This day in history
Today is Tuesday, Jan. 9, the ninth day of 2024. There are 357 days left in the year.
Birthdays: Actor K Callan is
88. Folk singer Joan Baez is 83. Rock guitarist Jimmy Page is 80. Actor John Doman is 79. Singer David Johansen (a.k.a. Buster Poindexter) is 74. Singer Crystal Gayle is 73. Actor J.K. Simmons is 69. Actor Imelda Staunton is
68. Nobel Peace laureate Rigoberta Menchú is 65. Actor Joely Richardson is 59. Rock singermusician Dave Matthews is 57. Actor-director Joey Lauren Adams is 56. Comedian/actor Deon Cole is 53. Roots singer-songwriter Hayes Carll is 48. Singer A.J. McLean of the Backstreet Boys is 46. Rock-soul singer Paolo Nutini is 37. Actor Nina Dobrev is 35. Actor Basil Eidenbenz is 31. Actor Kerris Dorsey is 26. Actor Tyree Brown is 20.
► In 1774, one of the three vessels targeted in the Boston Tea Party, the Dartmouth, left Boston Harbor and set sail for London with a load of oil.
► In 1788, Connecticut became the fifth state to ratify the US Constitution.
► In 1793, Frenchman Jean Pierre Blanchard, using a hot-air balloon, flew from Philadelphia to Woodbury, N.J.
► In 1861, Mississippi became the second state to secede from the Union.
► In 1914, the County of Los Angeles opened the country’s first public defender’s office.
► In 1951, the United Nations headquarters in New York officially opened.
► In 1987, the White House released a January 1986 memorandum prepared for President Reagan by Lieutenant Colonel Oliver L. North showing a link between US arms sales to Iran and the release of American hostages in Lebanon.
► In 2003, UN weapons inspectors said there was no “smoking gun” to prove Iraq had nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons but they demanded that Baghdad provide private access to scientists and fresh evidence to back its claim that it had destroyed its weapons of mass destruction.
► In 2020, Chinese state media said a preliminary investigation into recent cases of viral pneumonia had identified the probable cause as a new type of coronavirus.
► In 2022, 17 people died after a fire sparked by a malfunctioning space heater filled a high-rise apartment building with smoke in the New York City borough of the Bronx.