http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history
Jan 10, 1946: First meeting of the United Nations
The first General Assembly of the United Nations, comprising 51 nations, convenes at Westminster Central Hall in London, England. One week later, the U.N. Security Council met for the first time and established its rules of procedure. Then, on January 24, the General Assembly adopted its first resolution, a measure calling for the peaceful uses of atomic energy and the elimination of atomic and other weapons of mass destruction.
In 1944, at the Dumbarton Oaks conference in Washington, D.C., the groundwork was laid by Allied delegates for an international postwar organization to maintain peace and security in the postwar world. The organization was to possess considerably more authority over its members than the defunct League of Nations, which had failed in its attempts to prevent the outbreak of World War II. In April 1945, with celebrations of victory in Europe about to commence, delegates from 51 nations convened in San Francisco to draft the United Nations Charter. On June 26, the document was signed by the delegates, and on October 24 it was formally ratified by the five permanent members of the Security Council and a majority of other signatories.
Jan 10, 1901: Gusher signals start of U.S. oil industry
On this day in 1901, a drilling derrick at Spindletop Hill near Beaumont, Texas, produces an enormous gusher of crude oil, coating the landscape for hundreds of feet and signaling the advent of the American oil industry. The geyser was discovered at a depth of over 1,000 feet, flowed at an initial rate of approximately 100,000 barrels a day and took nine days to cap. Following the discovery, petroleum, which until that time had been used in the U.S. primarily as a lubricant and in kerosene for lamps, would become the main fuel source for new inventions such as cars and airplanes; coal-powered forms of transportation including ships and trains would also convert to the liquid fuel.
Crude oil, which became the world's first trillion-dollar industry, is a natural mix of hundreds of different hydrocarbon compounds trapped in underground rock. The hydrocarbons were formed millions of years ago when tiny aquatic plants and animals died and settled on the bottoms of ancient waterways, creating a thick layer of organic material. Sediment later covered this material, putting heat and pressure on it and transforming it into the petroleum that comes out of the ground today.
In the early 1890s, Texas businessman and amateur geologist Patillo Higgins became convinced there was a large pool of oil under a salt-dome formation south of Beaumont. He and several partners established the Gladys City Oil, Gas and Manufacturing Company and made several unsuccessful drilling attempts before Higgins left the company. In 1899, Higgins leased a tract of land at Spindletop to mining engineer Anthony Lucas. The Lucas gusher blew on January 10, 1901, and ushered in the liquid fuel age. Unfortunately for Higgins, he'd lost his ownership stake by that point.
Beaumont became a "black gold" boomtown, its population tripling in three months. The town filled up with oil workers, investors, merchants and con men (leading some people to dub it "Swindletop"). Within a year, there were more than 285 actives wells at Spindletop and an estimated 500 oil and land companies operating in the area, including some that are major players today: Humble (now Exxon), the Texas Company (Texaco) and Magnolia Petroleum Company (Mobil).
Spindletop experienced a second boom starting in the mid-1920s when more oil was discovered at deeper depths. In the 1950s, Spindletop was mined for sulphur. Today, only a few oil wells still operate in the area.
Jan 10, 1923: Harding orders U.S. troops home from Germany
Four years after the end of World War I, President Warren G. Harding orders U.S. occupation troops stationed in Germany to return home.
In 1917, after several years of bloody stalemate along the Western Front, the entrance of America's fresh, well-supplied forces into the Great War—a decision announced by President Woodrow Wilson in April and provoked largely by Germany's blatant attacks on American ships at sea—proved to be a major turning point in the conflict. American naval forces arrived in Britain on April 9, only three days after the formal declaration of war. On June 13, the American Expeditionary Force (AEF), commanded by the celebrated General John J. Pershing, reached the shores of France.
