TODAY IN HISTORY
TODAY IS WEDNESDAY, JAN. 9, the ninth day of 2019. There are 356 days left in the year.
TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT IN HISTORY: On this date 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 1788, Connecticut became the fifth state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.
In 1908, French philosopher and feminist Simone de Beauvoir was born in Paris.
In 1913, Richard Milhous Nixon, the 37th president of the United States, was born in Yorba Linda, Calif.
In 1914, the County of Los Angeles opened the country’s first public defender’s office.
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 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.
In 2001, Linda Chavez withdrew her bid to be President-elect George W. Bush’s Secretary of Labor because of controversy over an immigrant in the U.S. illegally who’d once lived with her.
TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS: Author Judith Krantz is 91. Football Hall-of-Famer Bart Starr is 85. Actress K. Callan is 83. Folk singer Joan Baez and rockabilly singer Roy Head are 78. Rock musician Jimmy Page (Led Zeppelin) is 75. Actor John Doman is 74. Singer David Johansen (aka Buster Poindexter) is 69. Singer Crystal Gayle is 68. Actor J.K. Simmons is 64. Actress Imelda Staunton is 63. Nobel Peace laureate Rigoberto Menchu is 60. Rock musician Eric Erlandson is 56. Actress Joely Richardson is 54. Rock musician Carl Bell (Fuel), actor David Costabile, rock singer Steve Harwell (Smash Mouth) and rock singer-musician Dave Matthews are 52. Actress-director Joey Lauren Adams is 51. Comedian/actor Deon Cole is 48. Actress Angela Bettis is 46. Actor Omari Hardwick is 45. Roots singer-songwriter Hayes Carll is 43. Singer A.J. McLean (Backstreet Boys) is 41. Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, is 37. Pop-rock musician Drew Brown (OneRepublic) is 35. Rock-soul singer Paolo Nutini is 32. Actress Nina Dobrev is 30. Actor Basil Eidenbenz is 26. Actress Kerris Dorsey is 21. Actor Tyree Brown is 15.