The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
TODAY IN HISTORY
TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT Jan. 9, 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. ALSO ON THIS DATE
1788
Connecticut became the fifth state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.
1908
French philosopher and feminist Simone de Beauvoir was born in Paris.
1913
Richard Milhous Nixon, the 37th president of the United States, was born in Yorba Linda, California.
1916
The World War I Battle of Gallipoli ended after eight months with an Ottoman Empire victory as Allied forces withdrew.
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.
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.
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.
1997
A Comair commuter plane crashed 18 miles short of the Detroit Metropolitan Airport, killing all 29 people on board.
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.