By the time the war ended in November 1918, more than 2 million American soldiers had served on the battlefields of Western Europe and more than 50,000 of them had lost their lives. The last combat divisions left France in September 1919, though a small number of men stayed behind to supervise the identification and burial of their compatriots in military cemeteries. An American occupation force of 16,000 men was sent to Germany, to be based in the town of Coblenz, as part of the post-war Allied presence on the Rhine that had been determined by the terms of the Treaty of Versailles.
In 1923, after four years in Germany, the occupation troops were ordered home after President Harding succeeded Wilson in 1921 and announced a desire to return to normalcy after the disruptions of wartime. Meanwhile, the bitterness of the German population, demoralized by defeat and what they saw as the unfairly harsh terms of peace—of which the American occupation was a part—grew ever stronger.
Jan 10, 1989: Cuban troops begin withdrawal from Angola
As part of an arrangement to decrease Cold War tensions and end a brutal war in Angola, Cuban troops begin their withdrawal from the African nation. The process was part of a multilateral diplomatic effort to end years of bloodshed in Angola—a conflict that, at one time or another, involved the Soviet Union, the United States, Portugal, and South Africa.
Angola officially became an independent nation in 1975, but even before the date of independence, various groups within the former Portuguese colony battled for control. One group, the National Front for the Liberation of Angola (FNLA), received support from the United States; another, the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), got much of its support from the Soviet Union and Cuba; and a third group, National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), pragmatically took aid from whatever source was available, including South Africa and China. The United States, the Soviet Union, and China each believed Angola was a critical battlefield for political dominance in mineral-rich and strategically important southern Africa.
By September 1975, South African troops were assisting UNITA forces in Angola. In November, Cuba—which became involved in Angola as part of Fidel Castro's aggressive foreign policy to assert Cuba's role in anticolonial struggles—responded by flying in thousands of troops to aid the MPLA. Their powerful assistance caused South African forces to withdraw.
In 1981, the South Africans, who saw an MPLA regime in Angola as threatening to its political control of neighboring Namibia, again invaded Angola and increased their aid to UNITA. UNITA's leader, Jonas Savimbi courted U.S. assistance and visited with President Ronald Reagan in 1986. The United States responded with military aid for UNITA's forces and demanded that the Cuban troops depart Angola. As fighting escalated, Castro dispatched 15,000 additional troops to Africa.
Throughout 1987 and 1988, UNITA and MPLA forces and their respective allies fought increasingly bloody battles. Sensing that the situation was spiraling out of control, the United States helped broker an agreement in December 1988 between Angola, Cuba, and South Africa, whereby the three nations vowed to remove all foreign forces from Angola. All three nations had expended vast amounts of manpower and money in the seemingly endless conflict and Cuba, in particular, was eager to negotiate a graceful exit. The Cuban troops began their withdrawal a few weeks later, and by 1991 they were gone.
The situation in Angola was another indication that, particularly in the 1970s and 1980s, Africa was coming to play a more significant role in the Cold War geopolitics. Additionally, the Cuban intervention in the conflict was yet another event that served to chill relations between the United States and Cuba.
Jan 10, 1967: Johnson asks for more funding for Vietnam War
On this day in 1967, President Lyndon B. Johnson asks Congress for more money to support the Vietnam War. Lyndon's War, a war Johnson actually inherited from President John F. Kennedy, had achieved nothing by 1967. The North Vietnamese use of guerrilla warfare tactics resulted in approximately 14,000 American troops killed in action by early 1967. Hundreds of U.S. planes had been shot down, leaving Air Force personnel in enemy POW camps. Although the enemy also suffered heavy casualties, they did not show any signs of giving up.
Desperate for more military funding, Johnson proposed a six-percent surcharge tax on personal and corporate incomes. Johnson's tax proposal, approved by Congress in March 1967, backfired with an American public tiring of the controversial war. Previously ambivalent Americans protested the government's demand on their pocketbooks for a war that was beginning to appear impossible to win. As a result, Johnson's popularity waned toward the end of 1967. By year's end, a total of 19,560 troops had died in more than a decade of hostilities. The Viet Cong's surprise Tet Offensive in January 1968 convinced the majority of the public and many U.S. political and military leaders that the war could not be won. Johnson realized support for his administration had disintegrated and decided not to run for re-election in 1968. His successor, Richard Nixon, although staunchly anti-communist, won the election largely based on promises to end the war.
