TODAY IN HISTORY
TODAY IS TUESDAY, JAN. 9, the ninth day of 2018. There are 356 days left in the year.
TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT IN HISTORY: On this date in 1793, Frenchman Jean Pierre Blanchard, using a hotair balloon, flew from Philadelphia to Woodbury, N.J.
In 1788, Connecticut became the fifth state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.
In 1861, Mississippi became the second state to secede from the Union, the same day the Star of the West, a merchant vessel bringing reinforcements and supplies to Federal troops at Fort Sumter, S.C., retreated because of artillery fire.
In 1913, Richard Milhous Nixon, the 37th president of the United States, was born in Yorba Linda, Calif.
In 1916, the World War I Battle of Gallipoli ended after eight months with an Ottoman Empire victory as Allied forces withdrew.
In 1931, Bobbi Trout and Edna May Cooper broke an endurance record for female aviators as they returned to Mines Field in Los Angeles after flying a Curtiss Robin monoplane continuously for 122 hours and 50 minutes.
In 1945, during World War II, American forces began landing on the shores of Lingayen Gulf in the Philippines as the Battle of Luzon got underway, resulting in an Allied victory over Imperial Japanese forces.
In 1958, President Dwight D. Eisenhower, in his State of the Union address to Congress, warned of the threat of Communist imperialism.
In 1968, the Surveyor 7 space probe made a soft landing on the moon, marking the end of the American series
of unmanned explorations of the lunar surface.
In 1972, reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes, speaking by telephone from the Bahamas to reporters in Hollywood, said a purported autobiography of him by Clifford Irving was a fake.
In 1987, the White House released a January 1986 memorandum prepared for President Ronald Reagan by Lt. Col. Oliver L. North showing a link between U.S. arms sales to Iran and the release of American hostages in Lebanon.
In 1997, a Comair commuter plane crashed 18 miles short of the Detroit Metropolitan Airport, killing all 29 people on board.
TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS: Author Judith Krantz is 90. Football Hall-of-Famer Bart Starr is 84. Folk singer Joan Baez and rockabilly singer Roy Head are 77. Rock musician Jimmy Page (Led Zeppelin) is 74. Actor John Doman is 73. Singer David Johansen (aka Buster Poindexter) is 68. Singer Crystal Gayle is 67. Actor J.K. Simmons is 63. Actress Imelda Staunton is 62. Nobel Peace laureate Rigoberto Menchu is 59. Rock musician Eric Erlandson is 55. Actress Joely Richardson is 53. Rock musician Carl Bell (Fuel), actor David Costabile, rock singer Steve Harwell (Smash Mouth) and rock singer-musician Dave Matthews are 51. Actress-director Joey Lauren Adams is 50. Actor Omari Hardwick is 44. Roots singer-songwriter Hayes Carll is 42. Singer A.J. McLean (Backstreet Boys) is 40. Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, is 36. Pop-rock musician Drew Brown (OneRepublic) is 34. Rock-soul singer Paolo Nutini is 31. Actress Nina Dobrev is 29. Actor Basil Eidenbenz is 25. Actress Kerris Dorsey is 20. Actor Tyree Brown is 14.