January 18th

Today's Highlight in History:
On January 18th, 1912, English explorer Robert F. Scott and his expedition reached the South Pole, only to discover that Roald Amundsen had beaten them to it. (Scott and his party perished during the return trip.)

On this date:
In 1788, the first English settlers arrived in Australia's Botany Bay to establish a penal colony.

In 1862, the tenth president of the United States, John Tyler, died in Richmond, Virginia, at age 71.

In 1919, the World War One Peace Congress opened in Versailles, France.

In 1936, author Rudyard Kipling died in Burwash, England.

In 1943, during World War Two, the Soviets announced they'd broken the long Nazi siege of Leningrad.

In 1967, Albert DeSalvo, who claimed to be the "Boston Strangler," was convicted in Cambridge, Massachusetts, of armed robbery, assault and sex offenses. (Sentenced to life, DeSalvo was killed by a fellow inmate in 1973.)

In 1970, Mormon president David McKay died at the age of 96.

In 1975, the situation comedy "The Jeffersons," a spin-off from "All in the Family," premiered on CBS TV.

In 1991, financially strapped Eastern Airlines shut down after 62 years in business.

In 1996, Lisa Marie Presley-Jackson filed for divorce from Michael Jackson.

Ten years ago: A jury in Los Angeles acquitted former preschool operators Raymond Buckey and his mother, Peggy McMartin Buckey, of 52 child molestation charges. Washington DC Mayor Marion Barry was arrested in an FBI sting on drug-possession charges (he was later convicted of a misdemeanor).

Five years ago: The death toll continued to climb in Kobe, Japan, where a major earthquake had claimed more than six-thousand lives. South African President Nelson Mandela's cabinet denied amnesty sought by 3500 police officers in apartheid's waning days.

One year ago: Defying global outrage over the massacre of 45 ethnic Albanian civilians in Kosovo, Serb forces pounded villages with artillery. The Yugoslav government also ordered the American head of the Kosovo peace mission to leave the country and barred a UN investigator looking into the massacre.

"The military don't start wars. Politicians start wars."

-- General William C. Westmoreland, American military commander.