Jan 10, 2008: World's cheapest car debuts in India
On this day in 2008, at the New Delhi Auto Expo in India, Tata Motors debuts the Nano, billing it as the world's cheapest car: The anticipated price tag is around $2,500. Tata, India's largest automaker, called the four-door, bubble-shaped mini-vehicle (it was just 5 feet wide and 10 feet long) the "People's Car" and declared that it would be a vehicle for families who previously hadn't been able to afford a car. (At the time, it wasn't uncommon to see an entire family precariously packed onto a single motorbike.)
The Nano was originally scheduled to go on sale in October 2008; however, production delays arose because of a land dispute in West Bengal, where the car's production plant was being built. The company opted to move its production facilities to another part of India and the Nano officially went on sale across the country in April 2009. The basic model carried a starting price of approximately $2,000 (not including taxes) and came without a radio, air conditioning, airbags, power steering or power windows. It had a body made of plastic and sheet metal and a 32-horsepower, 624cc two-cylinder rear-mounted engine, and it could reach speeds of 65 miles per hour. In another nod to cost-cutting, the car had just one windshield wiper.
Tata received more than 203,000 pre-orders for the Nano--a strong number, especially considering that at the time there were only about nine cars for every 1,000 people in India. However, because Tata was only able to produce an initial run of 100,000 Nanos, the cars' first owners were chosen by lottery. The Nano was initially sold only in India, although Tata said it eventually intended to launch the car in other parts of the world.
Tata Motors is part of the Tata Group, one of India's largest and oldest business conglomerates. And Tata does not just make inexpensive cars: In March 2008, the company purchased the venerable British brands Jaguar and Land Rover from the Ford Motor Company for $2.3 billion.
Here's a more detailed look at events that transpired on this date throughout history:
49 BC - Julius Caesar crosses the Rubicon, signaling the
start of civil war.
69 - Roman emperor Galba adopts Marcus Piso Licinianus as
Caesar
236 - St Fabian begins his reign as Catholic Pope
1072 - Robert Guiscard conquers Palermo
1356 - German emperor Charles I delegates Golden Degree
1429 - Order of Golden Fleece established in Austria-Hungary
& Spain
1430 - Order of the Guilder forms
1475 - Stephen III of Moldavia defeats the Ottoman Empire at
the Battle of Vaslui.
1514 - Complutensian New Testament in Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek
& Latin finished
1550 - 1st sitting of "Vurige Chamber" in Paris
1642 - King Charles I & family flee London for Oxford
1663 - King Charles II affirms charter of Royal African
Company
1731 - Charles Farnese becomes duke of Parma/Piacenza
1776 - "Common Sense" by Thomas Paine, published
1799 - Friedrich von Schiller's "Die Piccolomini,"
premieres in Weimar
1806 - Dutch in Capetown surrender to British
1808 - Herman Daendels succeeds A Wiese as gov-gen of Neth
Indies
1811 - Louisiana slaves rebell in 2 parishes
1833 - Felix Mendelssohn's "Die erste
Walpurgisnacht," premieres in Berlin
King of England King Charles IKing of England King Charles I
1839 - Tea from India 1st arrives in UK
1840 - Penny Post mail system starts
1845 - Poets Elizabeth Barrett & Robert Browning begin
corresponding
1853 - Charles Reade's "Gold," premieres in London
1861 - Ft Jackson & Ft Philip are taken over by LA state
troops
1861 - US forts & property seized by Mississippi
1861 - American Civil War: Florida becomes 3rd state to
secedes from the Union.
