January ninth

Today's Highlight in History:
On January ninth, 1788, Connecticut became the fifth state to ratify the US Constitution.

On this date:
In 1793, Frenchman Jean Pierre Blanchard, using a hot-air balloon, flew between Philadelphia and Woodbury, New Jersey.

In 1861, Mississippi seceded from the Union.

In 1913, Richard Milhous Nixon, the 37th president of the United States, was born in Yorba Linda, California.

In 1945, during World War Two, American forces began landing at Lingayen Gulf in the Philippines.

In 1957, Anthony Eden resigned as British prime minister.

In 1964, anti-US rioting broke out in the Panama Canal Zone, resulting in the deaths of 21 Panamanians and three US soldiers.

In 1968, the "Surveyor Seven" space probe made a soft landing on the moon, marking the end of the American series of unmanned explorations of the lunar surface.

In 1972, reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes, speaking by telephone from the Bahamas to reporters in Hollywood, said a purported biography of him by Clifford Irving was a fake.

In 1980, Saudi Arabia beheaded 63 people for their involvement in the November 1979 raid on the Grand Mosque in Mecca.

In 1997, a Comair commuter plane crashed 18 miles short of the Detroit Metropolitan Airport, killing all 29 people on board.

Ten years ago: The space shuttle "Columbia" was launched on a ten-day mission that included the retrieval of a drifting scientific satellite.

Five years ago: In New York, the trial of Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman and eleven other defendants accused of conspiring to wage a holy war against the United States began. (All the defendants were convicted of seditious conspiracy, except for two who had reached plea agreements with the government.) Severe flooding forced people to flee resort communities in the hills north of San Francisco. British comedian Peter Cook died in London at age 57.

One year ago: At the White House, presidential advisers prepared a public and legal defense in President Clinton's impeachment trial on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice; Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, meanwhile, pledged "above all, fairness" to the president.

"Those who give have all things. They who withhold have nothing."

-- Hindu proverb.