TODAY IN HISTORY
Today is Monday, January 13, the 13th day of 2014. There are 352 days left in the year. Highlights in history on this date: 1559 - Coronation of Elizabeth I of England. 1794 - United States President George Washington approves a measure adding two stars and two stripes to the American flag, after the admission of Vermont and Kentucky to the union. 1890 - ‘‘ Torpedo Billy’’ Murphy wins the world featherweight boxing title, becoming the first New Zealander to win a world professional boxing title. 1915 - South African troops occupy Swakopmund in German South- West Africa; Earthquake in central Italy kills 30,000 people. 1945 - Soviet forces begin offensive in Silesia, Germany, now mostly part of Poland, in World War II. 1966 - Robert C Weaver becomes the first black Cabinet member as he is appointed Secretary of Housing and Urban Development by US President Lyndon Johnson. 1982 - An Air Florida 737 crashes into a bridge after takeoff and falls into the Potomac River, killing 78 people. 1992 - Serial killer Jeffrey L Dahmer pleads guilty but insane to 15 mutilation killings in Milwaukee, United States. He is killed by a fellow prisoner in 1994. 2007 - A military tribunal in Italy convicts 10 former members of the Nazi SS in the 1944 slaughter of more than 700 people near Bologna, the worst civilian massacre in Italy during World War II. The 10 receive life sentences for murder, while seven others are acquitted. 2013 - A Cairo appeals court overturns Hosni Mubarak’s life sentence and orders a retrial of the former Egyptian president for failing to prevent the killing of hundreds of protesters during the 2001 uprising that toppled his regime. Birthdays: Antoinette Bourignon, Flemish mystic ( 1616- 1680); Prosper Jolyot de Crebillion, French dramatist ( 1674- 1762); Pietro Metastasic, Italian poet ( 1698- 1782); Charles Nelson Reilly, US actor ( 1931- 2007); Richard Moll, US actor ( 1943– ); Kevin Anderson, US actor ( 1960– ); Julia Louis- Dreyfus, US actress ( 1961– ); Bic Runga, NZ singer ( 1976-); Orlando Bloom, British actor ( 1977– ).