1862 - Battle of Big Sandy River, KY (Middle Creek)
1862 - Battle of Romney, WV
1863 - 1st underground railway opens in London
1863 - General McClernand's Union troops surround Fort
Hindman Ark
1863 - January-uprising begins in Poland
1870 - Georgia legislature reconvenes
1870 - John D Rockefeller incorporates Standard Oil
1878 - US Senate proposes female suffrage
Oil Industrialist John D. RockefellerOil Industrialist John
D. Rockefeller 1883 - Fire at uninsured Newhall Hotel in Milwaukee, Wisconsin
kills 71. General Tom Thumb of P T Barnum fame, escapes unhurt
1889 - Ivory Coast declared a protectorate of France
1890 - Edward Macdowell's "Lancelot & Elaine,"
premieres
1890 - Pope Leo XIII publishes encyclical Sapientiae
Christianae
1893 - Richard Drigo's ballet "Magic Flute"
premieres, St Petersburg
1897 - Henrik Ibsen's "John Gabriel Borkman,"
premieres in Helsingfors
1897 - Vincent d'Indy's "Istar" premieres in
Amsterdam & Brussels
1900 - Lord Roberts & Lord Kitchener reach Capetown
1901 - Oil discovered in Texas
1902 - Alphons Diepenbrock's "Te Deum" premieres
(Amsterdam)
1910 - 1st international air meet in US held, in LA
1910 - Lunt-Fontanne Theater (Globe) opens at 205 W 46th St
NYC
1911 - 1st photo in US taken from an airplane, San Diego
1911 - Honduras signs treaty turning over customs to US (not
ratified)
1911 - Trumper scored double cricket ton v South Africa,
goes on to get 214
1912 - Caillaux government in France resigns
1912 - World's 1st flying boat's maiden flight, (Glenn
Curtiss in NY)
1914 - 1st edition of Hague's Post under SF van Oss,
published
1914 - Oscar Mathisen skates world record 500 m in 43.7 sec
in Oslo
1916 - Russian offensive in Kaukasus
1920 - League of Nations established
1920 - Mont Canadiens (14) & Tor St Patricks (7) score
NHL record 21 goals
1920 - Silver reaches record $1.37 an ounce
1923 - Last US troops leave Rhineland (Germany)
1923 - Lithuania seizes & annexes country of Memel
1925 - France-Saarland forms
1925 - Miriam (Ma) Ferguson sworn in as TX gov, nation's 2nd
woman governor
1927 - Fritz Lang's Metropolis premieres
1928 - G/I Gershwin/Romberg/Wodehouse's musical
"Rosalie," premieres in NYC
Russian Revolutionary Leon TrotskyRussian Revolutionary Leon
Trotsky 1928 - Soviet Union orders exile of Leon Trotsky
1929 - Elmer Rice's "Street Scene," premieres in
NYC
1930 - Commencement of NZ's 1st Test, v England Christchurch
1930 - Maurice Allom takes Test hat-trick England v NZ Christchurch
1930 - Mordovian Autonomous Region in RSFSR constituted
1931 - Phila Quakers defeat Montreal, ends NHL-record
15-game losing streak
1932 - "Mickey Mouse" & "Silly
Symphony" comics syndicated
1932 - "Pete the Tramp" cartoon strip by C D
Russell debuts
1938 - Eduard van Beinum becomes world's 1st conductor at
Concert Hall
1938 - Jean Anouilh's "La Sauvage," premieres in
Paris
1938 - Paul Vincent Carroll's "White Seed,"
premieres in NYC
1939 - Bradman hits 186 SA v Qld before Christ catches him
at short-leg
1941 - Joseph Kesselring's "Arsenic & Old
Lace," premieres in NYC
1941 - Seyss-Inquart begins registration of Jews
1941 - World War II: The Greek army captures Kleisoura.
