Today in History

Today is Tuesday, Jan. 14, the 14th day of 2020. There are 352 days left in the year.

Today's Highlight in History:

On Jan. 14, 1994, President Bill Clinton and Russian President Boris Yeltsin signed an accord to stop aiming missiles at any nation; the leaders joined Ukrainian President Leonid Kravchuk in signing an accord to dismantle the nuclear arsenal of Ukraine.

On this date:

In 1784, the United States ratified the Treaty of Paris ending the Revolutionary War; Britain followed suit in April 1784.

In 1914, Ford Motor Co. greatly improved its assembly-line operation by employing an endless chain to pull each chassis along at its Highland Park, Michigan, plant.

In 1943, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and French General Charles de Gaulle opened a wartime conference in Casablanca.

In 1954, Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio were married at San Francisco City Hall. (The marriage lasted about nine months.)

In 1963, George C. Wallace was sworn in as governor of Alabama with the pledge, "Segregation forever!" -- a view Wallace later repudiated.

In 1964, former first lady Jacqueline Kennedy, in a brief televised address, thanked Americans for their condolences and messages of support following the assassination of her husband, President John F. Kennedy, nearly two months earlier.

In 1968, the Green Bay Packers of the NFL defeated the AFL's Oakland Raiders, 33-14, in the second AFL-NFL World Championship game (now referred to as Super Bowl II).

In 1969, 27 people aboard the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise, off Hawaii, were killed when a rocket warhead exploded, setting off a fire and additional explosions.

In 1970, Diana Ross and the Supremes performed their last concert together, at the Frontier Hotel in Las Vegas.

In 1975, the House Internal Security Committee (formerly the House Un-American Activities Committee) was disbanded.

In 1989, President Ronald Reagan delivered his 331st and final weekly White House radio address, telling listeners, "Believe me, Saturdays will never seem the same. I'll miss you."

In 2004, former Enron finance chief Andrew Fastow pleaded guilty to conspiracy as he accepted a ten-year prison sentence. (He was actually sentenced to six years and was released in Dec. 2011.)

Ten years ago: President Barack Obama and the U.S. moved to take charge in earthquake-ravaged Haiti, dispatching thousands of troops along with tons of aid. Iraq's electoral commission barred 500 candidates from running in March 2010 parliamentary elections, including a prominent Sunni lawmaker, deepening sectarian divides.

Five years ago: The al-Qaida branch in Yemen claimed responsibility for the attack on the satirical Charlie Hebdo newspaper in Paris. Eight inmates and two corrections officers died when a prison bus skidded off an icy West Texas highway, slid down an embankment and collided with a passing freight train. A pair of Americans, Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson, completed what had long been considered the world's most difficult rock climb, using only their hands and feet to scale the 3,000-foot Dawn Wall on El Capitan, the forbidding granite pedestal in Yosemite National Park.

One year ago: President Donald Trump rejected a suggestion to reopen the government for several weeks while negotiations would continue over his demand for billions of dollars for a border wall. Trump hosted the college football champion Clemson Tigers at the White House, serving fast-food burgers that he said he had paid for himself because of the partial government shutdown. Los Angeles teachers walked off the job for the first time in three decades, pressing for higher pay and smaller class sizes. House Republican leaders announced that veteran GOP lawmaker Steve King of Iowa would be blocked from committee assignments for the next two years, after he lamented that white supremacy and white nationalism had become offensive terms. Actress Rose McGowan pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor drug charge in Virginia after cocaine was found in a wallet she had left behind at Dulles International Airport two years earlier.

Today's Birthdays: Blues singer Clarence Carter is 84. Singer Jack Jones is 82. Actress Faye Dunaway is 79. Actress Holland Taylor is 77. Actor Carl Weathers is 72. Singer-producer T-Bone Burnett is 72. Movie writer-director Lawrence Kasdan is 71. Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Maureen Dowd is 68. Rock singer Geoff Tate (Queensryche) is 61. Movie writer-director Steven Soderbergh is 57. Actor Mark Addy is 56. Former Fox News Channel anchorman Shepard Smith is 56. Actor/producer Dan Schneider is 56. Rapper Slick Rick is 55. Actress Emily Watson is 53. Actor-comedian Tom Rhodes is 53. Rock musician Zakk Wylde is 53. Rapper-actor LL Cool J is 52. Actor Jason Bateman is 51. Rock singer-musician Dave Grohl (Foo Fighters) is 51. Actor Kevin Durand is 46. Actress Jordan Ladd is 45. Actor Ward Horton is 44. Actress Emayatzy Corinealdi is 40. Retro-soul singer-songwriter Marc Broussard is 38. Rock singer-musician Caleb Followill (Kings of Leon) is 38. Actor Zach Gilford is 38. Rock musician Joe Guese (The Click Five) is 38. Actor Jake Choi is 35. Actor Jonathan Osser is 31. Actor-singer Grant Gustin is 30. Singer/guitarist Molly Tuttle is 27.

Thought for Today: "If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind." -- John Stuart Mill, English philosopher (1806-1873).

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