TODAY IN HISTORY
Today is Tuesday, Jan. 12, the 12th day of 2021. There are 353 days left in the year.
ON THIS DATE IN HISTORY
On Jan. 12, 2000, in a 5-4 decision, the US Supreme Court, in Illinois v. Wardlow, gave police broad authority to stop and question people who run at the sight of an officer.
1828 — The United States and Mexico signed a Treaty of Limits defining the boundary between the two countries to be the same as the one established by an 1819 treaty between the US and Spain.
1915 — The US House of Representatives rejected, 204174, a proposed constitutional amendment to give women nationwide the right to vote.
1948 — The US Supreme Court, in Sipuel v. Board of Regents of University of Oklahoma, unanimously ruled that state law schools could not discriminate against applicants on the basis of race.
1959 — Berry Gordy Jr. founded Motown Records (originally Tamla Records) in Detroit.
1971 — The groundbreaking situation comedy “All in the Family” premiered on CBS television.
1995 — Qubilah Shabazz, the daughter of Malcolm X, was arrested in Minneapolis on charges she had tried to hire a hitman to kill Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan (the charges were later dropped in a settlement with the government).
2006 — Mehmet Ali Agca, the Turkish gunman who shot Pope John Paul II in 1981, was released from an Istanbul prison after serving more than 25 years in Italy and Turkey for the plot against the pontiff and the slaying of a Turkish journalist.
2010 — Haiti was struck by a magnitude-7 earthquake; the Haitian government said 316,000 people were killed, while a report prepared for the US Agency for International Development suggested the death toll may have been between 46,000 and 85,000.
Ten years ago — President Barack Obama visited Tucson, Arizona, the scene of a shooting rampage that wounded Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and killed six others.
Five years ago — In his final State of the Union address, President Barack Obama urged Americans to rekindle their belief in the promise of change that first carried him to the White House, declaring that the country must not allow election-year fear and division to put economic and security progress at risk.
One year ago — Defense Secretary Mark Esper said he had seen no hard evidence that four American embassies had been under a possible threat, as Trump had claimed, when the president authorized the drone strike that killed Iran’s top military commander.
TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS
Country singer William Lee Golden (The Oak Ridge Boys) is 82. Actor Kirstie Alley is 70. Country singer Ricky Van Shelton is 69. Radio-TV personality Howard Stern is 67. Actor Oliver Platt is 61. Basketball Hall of Famer Dominique Wilkins is 61. Entrepreneur Jeff Bezos is 57. Rock singer Rob Zombie is 56. Rock singer Zack de la Rocha is 51. Rapper Raekwon (Wu Tang Clan) is 51. Actor Issa Rae is 36. Actor Will Rothhaar is 34.