1942 - Japan invades North-Celebes, Neth Indies
1943 - Russian offensive against German 6th/4th Armies near
Stalingrad
32nd US President Franklin D. Roosevelt32nd US President
Franklin D. Roosevelt 1943 - 1st US pres to visit a foreign country in
wartime-FDR leaves for Casablanca, Morocco
1944 - 1st mobile electric power plant delivered, Phila
1944 - British troops conquer Maungdaw, Burma
1945 - Baseball writers again fail to elect a new Hall of
Famer
1945 - LA Railway (with 5 streetcar lines) forced to close
1945 - No one is elected to baseball's Hall of Fame
1946 - 1st radar contact with Moon
1946 - UN General Assembly meets for 1st time (London)
1946 - US Army establishes 1st radar contact with Moon,
Belmar, NJ
1947 - "Finian's Rainbow" opens at 46th St Theater
NYC for 725 performances
1947 - British stop ships Independence & In-Gathering
from landing in Israel
1947 - Greek steamer "Himara" strikes a wartime
mine in Saronic Gulf south of Athens with loss of 392 of 637 aboard
1948 - "Call Me Mister" closes at National Theater
NYC after 734 performances
1949 - 1st Jewish family show "Goldbergs"
premieres on CBS
1949 - RCA introduces 45 RPM record
1951 - 1st jet passenger trip made
1951 - UN headquarters opens in Manhattan NY
1952 - Jean Anouilh's "La valse des toréadors,"
premieres in Paris
1953 - "My Darlin' Aida" closes at Winter Garden
Theater NYC after 89 perfs
1953 - Bollingen Prize for poetry awarded to Archibald
MacLeish
1953 - NFL Pro Bowl: National Conference beats American
Conference 27-7
1954 - Bollingen Prize for poetry awarded to W H Auden
1956 - Elvis records "Heartbreak Hotel"
1957 - Anthony Eden resigns & Harold Macmillan becomes
PM Britain
Singer and Actor Bing CrosbySinger and Actor Bing Crosby
1957 - Baseball Commissioner Ford Frick rules Bing Crosby can keep token stock
in the Det Tigers, even though he owns part of Pittsburgh Pirates
1958 - Jerry Lee Lewis' "Great Balls of Fire"
reaches #1 on the UK pop charts
1960 - Bollingen Prize for poetry awarded to Delmore
Schwartz
1962 - 4,000 die in avalanche, Ranrahirca, Peru
1962 - Eruptions on Mount Huascaran in Peru destroy 7
villages & kill 3,500
1964 - Battles between moslems & hindus in Calcutta
1964 - Panama severs diplomatic relations with US
1964 - US version of "That Was The Week That Was,"
premieres
1965 - Bollingen prize for poetry awarded to Horace Gregory
1965 - NFL Pro Bowl: West beats East 34-14
1965 - WKBD TV channel 50 in Detroit, MI (IND) begins
broadcasting
1966 - India & Pakistan sign peace accord
1966 - Julian Bond denied seat in Ga legislature for
opposing Vietnam War
1967 - Edward Brooke, takes (Sen-R-Mass) seat as 1st popular
elected black
1967 - Lester Maddox inaugurated as governor of Georgia
Country Singer Jerry Lee LewisCountry Singer Jerry Lee Lewis
1967 - PBS (the National Educational TV) begins as a 70 station network
1968 - US Surveyor 7 lands near lunar crater Tycho
1969 - Pirate Radio Station Free Derby begins operation by
Northern Ireland
1969 - Sweden (1st Western country) recognizes North Vietnam
1969 - USSR's Venera 6 launched for parachute landing on
Venus
1970 - Preview Center Opens
1971 - "Light, Lively & Yiddish" closes at
Belasco Theater NYC after 87 perfs
1971 - Bollingen Prize for poetry awarded to Richard Wilbur
1972 - Sheik Mujib ur-Rahman arrives in Dacca, East-Pakistan
1972 - Triple album set "Concert for Bangladesh"
released in UK
1973 - Gas tank on Staten Island explodes, 40 die
1977 - 20th hat trick in Islander history - Bobby Nystrom
1978 - Soyuz 27 carring 2 cosmonauts to Salyut 6 space
station, launched
1979 - 1st brother Billy Carter makes allegedly anti-Semitic
remarks
1979 - Entertainer of the Year Awards
1980 - Last broadcast of "Rockford Files" on NBC
1980 - Jim Stewart, Bruin's rookie goalie allows 3 goals in
his 1st 4 mins & a total of 5 in 1st period; he never again plays in NHL
1981 - El Salvador guerrilla group FMLN opens "general
offensive"
1981 - John Severin sets 100-mi unicycle speed record, 9 h
21 m
1982 - -17°F (27.2°C) in Braemar Grampian (equals UK record)
1982 - Bengals beat Chargers in -59°F (-51°C) to win AFC
championship
1982 - Petra Schneider swims world record 1500 m freestyle
(15:43.31)
1983 - NY Supreme Court issues a preliminary injunction
barring NY Yankees from playing season-opening series against Tigers in Denver
1984 - Argentine ex-president/general Bignone arrested
1984 - Bulgarian Tupolev 134 crashs at Sofia airport in
Bulgaria, 50 die
1984 - Clara Peller 1st asks, "Where's the Beef?"
