Today in History
Today’s highlight:
On Jan. 14, 1994, President Bill Clinton and Russian President Boris Yeltsin signed an accord to stop aiming missiles at any nation; the leaders joined Ukrainian President Leonid Kravchuk in signing an accord to dismantle the nuclear arsenal of Ukraine.
On this date:
1784: The United States ratified the Treaty of Paris ending the Revolutionary War; Britain followed suit in April 1784.
1914: Ford Motor Co. greatly improved its assembly-line operation by employing an endless chain to pull each chassis along at its Highland Park, Michigan, plant.
1943: President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and French
General Charles de
Gaulle opened a wartime conference in Casablanca.
1954: Marilyn Monroe
and Joe Dimaggio were married at San Francisco City Hall. The marriage lasted about nine months.
1963: George C. Wallace was sworn in as governor of Alabama with the pledge, “Segregation forever!” — a view Wallace later repudiated.
1964: Former first lady Jacqueline Kennedy, in a brief televised address, thanked Americans for their condolences and messages of support following the assassination of her husband, President John F. Kennedy, nearly two months earlier.
1968: The Green Bay Packers of the NFL defeated the AFL’S Oakland Raiders, 33-14, in the second AFL-NFL World Championship game, now referred to as Super Bowl II.
1969: 27 people aboard the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise, off Hawaii, were killed when a rocket warhead exploded, setting off a fire and additional explosions.
1970: Diana Ross and the Supremes performed their last concert together, at the Frontier Hotel in Las Vegas.
1989: President Ronald Reagan delivered his 331st and final weekly White House radio address, telling listeners, “Believe me, Saturdays will never seem the same. I’ll miss you.”
2004: Former Enron finance chief Andrew Fastow pleaded guilty to conspiracy as he accepted a ten-year prison sentence. He was actually sentenced to six years and was released in Dec. 2011.
Ten years ago: President Barack Obama and the
U.S. moved to take charge in earthquake-ravaged Haiti, dispatching thousands of troops along with tons of aid. Iraq’s electoral commission barred 500 candidates from running in March 2010 parliamentary elections, including a prominent Sunni lawmaker, deepening sectarian divides.
Five years ago: The al-qaida branch in Yemen claimed responsibility for the attack on the satirical Charlie Hebdo newspaper in Paris.
One year ago: President Donald Trump rejected a suggestion to reopen the government for several weeks while negotiations would continue over his demand for billions of dollars for a border wall.