TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON – JAN 9
1349 700 Jews of Basel Switzerland, burned alive in their houses
1431 Judges’ investigations for the trial of Joan of Arc begin in Rouen, France, the seat of the English occupation government
1570 Tsar Ivan the terrible kills 1000-2000 residents of Novgorod
1768 Philip Astley opens the world’s first modern circus
1776 Thomas Paine publishes Common Sense, a scathing attack on King George III’s reign over the colonies and a call for complete independence.
1788 Connecticut became the 5th state in the United States.
1793 Jean Pierre Blanchard makes the first balloon flight in North America.
1861 Mississippi secedes from the Union.
1905 The Russian Revolution of 1905 was sparked by troops firing on petitioners to Czar Nicholas in St. Petersburg.
1908 Count Zeppelin announces plans for his airship to carry 100 passengers.
1909 A Polar exploration team lead by Ernest Shackleton reaches 88 degrees, 23 minutes south longitude, 162 degrees east latitude. They are 97 nautical miles short of the South Pole, but the weather is too severe to continue.
1915 Pancho Villa signs a treaty with the United States, halting border conflicts.
1922 KQV-AM in Pittsburgh PA begins radio transmissions
1924 Ford Motor Co. stock is valued at nearly $1 billion.
1941 6,000 Jews exterminated in pogrom in Bucharest, Romania
1947 French General Leclerc breaks off all talks with Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh.
1951 Life After Tomorrow, 1st film to receive an “X” rating, premieres
1952 Jackie Robinson becomes the highest paid player in Brooklyn Dodger history.
1958 Toyota and Datsun make their first appearances in the United States at the Imported Motor Car Show in Los Angeles, California.
1964 U.S. forces kill six Panamanian students protesting in the canal zone.
1979 Supreme Court strikes down (6-3) PA law requiring doctors performing an abortion to try to preserve lives of potentially viable fetuses
1990 Supreme Court strikes down Dallas’ ordinance imposing strict zoning on sexually oriented businesses
1992 The Assembly of the Serb People in Bosnia and Herzegovina proclaims the creation of a new state within Yugoslavia, the Rupublika Srpska.
1996 A raid by Chechen separatists in the city of Kizlyar turns into a hostage crisis involving thousands of civilians.
2005 Mahmoud Abbas wins election to replace Yasser Arafat as President of the Palestinian National Authority.
2007 Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple, unveils the first iPhone.
** history.net, onthisday.com, infoplease.com, timeanddate.com, thepeoplehistory.com, on-this-day.com **