1984 - Luis Aparicio, Harmon Killebrew, & D Drysdale
elected to Hall of Fame
1984 - US establishes full diplomatic relations with Vatican
after 117 years
1985 - Daniel Ortega Saavedra inaugurated as president of
Nicaragua
1986 - Palau signs Compact of Free Association with US
1986 - STS 61-C mission scrubbed T -9m because of bad
weather at Kennedy
1988 - "Don't Get God Started" closes at Longacre
Theater NYC after 86 perfs
1990 - "Les Miserables," opens at Mechanic
Theatre, Baltimore
1990 - China lifts martial law (imposed after Tiananmen
Square massacre)
1990 - NCAA approves random drug testing for college
football players
1991 - Japan ends routine fingerprinting of all adult ethnic
Koreans
1991 - US Congress begins debate on Persian Gulf crisis
1992 - 8th Soap Opera Digest Awards
1993 - "My Favorite Year" closes at Vivian
Beaumont NYC after 37 perfs
1993 - "Sea Gull" closes at Lyceum Theater NYC
after 48 performances
1993 - Maiden flight of Ultrair (Houston to LA)
1994 - Trial of Lorena Bobbitt who cut off her husband's
penis, begins
1994 - Ukraine says it will give up world's 3rd largest
nuclear arsenal
1994 - Uzbekistan & Kazakhstan agrees to abolish trade
tariffs
1995 - "Late Late Show" with Tom Snyder premieres
on CBS at 12:30 AM
1996 - Israel frees hundreds of Palestinian prisoners
1996 - Jimmy Johnson announced as new coach of Miami
Dolphins
1997 - "Rehersal," closes at Criterion Theater NYC
1997 - 1st Comet of 1997 Discovered: Comet 1997 A1
1997 - 4,000th episode of "Entertainment Tonight"
1997 - Dow Corning provides $295 billion to settle breast
implant suits
1997 - Italy's new 1,000 lire coin shows divided Germany on
map
1997 - Right-winger Arnoldo Aleman sworn in as president of
Nicaragua
1998 - 18th United Negro College Fund raises (rebroadcasted
Jan 17th)
1999 - Fatboy Slim (Norman Cook) achieves his third UK No.1
single with 'Praise You'
2001 - A large piece of the chalk cliff at Beachy Head
collapses into the sea.
2005 - A mudslide occurs in La Conchita, California, killing
10 people, injuring many more and closing the Highway 101, the main coastal
corridor between San Francisco and Los Angeles, for 10 days.
