TODAY IN HISTORY
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 (RAHM’-zee YOO’-sef), 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, not having 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 2006, the first funerals were held in West Virginia for the
12 miners who’d died in the Sago (SAY’-goh) Mine disaster six days earlier.
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 (LAWF’-nur) 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.
One year ago: Iran struck back at the United States for killing Iran’s top military commander, firing missiles at two Iraqi military bases housing American troops; more than 100 U.S. service members were diagnosed with traumatic brain injuries after the attack. As Iran braced for a counterattack, the country’s Revolutionary Guard shot down a Ukrainian jetliner after apparently mistaking it for a missile; all 176 people on board were killed, including 82 Iranians and more than 50 Canadians. South Korea said it had put a Chinese woman under isolated treatment amid concerns that she had brought back the virus that had sickened dozens in mainland China and Hong Kong. Britain’s Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan, said they planned to “step back” as senior members of the royal family while balancing their time between the U.K. and North America. Screenwriter and actor Buck Henry, who co-wrote and appeared in “The Graduate,” died in Los Angeles at the age of 89.