ušackas.
(http://irzikevicius.wordpress.com/)
2010 Jan 29, Mexican
authorities found the decapitated bodies of six men in Acahuato,
Michoacan state. A group of at least a dozen armed men attacked a
federal police convoy, opening fire on the vehicles from a highway
overpass near the city of Maravatio, also in Michoacan, killing 5
officers and wounding 7. Four severely beaten men were seen walking
along a busy street in the Michoacan town of Zamora carrying
messages signed by La Familia. In Ciudad Juarez a group of
rifle-bearing attackers opened fire on a family in a truck, killing
a man, a woman and injuring a 5-month-old baby. A woman was later
killed inside an ice cream parlor, a chase through the Galeana
neighborhood left two dead, and a man was killed and a pregnant
woman was injured in a spray of bullets in another part of town. Six
more people were killed later in the day in four different
locations, and when dawn broke the two decapitated bodies were
found. Journalist Ochoa Martinez, director of El Sol de la Costa,
was shot in the face as he left a food stand in the town of Ayutla.
His small newspaper covered mostly local politics and community
issues southeast of Acapulco.
(AP, 1/29/10)(AP, 1/31/10)(AP, 2/2/10)
2010 Jan 29, In Mexico a Texas
man and his girlfriend were sentenced to nine years in prison for
recruiting Mexican women to give birth in the US and sell their
babies to couples there. Amado Torres, of Harlingen, Texas, and
Maria Isabel Hernandez, of Mexico, had allegedly paid women up to
$3,000 for their newborns.
(AP, 2/10/10)
2010 Jan 29, In New Zealand
police seized weapons used by two men to slaughter more than 30 dogs
owned by a neighbor in what animal welfare authorities said could be
the country's worst animal cruelty case.
(AP, 1/29/10)
2010 Jan 29, A Nigerian court
rejected a demand by top lawyers that a caretaker head of state be
appointed until ailing President Umaru Yar’Adua returns from
hospital treatment in Saudi Arabia.
(AFP, 1/29/10)
2010 Jan 29, Pakistani security
forces killed 24 suspected militants in air strikes and clashes in
the northwest. One paramilitary soldier was also killed and three
wounded in a clash in the town of Chinar in the district of Bajaur.
(AFP, 1/29/10)
2010 Jan 29, Russia test-flew a
long-awaited new fighter aircraft, determined to challenge the
United States for technical superiority in the skies and impress
weapons buyers.
(Reuters, 1/29/10)
2010 Jan 29, Somali insurgents
sparked the heaviest day of fighting in the capital in months,
launching simultaneous attacks on government forces and AU
peacekeepers killing at least 19 people including women and
children.
(AP, 1/29/10)(SFC, 1/30/10, p.A2)
2010 Jan 29, In Sri Lanka
police raided the office of defeated presidential candidate Sarath
Fonseka and arrested 15 of its workers as monitors and rights groups
criticized the Sri Lankan election that returned President Mahinda
Rajapakse to power.
(AFP, 1/29/10)
2010 Jan 29, At Davos,
Switzerland, Microsoft co-founder and his wife said The Bill and
Melinda Gates Foundation will donate $10 billion over the next
decade to research new vaccines and bring them to the world's
poorest countries.
(AP, 1/29/10)
2010 Jan 29, In Thailand a
dozen Asian nations and Russia vowed to double the number of wild
tigers by 2022, crack down on poaching that has devastated the big
cats and prohibit the building of roads and bridges that could harm
their habitats. The 13 countries included Bangladesh, Bhutan,
Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal,
Russia, Thailand and Vietnam.
(AP, 1/29/10)
2010 Jan 29, A Vietnamese court
handed a four-year jail term to writer Pham Thanh Nghien (32) for
anti-state "propaganda," the latest in a string of jailings of
democracy activists by the communist state.
(AFP, 1/29/10)
Go to
http://www.timelinesdb.com
Go to January 30