This Day in History January 28
over 3 years in Jamaica Observer
Today is the 28th day of 2022. There are 337 days left in the year.TODAY'S HIGHLIGHT2008: Thousands of machete-wielding youth riot in Kenya, setting buses and homes ablaze, and hunting down members of President Mwai Kibaki's Kikuyu tribe. A month of violence triggered by rigged presidential elections gathers frightening momentum with a death toll topping 800. OTHER EVENTS1547: England's King Henry VIII dies and is succeeded by his 9-year-old son, Edward VI.1596: English navigator Sir Francis Drake dies off Panama's coast and is buried at sea.1689: Britain's Parliament declares that James II has abdicated.1813: The novel Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen is first published in London, anonymously.1846: East India Company troops defeat Sikhs at Aliwal in India.1871: France surrenders in the Franco-Prussian War.1885: British relief force reaches Khartoum, and the Sudan is evacuated.1902: The Carnegie Institute, a non-profit organisation to conduct basic research and advanced education in biology, astronomy, and earth sciences is established in Washington, DC, USA.1909: US control in Cuba is ended.1912: A lynch mob drags former President General Eloy Alfaro and his lieutenants through the streets of Quito, Ecuador, and burn them to death.1915: The US Coast Guard is created by an Act of Congress.1916: Louis D Brandeis is appointed by President Woodrow Wilson to the Supreme Court, becoming its first Jewish member.1932: Japanese troops occupy Shanghai in China.1945: First US truck convoy reopens Burma Road in World War II.1949: UN Security Council adopts resolution to establish a ceasefire in Indonesia, then known as the Dutch East Indies.1961: Rwanda's provisional Government proclaims republic.1962: US unmanned spacecraft, Ranger III, fails to hit the moon and passes it at a distance of 35,200 kilometres (22,000 miles).1964: Riots break out in Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia - known today as Harare, Zimbabwe.1980: Six US diplomats who avoided being taken hostage at their embassy in Tehran fly out of Iran with the help of Canadian diplomats.1983: Labour group Solidarity's underground leaders call on Poland's factory workers to prepare for nationwide general strike as "the only way to break down the existing dictatorship."1991: Soviet troops seize and shut down two Lithuanian customs posts.1986: Space shuttle Challenger explodes moments after lift off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, killing all seven crew members.1990: Life in Azerbaijani capital of Baku returns to normal as Armenian and Azerbaijani separatists withdraw from border regions.1991: Soviet troops seize and shut down two Lithuanian customs posts.1992: Leadership of National Liberation Front, which won Algeria's independence and ruled for three decades, resigns.1993: France's ambassador to Zaire is killed by a stray bullet as soldiers riot and loot shops and foreigners' homes in Kinshasa.1994: Three Italian journalists are killed by a mortar shell in Mostar, Bosnia.1995: In the bloodiest day so far in Egypt's Islamic insurgency, police shoot to death 14 suspected militants, and extremists kill two policemen and two civilians.1996: In Sarajevo, three British soldiers are killed when their armoured personnel carrier hits a land mine and a Swedish soldier dies when his vehicle slides off the road.1997: In Algiers, an assassin shoots and kills the leader of Algeria's largest labour union - a key presidential ally and an opponent of the Islamic insurgency.1999: India and Pakistan meet in their first cricket match in the subcontinent in 12 years. Pakistan walks away with a 12-run victory after a nail-biting finish.2000: A plane brings 19 sick and weak-looking adolescents home to Uganda after months - or possibly years - of captivity under Ugandan rebels based in southern Sudan. Some 5,000 children are believed to have been kidnapped by the rebels over the past decade according to UNICEF.2001: A Ukrainian vessel sinks in the Black Sea, killing at least 14 people. Five were reported missing and 32 were rescued.2003: Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's right-wing Likud party wins the parliamentary elections, soundly defeating the centre-left Labour Party and extending Sharon's leadership for another four-year term. The Labour Party suffered its worst-ever defeat at the polls.2007: The Israeli Government overwhelmingly approves the appointment of Raleb Majadele, the country's first Muslim Cabinet minister, billing it as an important step for a long-suffering minority.2009: A caterpillar plague in Liberia is spreading, and has now affected 400,000 people in more than 100 villages in the West African nation, the UN says.2010: A court rules that former French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin did not take part in a smear campaign against President Nicolas Sarkozy, a verdict that means the two rivals may soon be sparring in the political arena again.2011: Embattled Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak appears on television for the first time since protests erupted demanding his ouster, and says he will press ahead with social, economic and political reforms.2013: With French support, Malian troops enter the fabled city of Timbuktu after al-Qaeda-linked militants flee into the desert, setting fire to a library that held thousands of manuscripts dating to the Middle Ages.2014: Ukraine's prime minister resigns and parliament repeals anti-protest laws that had set off violent clashes between protesters and police, moves aimed at defusing the country's political crisis. TODAY'S BIRTHDAYSJohn Barclay, Scottish satirist (1582-1621); John Baskerville, English typographer (1716-1775); Alan Alda, US actor (1936- ); Joey Fatone Jr, US singer/game show host (1977- ); Nick Carter, US singer (1980- ); Elijah Wood, US actor (1981- ); Sarah McLachlan, Canadian singer (1968- ) French President Nicolas Sarkozy (1955- ); Rapper Rick Ross (1978- ); Rapper J Cole (1985- ); Actress Ariel Winter (TV: Modern Family) is (1998- ) - AP