2013 - 81 people are killed and 120 are wounded by a twin
bombing in Quetta, Pakistan
1840 - The penny post, whereby mail was delivered at a standard charge rather than paid for by the recipient, began in Britain. 1861 - Florida seceded from the United States. 1863 - Prime Minister Gladstone opened the first section of the London Underground Railway system, from Paddington to Farringdon Street. 1870 - John D. Rockefeller incorporated Standard Oil. 1901 - Oil was discovered at the Spindletop oil field near Beaumont, TX. 1911 - Major Jimmie Erickson took the first photograph from an airplane while flying over San Diego, CA. 1920 - The League of Nations ratified the Treaty of Versailles, officially ending World War I with Germany. 1920 - The League of Nations held its first meeting in Geneva. 1927 - Fritz Lang's film "Metropolis" was first shown, in Berlin. 1928 - The Soviet Union ordered the exile of Leon Trotsky. 1943 - U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt sailed from Miami, FL, to Trinidad thus becoming the first American President to visit a foreign country during wartime. 1943 - The quiz show, "The Better Half," was heard for the first time on Mutual Radio. 1946 - The first meeting of the United Nations General Assembly took place with 51 nations represented. 1949 - Vinyl records were introduced by RCA (45 rpm) and Columbia (33.3 rpm). 1950 - Ben Hogan appeared for the first time in a golf tournament since an auto accident a year earlier. He tied ‘Slammin’ Sammy Snead in the Los Angeles Open, however, Hogan lost in a playoff. 1951 - Donald Howard Rogers piloted the first passenger jet on a trip from Chicago to New York City. 1957 - Harold Macmillan became prime minister of Britain, following the resignation Anthony Eden. 1963 - The Chicago Cubs became the first baseball club to hire an athletic director. He was Robert Whitlow. (MLB) 1971 - "Masterpiece Theatre" premiered on PBS with host Alistair Cooke. The introduction drama series was "The First Churchills." 1978 - The Soviet Union launched two cosmonauts aboard a Soyuz capsule for a redezvous with the Salyut VI space laboratory. 1981 - In El Salvador, Marxist insurgents launched a "final offensive". 1984 - The United States and the Vatican established full diplomatic relations for the first time in more than a century. 1986 - The uncut version of Jerome Kern’s musical, "Showboat", opened at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. 1990 - Chinese Premier Li Peng ended martial law in Beijing after seven months. He said that crushing pro-democracy protests had saved China from "the abyss of misery." 1990 - Time Inc. and Warner Communications Inc. completed a $14 billion merger. The new company, Time Warner, was the world's largest entertainment company. 1994 - In Manassas, VA, Lorena Bobbitt went on trial. She had been charged with maliciously wounding her husband John. She was acquitted by reason of temporary insanity. 1997 - Shelby Lynne Barrackman was strangled to death by her grand-father when she licked the icing off of cupcakes. He was convicted of the crime on September 15, 1998. 2000 - It was announced that Time-Warner had agreed to buy America On-line (AOL). It was the largest-ever corporate merger priced at $162 billion. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) approved the deal on December 14, 2000. 2001 - American Airlines agreed to acquire most of Trans World Airlines (TWA) assets for about $500 million. The deal brought an end to the financially troubled TWA. 2002 - In France, the "Official Journal" reported that all women could get the morning-after contraception pill for free in pharmacies. 2003 - North Korea announced that it was withdrawing from the global nuclear arms control treaty and that it had no plans to develop nuclear weapons. 2007 - The iTunes Music Store reached 1.3 million feature length films sold and 50 million television episodes sold.
1776 Thomas Paine's Common Sense, which greatly influenced the authors of the Declaration of Independence, was published. 1863 The first underground passenger railway, the Metropolitan, opened in London. 1920 The League of Nations came into existence. 1946 The first General Assembly of the United Nations convened in London. 1967 The first African-American senator elected by popular vote, Edward Brooke of Massachusetts, took his seat. 1984 The U.S. and the Vatican reestablished diplomatic relations after a 117-year break. 2003 North Korea announced that it was withdrawing from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
The following links are to web sites that were used to complete this blog entry:
http://www.historyorb.com/today/events.php
http://on-this-day.com/onthisday/thedays/alldays/jan10.htm
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history
http://www.infoplease.com/dayinhistory
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