Sunday, January 22

Today is Sunday, Jan. 22, the 22nd day of 2012. There are 344 days left in the year.

Highlights in history on this date:

1517 – Ottoman troops take Cairo, Egypt.

1528 – England and France declare war on Holy Roman Emperor Charles V.

1655 – Oliver Cromwell dissolves Britain’s Parliament.

1760 – French are defeated by British under Eyre Coote at Wandiwash near Pondicherry, ending French presence in India.

1771 – Spain agrees to cede Falkland Islands to Britain.

1808 – King Joao VI and the Portuguese royal family flee from Napoleon’s troops and move the court from Lisbon to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

1811 – France’s Napoleon Bonaparte annexes Oldenburg, now in northern Germany, and alienates Russia’s Czar Alexander.

1879 – King Cetewayo and 20,000 heavily armed Zulu warriors assault British troops and win the battle of Isandlwana in South Africa, where 139 soldiers repel attacks for almost 12 hours.

1905 – In what is called the “Bloody Sunday” incident, the Russian Czar’s troops massacre more than 100 peaceful protesters in front of the St. Petersburg palace.

1917 – U.S. President Woodrow Wilson pleads for an end to war in Europe, calling for “peace without victory.”

1922 – Pope Benedict XV dies; he is succeeded by Pius XI.

1944 – Allied forces begin landings at Anzio in Italy, but fail to exploit the surprise gained to take Rome, just 53 kilometers (33 miles) away.

1953 – The Arthur Miller drama “The Crucible” about the Salem, Massachusetts, witch trials opens on Broadway in New York.

1957 – Israeli forces complete withdrawal from Sinai Peninsula, but remain in Gaza Strip.

1968 – U.S. B-52 bomber carrying four hydrogen bombs plunges into Greenland Bay. Washington says there is no danger of explosion because bombs were unarmed.

1970 – The first regularly scheduled commercial flight of the Boeing 747 begins in New York City and ends in London some 6 1/2 hours later.

1973 – In its Roe vs. Wade decision, the U.S. Supreme Court legalizes abortions, using a trimester approach.

1986 – Three Sikhs convicted of 1984 assassination of India’s Prime Minister Indira Gandhi are sentenced to death.

1990 – Azerbaijani parliament threatens secession from the Soviet Union.

1992 – The acting leader of the Islamic Salvation Front, Abdelkadar Hachani, is arrested in Algeria and detained without trial until 1997.

1994 – Twenty-one firefighters die after they are trapped in a brush fire in southern Argentina.

1995 – A suicide mission by Islamic militants kills 19 Israelis and wounds about 60 at Beit Lid Junction, Israel.

1996 – The Galileo probe plunges into Jupiter’s atmosphere and finds it windier and drier than expected, with less helium and less lightning.

1997 – The Russian parliament votes, without legal force, to remove Boris Yeltsin as president because of his ill health; the U.S. Senate confirms Madeleine Albright as America’s first female secretary of state.

1998 – American soldiers arrest their first war-crimes suspect in Bosnia, grabbing former detention camp commander Goran Jelisic off a street in Bijeljina; Theodore Kaczynski pleads guilty in Sacramento, California, to being the Unabomber in return for a sentence of life in prison without parole.

2000 – An International Atomic Energy Agency team begins searching Iraqi nuclear sites in the first inspection by a world body in more than a year. Their job is to make sure Iraq’s nuclear stocks are not used for military purposes.

2002 – China moves 17,000 mostly Chinese and Muslim settlers to a traditionally Tibetan region in its remote west, reviving a plan abandoned after protests by critics of China’s Tibetan policies.

2003 – The French and German governments issue a joint statement expressing their opposition to immediate military action against Iraq.

2004 – Ranchers block a main road in western Brazil to protest what they said were thousands of squatters on their land. Some 3,000 Guarani and Kaiowa Indians were defying a judge’s order to abandon 14 ranches they had occupied in recent weeks to press their claims for ancestral lands.

2005 – Iran’s hard-line leadership rules out allowing women to run for president in June elections, denying reports in the state-run media that it had decided to allow female candidates for the first time.

2006 – Pakistan’s prime minister condemns an American airstrike on a remote Pakistani village, saying such attacks should be cleared with Islamabad first.

2007 – A suicide bomber crashes his car into a central Baghdad market crowded with Shiites just seconds after another car bomb tears through the stalls where vendors were hawking DVDs and used clothing, leaving 88 dead in one of the bloodiest attacks of the Iraq war.

2008 – Iraq’s parliament passes a law to change the Saddam Hussein-era flag.

2009 – A Chinese court sentences two men to death and a dairy boss to life in prison for their roles in producing and selling infant formula tainted with melamine.

2010 – Britain raises its terror threat alert to the second-highest level, one of several recent moves the country has made to increase vigilance against international terrorists after a Christmas Day bombing attempt on a Europe-U.S. flight.

2011 – The collapse of another attempt at international outreach to Iran leaves world powers with few options except to wait — and hope that the bite of sanctions will persuade Tehran to reconsider its refusal to stop activities that could be harnessed to make nuclear weapons.

Today’s Birthdays:

Francis Bacon, English statesman-essayist (1561-1626); Andre Ampere, French physicist (1775-1836); George Lord Byron, English poet (1788-1824); August Strindberg, Swedish author (1849-1912); Piper Laurie, U.S. actress (1932–); John Hurt, English actor (1940–); Jazzy Jeff, U.S. rap DJ/actor/producer (1965–); Diane Lane, U.S. actress (1965–); Gabriel Macht, U.S. actor (1972–).

Thought For Today:

Praise undeserved is satire in disguise — Henry Broadhurst, English politician (1840-1911).