Wednesday, 2 January 2008

Tuesday, January 8

The Associated Press
January 1, 2008

Today is Tuesday, Jan. 8, the 8th day of 2008. There are 358 days left in the year.

Highlights in history on this date:

-1499 - France's King Louis XII marries Anne, Duchess of Brittany.
-1654 - Ukraine joins Russia.
-1679 - French explorer la Salle reaches Niagara Falls.
-1806 - Britain occupies Cape of Good Hope.
-1815 - The Battle of New Orleans takes place with Andrew Jackson defeating the British army in the closing engagement of the War of 1812.
-1912 - The African National Congress is founded in Bloemfontein.
-1915 - Heavy fighting breaks out in areas of Assee Canal in Belgium and Soissons, France, in World War I.
-1918 - U.S. President Woodrow Wilson outlines his 14 points for peace after World War I.
-1923 - France begins military occupation of Ruhr valley in Germany.
-1926 - Ibn Saud becomes king of Hejaz on King Hussein's expulsion and changes name of kingdom to Saudi Arabia.
-1959 - Charles de Gaulle assumes the presidency in France, inaugurating the Fifth Republic.
-1964 - U.S. President Lyndon Johnson declares an "unconditional war on poverty in America."
-1972 - Bangladesh leader Sheik Mujibur Rahman arrives in London after being released by Pakistan and appeals for recognition of his new nation.
-1973 - Secret peace talks between the United States and North Vietnam resume near Paris.
-1974 - Khmer Rouge in Cambodia intensify pressure on Phnom Penh with strikes north and south of the capital.
-1982 - Settling an antitrust lawsuit from the U.S. Justice Department, the American Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T) monopoly divests itself of the 22 regional Bell System companies.
-1987 - The Dow Jones industrial average closes above 2,000 for the first time, ending the day at 2,002.25.
-1989 - Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev says Kremlin is besieged by financial problems that are sapping his reforms.
-1990 - East German official discloses that 60,000 members of secret police are still on government payroll despite the previous month's pledge that organization would be dismantled.
-1991 - Four Belgians held captive for three years by a Palestinian group in Lebanon are released.
-1992 - U.S. President George H. W. Bush collapses to the floor at a state dinner in Tokyo. The White House says he is suffering from stomach flu.
-1993 - The deputy prime minister of Bosnia is shot to death by Serbian gunmen while Serbian rebel leaders consider an international peace settlement.
-1995 - Russian troops pound Chechnya with rocket and mortar fire.
-1996 - A cargo plane crashes into a crowded market in Kinshasa, Zaire (Congo), killing 255 people by the official count. The unofficial death toll reaches 1,000.
-1998 - Ramzi Yousef, an Arab of uncertain nationality, is sentenced to life in prison plus 240 years for masterminding the World Trade Center Bombing in New York that killed six people in 1993.
-2001 - Lawmakers in Manila say they will decide by Feb. 12 whether to impeach the Philippine president, speeding a trial that has battered the economy and set the country on edge.
-2003 - A U.S. Court of Appeals rules that U.S. citizens detained in combat abroad could be held indefinitely, without access to a lawyer, with only "limited judicial inquiry" into their detention.
-2004 - Britain bans airlines from Albania, Sierra Leone, Equatorial Guinea, Gambia, Liberia Tajikistan, Congo and Cameroon from flying in British airspace, citing inadequate safety and security regulations.
-2005 - More than 100 police and security agents backed by five armored personnel carriers surround a house in the restive southern Russian region of Ingushetia and kill five alleged militants in a shootout.
-2006 - A U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter crashes and kills all 12 Americans believed to be aboard, while five Marines die in weekend attacks in Iraq.
-2007 - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez announces plans to nationalize the country's electrical and telecommunications companies, one of his boldest moves in trying to transform Venezuela into a socialist state.

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