January 22nd

Today's Highlight in History:
On January 22nd, 1917, President Wilson pleaded for an end to war in Europe, calling for "peace without victory." (By April, however, America also was at war.)

On this date:
In 1901, Britain's Queen Victoria died at age 82.

In 1922, Pope Benedict the 15th died; he was succeeded by Pius the Eleventh.

In 1938, Thornton Wilder's play "Our Town" was performed publicly for the first time, in Princeton, New Jersey.

In 1944, during World War Two, Allied forces began landing at Anzio, Italy.

In 1953, the Arthur Miller drama "The Crucible" opened on Broadway.

In 1968, the comedy show "Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In" premiered on NBC TV.

In 1970, the first regularly scheduled commercial flight of the Boeing 747 began in New York and ended in London some six and a-half hours later.

In 1973, the Supreme Court handed down its "Roe versus Wade" decision, which legalized abortion using a trimester approach.

In 1973, former President Johnson died at age 64.

In 1997, the Senate confirmed Madeleine Albright as the nation's first female secretary of state.

Ten years ago: Up to two million Azerbaijanis marched through the republic's capital to mourn people killed when Soviet troops put down a nationalist revolt. A jury in Syracuse, New York, convicted graduate student Robert T. Morris of federal computer tampering charges for unleashing a "worm" that crippled a computer network.

Five years ago: Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy died at the Kennedy compound at Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, at age 104. Twenty-one Israelis were killed and dozens others injured in a suicide bombing in central Israel.

One year ago: Senator Robert C. Byrd (Democrat, West Virginia) abruptly called for dismissal of charges against President Clinton to "end this sad and sorry time for our country." President Clinton called for spending $2.8 billion to protect the nation from cyber terrorism and chemical and germ warfare. Pope John Paul the Second arrived in Mexico on his first visit in 20 years.

"Praise undeserved is satire in disguise."

-- Henry Broadhurst, English politician (1840-1911).