TODAY IN WORLD HISTORY
Today is Saturday, Jan. 7, the seventh day of 2017. There are 358 days left in the year. Today’s Highlight in History On Jan. 7, 1942, Japanese forces began besieging American and Filipino troops in Bataan during World War II. (The fall of Bataan three months later was followed by the notorious Death March.)
On this date
• In 1610, astronomer Galileo Galilei began observing three of Jupiter’s moons (he spotted a fourth moon almost a week later).
• In 1789, America held its first presidential election as voters chose electors who, a month later, selected George Washington to be the nation’s first chief executive.
• In 1927, commercial transatlantic telephone service was inaugurated between New York and London.
• In 1949, George C. Marshall resigned as U.S. Secretary of State; President Harry S. Truman chose Dean Acheson to succeed him.
• In 1959, the United States recognized the new government of Cuba, six days after Fidel Castro led the overthrow of Fulgencio Batista.
• In 1999, for the second time in history, an impeached American president went on trial before the Senate. President Bill Clinton faced charges of perjury and obstruction of justice; he was acquitted.
• In 2015, masked gunmen stormed the Paris offices of Charlie Hebdo, a French newspaper that had caricatured the Prophet Mohammad, methodically killing 12 people before escaping. (Two suspects were killed two days later.) Actor Rod Taylor 82, died in Los Angeles.
On Jan. 8
• In 1642, astronomer Galileo Galilei died in Arcetri, Italy.
• In 1790, President George Washington delivered his first State of the Union address to Congress in New York.
• In 1918, President Woodrow Wilson outlined his Fourteen Points for lasting peace after World War I. Mississippi became the first state to ratify the 18th Amendment to the Constitution, which established Prohibition.
• In 1935, rock-and-roll legend Elvis Presley was born in Tupelo, Mississippi.
• In 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson, in his State of the Union address, declared an “unconditional war on poverty in America.”
• In 1987, for the first time, the Dow Jones industrial average closed above 2,000, ending the day at 2,002.25.
• In 2011, U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., was shot and critically wounded when a gunman opened fire as the congresswoman met with constituents in Tucson; six people were killed, 12 others also wounded. (Gunman Jared Lee Loughner (LAWF’-nur) was sentenced in Nov. 2012 to seven consecutive life sentences, plus 140 years.)
On Jan. 9
• In 1793, Frenchman Jean Pierre Blanchard, using a hot-air balloon, flew between Philadelphia and Woodbury, New Jersey.
• 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, South Carolina, retreated because of artillery fire.
• In 1913, Richard Milhous Nixon, the 37th president of the United States, was born in Yorba Linda, California.
• 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 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 1987, the White House released a Jan. 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.