Today is Monday, January 25, the 25th day of 2010. There are 340 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight

1994: Without admitting guilt, Michael Jackson settles a lawsuit that said he molested a young boy. Terms of the settlement leave the boy “very happy”, the youngster’s attorney said.

Other Notable Events

1533: England’s King Henry VIII secretly marries his second wife, Anne Boleyn, who later gives birth to Elizabeth I.

1579: Union of Utrecht is signed by Holland, Zealand, Utrecht, Celderland, Friesland, Croningen and Overyssel, marking foundation of Dutch Republic.

1802: France’s Napoleon Bonaparte becomes president of the Italian Republic.

1831: Polish Diet proclaims independence of Poland, dethrones Nicholas, and deposes the Romanovs.

1890: Writer Nellie Bly completes her trip around the world in 72 days.

1915: The inventor of the telephone, Alexander Graham Bell, inaugurates US transcontinental telephone service.

1942: Thailand, allied to Japan, declares war on Britain and the US.

1944: Battle for Cassino begins in Italy in World War II.

1959: Britain signs trade pact with East Germany; American Airlines opens the jet age in the US with the first scheduled transcontinental flight of a Boeing 707.

1961: US President John F Kennedy holds the first presidential news conference carried live on radio and television.

1962: African heads of state of Monrovia Group, which includes Liberia, Togo, Nigeria and Cameroon, issue charter for Pan-African cooperation.

1971: Charles Manson and three female followers are convicted in Los Angeles of murder and conspiracy in the 1969 slayings of seven people, including actress Sharon Tate.

1975: Sheik Mujibur Rahman abolishes parliamentary rule in Bangladesh and assumes absolute power as president.

1989: Cambodia’s Premier Hun Sen rejects proposal for international peacekeeping force in his country.

1991: Leaders of rival Yugoslav republics of Serbia and Croatia meet in effort to defuse tensions there.

1993: Two French UN peacekeepers are killed and three wounded as Serb-Croat clashes rage on in southern Croatia.

1995: Jews from around the world return to Auschwitz-Birkenau, the Nazis’ biggest death complex, where 1.5 million people were killed before it was liberated 50 years ago.

1997: A cyclone sweeps across the island nation of Madagascar, spawning floods that leave 100 people missing and thousands homeless.

1998: The pope holds a sermon on the virtues of democracy in Havana, Cuba, with president Fidel Castro in the audience.

1999: An earthquake devastates a coffee-growing region in Colombia, killing at least 940 people and leaving hundreds of thousands homeless.

2001: Israel and the Palestinians have made good progress in drawing the borders of a future Palestinian state, negotiators announce as both sides prepare to resume talks in an Egyptian resort following a time out called by Israel despite a tight deadline.

2002: India successfully test-fires an intermediate-range ballistic missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead. The test is denounced as a provocation by Pakistan, which has been locked in a border stand-off with India for more than a month.

2005: Outspoken former communist-era government spokesperson Jerzy Urban is convicted of libel and fined for insulting the Polish-born Pope John Paul II in his satirical magazine. The result shows the Polish “justice system is overly influenced by religion”, says Urban.

2006: Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians crowd polling stations in their first parliamentary elections in a decade. The vote results in a stunning victory for Islamic radicals when Hamas emerges as the winner.

2007: Russian President Vladimir Putin offers to build four new nuclear reactors for energy starved India, cementing his country’s traditional role as India’s main nuclear benefactor.

2008: A car bomb rips through eastern Beirut, killing Lebanon’s top anti-terrorism investigator who was probing assassinations of prominent anti-Syrian figures. Three others died in the blast.

2009: Sri Lankan government captures rebels’ last major stronghold of Mullaittivu, Sri Lanka.

Today’s Birthdays:

Edmund Campion, English Jesuit (1540-1581); Witold Lutoslawski, modern Polish composer and conductor (1913-1994); Robert Burns, Scottish poet (1759-1796); W Somerset Maugham, English author (1874-1965); Virginia Wolff, English author (1882-1941); Dinah Manoff, US actress (1958-); Alicia Keys, US R&B singer (1981-).