Flashback
Today is Saturday, Jan. 7, the seventh day of 2006. There are 358 days left in the year.
Today’s highlight in history: On Jan. 7, 1789, the first U.S. presidential election was held. Americans voted for electors who, a month later, chose George Washington to be the nation’s first president.
Ten years ago: A major blizzard paralyzed the Eastern United States. (More than 100 deaths were later blamed on the severe weather.) Republicans rejected President Clinton’s budget plan and warned they would close government programs they didn’t like if there were no agreement on a budget plan in the next few weeks.
Five years ago: President-elect George W. Bush’s transition team acknowledged that Labor Secretary-designate Linda Chavez had provided housing and financial aid to an illegal immigrant. (Chavez later withdrew her nomination.)
One year ago: A military jury at Fort Hood, Texas, acquitted Army Sgt. Tracy Perkins of involuntary manslaughter in the alleged drowning of an Iraqi civilian, but convicted him of assault in the January 2004 incident. Rosemary Kennedy, the mentally retarded oldest sister of President Kennedy and the inspiration for the Special Olympics, died at a Fort Atkinson, Wis., hospital at age 86. Conservative columnist Armstrong Williams was dropped by a major syndication service because he’d accepted a payment from the Bush administration to promote the No Child Left Behind law. Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston announced they were separating after four years of marriage.
On this date:
In 1610, Galileo Galilei sighted four of Jupiter’s moons.
In 1800, the 13th president of the United States, Millard Fillmore, was born in Summerhill, N.Y.
In 1927, commercial trans-Atlantic telephone service was inaugurated between New York and London.
In 1942, the World War II siege of Bataan began.
In 1953, President Truman announced in his State of the Union address that the United States had developed a hydrogen bomb.
In 1955, singer Marian Anderson made her debut with the Metropolitan Opera in Verdi’s “Un Ballo in Maschera.”
In 1955, the opening of the Canadian Parliament in Ottawa was televised for the first time.
In 1972, Lewis F. Powell Jr. and William H. Rehnquist were sworn in as the 99th and 100th members of the U.S. Supreme Court.
In 1989, Emperor Hirohito of Japan died in Tokyo at age 87; he was succeeded by his son, Crown Prince Akihito.
In 1999, for the second time in history, an impeached American president went on trial before the Senate. President Clinton faced charges of perjury and obstruction of justice; he was acquitted.