TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT Jan. 9, 1793

Frenchman Jean Pierre Blanchard, using a hot-air balloon, flew from Philadelphia to Woodbury, New Jersey.

ALSO ON THIS DATE 1788

Connecticut became the fifth state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.

1861

Mississippi became the second state to secede from the Union, the same day the Star of the West, a merchant vessel bringing reinforcements and supplies to Federal troops at Fort Sumter, South Carolina, retreated because of artillery fire.

1931

Bobbi Trout and Edna May Cooper broke an endurance record for female aviators as they returned to Mines Field in Los Angeles after flying a Curtiss Robin monoplane continuously for 122 hours and 50 minutes.

1958

President Dwight D. Eisenhower, in his State of the Union address to Congress, warned of the threat of Communist imperialism.

1968

The Surveyor 7 space probe made a soft landing on the moon, marking the end of the American series of unmanned explorations of the lunar surface.

1972

Reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes, speaking by telephone from the Bahamas to reporters in Hollywood, said a purported autobiography of him by Clifford Irving was a fake.