History Highlights
Today is Friday, Jan. 8, the eighth day of 2021. There are 357 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On Jan. 8, 1998, Ramzi Yousef, the mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, was sentenced in New York to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
On this date:
In 1815, the last major engagement of the War of 1812 came to an end as U. S. forces defeated the British in the Battle of New Orleans, having not gotten word of the signing of a peace treaty.
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 1968, the Otis Redding single ”(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay” was released on the Volt label almost a month after the singer’s death in a plane crash.
In 1973, the Paris peace talks between the United States and North Vietnam resumed.
In 1982, American Telephone and Telegraph settled the Justice Department’s antitrust lawsuit against it by agreeing to divest itself of the 22 Bell System companies.
In 1994, Tonya Harding won the ladies’ U. S. Figure Skating Championship in Detroit, a day after Nancy Kerrigan dropped out because of the clubbing attack that had injured her right knee. The U. S. Figure Skating Association later stripped Harding of the title.
In 1997, the state of Arkansas put three men to death in the second triple execution since capital punishment was reinstated in 1976. The first also occurred in Arkansas, in 1994.
In 2004, A U. S. Black Hawk medivac helicopter crashed near Fallujah, Iraq, killing all nine soldiers aboard.
In 2008, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton powered to victory in New Hampshire’s 2008 Democratic primary in a startling upset, defeating Sen. Barack Obama and resurrecting her bid for the White House; Sen. John McCain defeated his Republican rivals to move back into contention for the GOP nomination.
Ten years ago: 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 injured. Gunman Jared Lee Loughner was sentenced in Nov. 2012 to seven consecutive life sentences, plus 140 years.
Five years ago: Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, the world’s most-wanted drug lord, was captured for a third time in a daring raid by Mexican marines, six months after walking through a tunnel to freedom from a maximum security prison in a made-for- Hollywood escape that deeply embarrassed the government and strained ties with the United States.