This Day in History — January 26
Today is the 26th day of 2023. There are 339 days left in the year.
TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT
2000: More than a year after a DNA test suggests Thomas Jefferson may have had a son by his slave Sally Hemings, the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation — which owns Jefferson’s home — acknowledges he probably was the father of one, if not all six, of her children.
OTHER EVENTS
1788: The first fleet of ships bringing convicts from Britain arrives in Australia to establish penal colonies; 77 years later Britain announces no more convicts will be shipped to the country.
1802: Congress passes an Act calling for a library to be established within the US capital, paving the way for the Library of Congress.
1885: The Mahdist forces take Khartoum in Sudan after a nine-month siege. They slaughter most of the inhabitants and the garrison, including British General Charles George Gordon.
1930: Mohandas K Gandhi, India’s independence leader also known as Mahatma Gandhi, begins a march across India against British occupation; he is released from prison a year later in India for discussions with the Government.
1934: Germany signs a 10-year non-aggression pact with Poland.
1950: India officially proclaims itself a republic as Rajendra Prasad takes the oath of office as president.
1988: The Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Phantom of the Opera opens at Broadway’s Majestic Theater in New York.
1991: Seven Iraqi warplanes fly to Iran to avoid destruction in Gulf War.
1992: In Mauritania police open fire at Opposition supporters protesting the election of a military ruler.
1994: Civilians mob a food convoy and shoot six of its police escorts in a grim demonstration of how hunger and desperation are fuelling lawlessness in Bosnia.
1996: Polish Prime Minister Jozef Oleksy, accused of spying for Moscow for 13 years, resigns.
1997: Police wielding batons beat back demonstrators as tens of thousands march through Belgrade in a continuing protest against the Government’s annulment of local elections.
1998: President Bill Clinton says “I want to say one thing to the American people: I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky”; he acknowledges a relationship some months later.
1999: The first official commemoration of homosexual Holocaust victims takes place at a Memorial Day service at the former Sachsenhausen concentration camp. An estimated 10,000 gays were persecuted during World War II.
2001: The most powerful earthquake to strike India in half a century levels parts of western Gujarat State, killing more than 2,000 people and injuring in excess of 3,000.
2003: A China Airlines jet lands in Shanghai, China, and picks up passengers, becoming the first Taiwanese airliner to do so in mainland China since 1949.
2004: Outgoing top US inspector David Kay says US intelligence agencies need to explain why their research indicated Iraq possessed banned weapons before the American-led invasion, as he now believes Saddam Hussein had no such arms.
2005: Prime Minister Tony Blair’s Government proposes sweeping new powers to control terrorism suspects, including electronic tagging, curfews, and house arrests without trial.
2007: UN officials announce Iran plans to start assembling thousands of uranium-enriching centrifuges in the next month.
2008: Gunmen kidnap burqa-clad American aid worker Cyd Mizell and her driver, Abdul Hadi, in a residential neighbourhood of Kandahar — the latest in a series of kidnappings of foreigners in the troubled country.
2009: The European Union removes an Iranian Opposition group, the People’s Mujahedeen Organization of Iran, from its terror list.
2010: Thousands of Venezuelan university students protest against President Hugo Chavez again, accusing the socialist leader of forcing an Opposition-allied TV channel off cable and satellite as a means of silencing his critics.
2011: An explosion likely caused by a methane gas build-up rips through an underground coal mine in Colombia during a shift change, killing 21 workers.
2012: Egypt bans at least 10 Americans and Europeans from leaving the country, hiking tensions with Washington over a campaign by Egypt’s military against groups promoting democracy and human rights.
2013: French and Malian troops regain control of the airport and bridge of the northern city of Gao, marking their biggest advance yet in their bid to oust al-Qaeda-linked extremists who have controlled northern Mali for months.
2014: Thousands of Ukrainians chant “Hero!” and sing the national anthem as the coffin with a protester killed in clashes with police is carried through the streets of Kiev, underscoring the rising tensions in the country’s two-month political crisis.
TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS
Ugo Fiscolo, Italian author (1778-1827); Frank Costello (Francesco Castiglia), Italian gangster (1891-1973 ); Nicolae Ceausescu, dictator of Romania (1918-1989 ); Paul Newman, US actor (1925-2008); Eddie Van Halen, Dutch-born guitarist (1957-2020); Wayne Gretzky, Canadian ice hockey great (1961- ); Ellen DeGeneres, US comedian-talk show host (1958- )
— AP