Today
Today is Sunday, Jan. 9, the ninth day of 2011. There are 356 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On Jan. 9, 1861, Mississippi became the second state to secede from the Union, the same day that the Star of the West, a merchant vessel bringing reinforcements and supplies to Federal troops at Fort Sumter, S.C., retreated because of artillery fire in Charleston Harbor.
On this date:
In 1788, Connecticut became the fifth state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.
In 1793, Frenchman Jean Pierre Blanchard, using a hot-air balloon, flew between Philadelphia and Woodbury, N.J.
In 1913, Richard Milhous Nixon, the 37th president of the United States, was born in Yorba Linda, Calif.
In 1945, during World War II, American forces began landing at Lingayen Gulf in the Philippines.
In 1951, United Nations headquarters in New York was officially opened.
In 1960, on his 47th birthday, Vice President Richard Nixon became a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination.
In 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.
In 1972, reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes, speaking by telephone from the Bahamas to reporters in Hollywood, said a purported biography of him by Clifford Irving was a fake.
In 1995, in New York, the trial of Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman and 11 other defendants accused of conspiring to wage holy war against the United States began. (All the defendants were convicted of seditious conspiracy, except for two who reached plea agreements with the government.)
In 1997, a Comair commuter plane crashed 18 miles short of the Detroit Metropolitan Airport, killing all 29 people on board.
Ten years ago: Linda Chavez withdrew her bid to be President-elect George W. Bush’s Secretary of Labor because of controversy over an illegal immigrant who’d once lived with her.
Five years ago: Confirmation hearings opened in Washington for Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito. “The Phantom of the Opera” leapt past “Cats” to become the longest-running show in Broadway history. Actor Don Stewart died in Santa Barbara, Calif., at age 70.
One year ago: In a video that appeared on an Arabic news channel, the Jordanian doctor who killed seven CIA employees in a suicide attack in Afghanistan said all jihadists should attack U.S. targets to avenge the death of Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud (BEH’-tuh-luh mah-SOOD’). Peyton Manning became the first player to win The Associated Press’ NFL Most Valuable Player award four times.
Today’s Birthdays: Author Judith Krantz is 83. Football Hall-of-Famer Bart Starr is 77. Sportscaster Dick Enberg is 76. Actress K. Callan is 75. Folk singer Joan Baez is 70. Rockabilly singer Roy Head is 70. Actress Susannah York is 70.
Rock musician Jimmy Page (Led Zeppelin) is 67. Singer David Johansen (aka Buster Poindexter) is 61. Singer Crystal Gayle is 60.
Actor J.K. Simmons is 56. Nobel Peace laureate and human rights activist Rigoberto Menchu is 52.
Rock musician Eric Erlandson is 48. Actress Joely Richardson is 46. Rock musician Carl Bell (Fuel) is 44. Rock singer Steve Harwell (Smash Mouth) is 44. Rock singer-musician Dave Matthews is 44. Actress-director Joey Lauren Adams is 43.
Singer A.J. McLean (Backstreet Boys) is 33. Pop-rock musician Drew Brown (OneRepublic) is 27. Rock-soul singer Paolo Nutini is 24. Actor Tyree Brown (TV: “Parenthood”) is seven.
Thought for Today: “One’s lifework, I have learned, grows with the working and the living. Do it as if your life depended on it, and first thing you know, you’ll have made a life out of it. A good life, too.” – Theresa Helburn, American theatrical producer (1887-1959).