January seventh

Today's Highlight in History:
One year ago, on January seventh, 1999, for the second time in history, an impeached American president went on trial before the Senate. President Clinton faced charges of perjury and obstruction of justice; he was acquitted.

On this date:
In 1610, the astronomer Galileo Galilei sighted four of Jupiter's moons.

In 1800, the 13th president of the United States, Millard Fillmore, was born in Summerhill, New York.

In 1894, one of the earliest motion picture experiments took place at the Thomas Edison studio in West Orange, New Jersey, as comedian Fred Ott was filmed sneezing.

In 1927, commercial transatlantic telephone service was inaugurated between New York and London.

In 1942, the World War Two siege of Bataan began.

In 1953, President Truman announced in his State of the Union address that the United States had developed a hydrogen bomb.

In 1959, the United States recognized Fidel Castro's new government in Cuba.

In 1972, Lewis F. Powell Junior and William H. Rehnquist were sworn in as the 99th and 100th members of the US Supreme Court.

In 1979, Vietnamese forces captured the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh, overthrowing the Khmer Rouge government.

In 1989, Emperor Hirohito of Japan died in Tokyo at age 87; he was succeeded by his son, Crown Prince Akihito.

Ten years ago: The president of El Salvador, Alfredo Cristiani, said in a nationally broadcast address that military men had carried out the massacre of six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and her daughter the previous November.

Five years ago: Major General Viktor Vorobyov, a senior commander leading Russian troops in their advance on the secessionist capital of Chechnya, was killed by a mortar shell.

"Whether women are better than men I cannot say -- but I can say they are certainly no worse."

-- Golda Meir, Israeli prime minister (1898-1978).