Today in history

On Jan. 9, 1788, Connecticut became the fifth state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.

In 1793 Frenchman Jean Pierre Blanchard, using a hot-air balloon, flew between Philadelphia and Woodbury, N.J.

In 1861 Mississippi seceded from the Union. Also in 1861 the “Star of the West,” a merchant vessel bringing reinforcements to federal troops at Fort Sumter, S.C., retreated after being fired on by a battery in the harbor.

In 1913 Richard Milhous Nixon, the 37th U.S. president, was born in Yorba Linda, Calif.

In 1957 Anthony Eden resigned as British prime minister.

In 1959 the Western series “Rawhide” premiered on CBS-TV.

In 1964 anti-U.S. rioting broke out in the Panama Canal Zone, resulting in the deaths of 21 Panamanians and three U.S. soldiers.

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 biography of him by Clifford Irving was a fake.

In 1980 Saudi Arabia beheaded 63 people for their involvement in the November 1979 raid on the Grand Mosque in Mecca.

In 1987 the White House released a memorandum prepared for President Ronald Reagan in January 1986 that showed a definite link between U.S. arms sales to Iran and the release of American hostages in Lebanon.

In 1995 in New York, the trial of Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman and 11 other defendants accused of conspiring to wage a holy war against the United States began. (All the defendants were convicted of seditious conspiracy, except for two who had reached plea agreements with the government.) Also in 1995 British comedian Peter Cook died in London; he was 57.

In 1997 a Comair commuter plane crashed 18 miles short of the Detroit Metropolitan Airport, killing all 29 people on board.

In 1998 Northern Ireland Secretary Mo Mowlam visited the Maze Prison to make a face-to-face appeal for peace to Protestant militants. Also in 1998 the Barry Switzer era with the Dallas Cowboys ended with the announcement of the coach’s resignation.

In 2001 Linda Chavez withdrew her bid to be labor secretary because of controversy over an illegal immigrant who once lived with her.

In 2002 the Bush administration and the auto industry agreed to promote development of pollution-free cars and trucks powered by hydrogen fuel cells.

In 2003 North Korea withdrew from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

Also in 2003 U.N. weapons inspectors said there was no “smoking gun” to prove Iraq had nuclear, chemical or biological weapons but they demanded that Baghdad provide private access to scientists and fresh evidence to back its claim that it had destroyed its weapons of mass destruction.

In 2004 Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge announced that the nation’s threat level had been lowered from orange to yellow.

Also in 2004 officials said Pentagon lawyers had determined that former Iraq leader Saddam Hussein was a prisoner of war since his capture.

In 2005 Mahmoud Abbas, the No. 2 man in the Palestinian hierarchy during Yasser Arafat’s rule, was elected Palestinian Authority president by a landslide.

Also in 2005 Sudan’s vice president, Ali Osman Mohammed Taha, and the country’s main rebel leader, John Garang, signed a comprehensive peace agreement, concluding an eightyear process to stop a civil war in the south.

In 2006 “The Phantom of the Opera” passed “Cats” to become the longest-running show in Broadway history.

In 2007 Apple released the first iPhone.

In 2008 the U.S. military reported nine American soldiers were killed in the first two days of a new offensive to root out al-Qaida in Iraq fighters holed up in districts north of Baghdad.

In 2013 voters for the baseball Hall of Fame rejected the steroid-tainted candidacies of Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and Sammy Sosa — the first ballot shutout since 1996.

In 2014 New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie apologized and fired a top aid after emails surfaced showing a plan targeting the mayor of Fort Lee with a scheme to tie up traffic in his town as punishment for not supporting Christie for re-election. “I am embarrassed and humiliated,” Christie said in a nearly two-hour news conference. Also in 2014 a chemical used in the coal industry leaked into the Elk River, leaving 300,000 residents in nine West Virginia counties without safe drinking water for about a week. (Freedom Industries, the company responsible for the spill, later filed for federal bankruptcy protection.)