HISTORY AT A GLANCE

TODAY is Friday, January 20, the 20th day of 2017. There are 345 days left in the year. Highlights in history on this date: 1945 – World War II: Germany begins the evacuation of 1.8 million people from East Prussia, a task which will take nearly two months. 1949 – Point Four Program a program for economic aid to poor countries announced by United States President Harry S. Truman in his inaugural address for a full term as President. 1959 – The first flight of the Vickers Vanguard. 1960 – Hendrik Verwoerd announces a plebiscite on whether

South Africa should become a Republic. 1969 – East Pakistani police kill student activist Amanullah Asaduzzaman. The resulting outrage is in part responsible for the Bangladesh Liberation War. 1972 – Pakistan launched its Nuclear weapons program few weeks after its defeat in Bangladesh Liberation War and Indo-Pakistani War of 1971. 1981 – Twenty minutes after Ronald Reagan is inaugurated,

Iran releases 52 American hostages. 1987 – Church of England envoy Terry Waite is kidnapped in

Lebanon. 1990 – The Red Army crackdown on civil protests in Baku, Azerbaijan during the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Also known as Black January. 1991 – Sudan’s government imposes Islamic law nationwide, worsening the civil war between the country’s Muslim north and Christian south. 1992 – Air Inter Flight 148, an Airbus A320-111, crashes into a mountain near Strasbourg, France killing 87 of the 96 people on board. A design flaw in the computer mode selection system resulted in the crew selecting the wrong rate of descent. 2001 – President of the Philippines Joseph Estrada is ousted in a nonviolent 4-day revolution, and is succeeded by Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. 2006 – Witnesses report seeing a bottlenose whale swimming in the River Thames, the first time the species had been seen in the Thames since records began in 1913. 2007 – A three-man team, using only skis and kites, completes a 1,093-mile (1,759 km) trek to reach the southern pole of inaccessibility for the first time since 1958 and for the first time ever without mechanical assistance. 2009 – A protest movement in Iceland culminates as the 2009

Icelandic financial crisis protests start.