Today is Thursday, Jan. 11, the 11th day of 2007. There are 354 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On Jan. 11, 1964, U.S. Surgeon General Luther Terry issued the first government report saying smoking may be hazardous to one’s health.
On this date:
In 1805, the Michigan Territory was created by an act of Congress.
In 1807, Ezra Cornell, the founder of Cornell University, was born in Westchester, N.Y.
In 1815, Sir John A. Macdonald, the first prime minister of Canada, was born in Glasgow, Scotland.
In 1861, Alabama seceded from the Union.
In 1913, the first sedan-type automobile, a Hudson, went on display at the 13th Automobile Show in New York.
In 1935, aviator Amelia Earhart began a trip from Honolulu to Oakland, Calif., that made her the first woman to fly solo across the Pacific Ocean.
In 1942, Japan declared war against the Netherlands, the same day that Japanese forces invaded the Dutch East Indies.
In 1943, the United States and Britain signed treaties relinquishing extraterritorial rights in China.
In 1977, France set off an international uproar by releasing Abu Daoud, a PLO official behind the massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics.
In 1995, 52 people were killed when a Colombian airliner crashed as it was preparing to land near the Caribbean resort of Cartagena; a 9-year-old girl survived.
Ten years ago: President Clinton summoned top administration officials to a daylong planning session for his second term. An earthquake of magnitude 7.3 shook Mexico City and the southern part of Mexico.
Five years ago: The first planeload of al-Qaida prisoners from Afghanistan arrived at a U.S. military detention camp in Guantanamo, Cuba. Ford Motor Co. announced it was eliminating 35,000 jobs, closing five plants and dropping four models. The Argentine peso floated freely for the first time after 11 years of being tied to the U.S. dollar.
One year ago: A Georgian court convicted a man of trying to assassinate President Bush and Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili with a grenade in Tbilisi on May 10, 2005, and sentenced him to life in prison. Gunmen stormed an offshore oil platform run by Royal Dutch Shell in Nigeria and seized the workers, an American, a Briton, a Bulgarian and a Honduran. (The four were freed nearly three weeks later.)
Today’s Birthdays: Producer Grant Tinker is 82. Producer David L. Wolper is 79. Actor Rod Taylor is 77. The former prime minister of Canada, Jean Chretien, is 73. Actor Mitchell Ryan is 73. Actor Felix Silla is 70. Rock musician Clarence Clemons is 65. Movie director Joel Zwick is 65. Country singer Naomi Judd is 61. Golfer Ben Crenshaw is 55. Singer Robert Earl Keen is 51. Musician Vicki Peterson (The Bangles) is 49. Actress Kim Coles is 45. Actor Jason Connery is 44. Contemporary Christian musician Jim Bryson (MercyMe) is 39. Rock musician Tom Dumont (No Doubt) is 39. Rhythm-and-blues singer Maxee Maxwell (Brownstone) is 38. Singer Mary J. Blige is
36. Musician Tom Rowlands (The Chemical Brothers) is 36. Actor Marc Blucas is 35. Actress Amanda Peet is 35. Actor Rockmond Dunbar is 33.
Thought for Today: “If you are ruled by mind you are a king; if by body, a slave.” — Cato, Roman statesman and historian (234 B.C.-149 B.C.)