TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT 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.

ALSO ON THIS DATE 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, not having gotten word of the signing of a peace treaty.

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.

1964

President Lyndon B. Johnson, in his State of the Union address, declared an “unconditional war on poverty in America.”

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.

1973

The Paris peace talks between the United States and North Vietnam resumed.

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.

2004

A U.S. Black Hawk medivac helicopter crashed near Fallujah, Iraq, killing all nine soldiers aboard.

2011

U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., was shot and critically wounded when a gunman opened fire as she met with constituents in Tucson; six people were killed, 12 others injured. (The gunman was given seven consecutive life sentences, plus 140 years.)