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Highlight in History
On Jan. 5, 1983, President Ronald Reagan announced he was nominating Elizabeth Dole to succeed Drew Lewis as secretary of transportation; Dole became the first woman to head a Cabinet department in Reagan’s administration, and the first to head the DOT.
On this date
In 1589, Catherine de Medici of France died at age 69.
In 1781, a British naval expedition led by Benedict Arnold burned Richmond, Va.
In 1895, French Capt. Alfred Dreyfus, convicted of treason, was publicly stripped of his rank. (He was ultimately vindicated.)
In 1896, an Austrian newspaper, Wiener Presse, reported the discovery by German physicist Wilhelm Roentgen of a type of radiation that came to be known as X-rays.
In 1925, Nellie T. Ross of Wyoming became America’s first female governor.
In 1933, the 30th president of the United States, Calvin Coolidge, died in Northampton, Mass., at age 60. Construction began on the Golden Gate Bridge. (Work was completed four years later.)
In 1943, educator and scientist George Washington Carver died in Tuskegee, Ala., at age 81.
In 1949, in his State of the Union address, President Harry S. Truman labeled his administration the Fair Deal.
In 1957, President Dwight D. Eisenhower proposed assistance to countries to help them resist Communist aggression in what became known as the Eisenhower Doctrine.
In 1970, Joseph A. Yablonski, an unsuccessful candidate for the presidency of the United Mine Workers of America, was found murdered with his wife and daughter at their Clarksville, Pa., home. (UMWA President Tony Boyle and seven others were convicted of, or pleaded guilty to, the killings.) “All My Children” premiered on ABC-TV.
In 1972, President Richard Nixon announced he had ordered development of the space shuttle.
In 1993, the state of Washington executed Westley Allan Dodd, an admitted child sex killer, in America’s first legal hanging since 1965.
Ten years ago
Two Palestinian suicide bombers set off back-to-back blasts in central Tel Aviv, killing 15 Israelis and eight foreign nationals in the bloodiest attack in six months. Chinese state media reported that an unmanned Shenzhou IV space capsule had returned safely to Earth.
Five years ago
Republican Mitt Romney won the Wyoming caucuses, picking up eight delegates; in a debate three days before the New Hampshire primary, Romney clashed with Mike Huckabee on foreign policy and John McCain on immigration. In a Democratic faceoff, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton accused campaign rival Barack Obama of changing his positions on health care and “a number of issues.” A Piper Navajo Chieftain crashed off Kodiak Island in southern Alaska, killing six of 10 people aboard. A canal breach in Fernley, Nev., flooded about 600 homes.
One year ago
Speaking at the Pentagon, President Barack Obama launched a reshaping and shrinking of the military, vowing to preserve U.S. pre-eminence even as the Army and Marine Corps shedded troops and the administration considered reducing its arsenal of nuclear weapons. A U.S. Navy destroyer rescued an Iranian fishing boat that had been commandeered by suspected pirates.
Jessica Joy Rees, a Southern California girl who had become a nationally recognized face of child cancer with a blog that chronicled her fight against brain tumors, died at age 12.
National, International News
Today in History for Saturday, Jan. 5, 2013
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Bombs targeting Sunnis kill at least 76 in Iraq
Bombs ripped through Sunni areas in Baghdad and surrounding areas Friday, killing at least 76 people in the deadliest day in Iraq in more than eight months. The major spike in sectarian bloodshed heightened fears the country could again be veering toward civil war.
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Tornado-ravaged Texas town to start recovery
Residents whose homes were torn apart or blown away by a North Texas deadly tornado can soon return to retrieve what belongings may be left and start cleaning up, authorities said Friday.
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Conn. commuter trains collide; 60 go to hospitals
Two commuter trains serving New York City collided in Connecticut during Friday’s evening rush hour, sending 60 people to the hospital, including five with critical injuries, Gov. Dannel Malloy said.
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Record Powerball jackpot inspires office pools
In workplaces across the nation, Americans are inviting their colleagues to chip in $2 for a Powerball ticket and a shared daydream.
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Today in History for Saturday, May 18, 2013
Today is Saturday, May 18, the 138th day of 2013. There are 227 days left in the year.
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Big retailers back safety accord in Bangladesh
Some of the world’s largest retailers have agreed to a first-of-its-kind pact to improve safety at some of Bangladesh’s garment factories following a building collapse that killed more than 1,100 workers in the country last month.
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Amtrak unveils locomotives to replace aging fleet
Amtrak has unveiled at a plant in California the first of 70 new locomotives, marking what the national passenger railroad service said it hopes will be a new era of better reliability, streamlined maintenance and more energy efficiency.
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Police ID suspect in New Orleans mass shooting
Police late Monday identified a 19-year-old man as a suspect in the shooting of about 20 people during a Mother’s Day parade in New Orleans, saying several people had identified him as the gunman captured by surveillance camera videos.
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Obama tries to swat down 2 swirling controversies
President Barack Obama tried to swat down a pair of brewing controversies Monday, denouncing as “outrageous” the targeting of conservative political groups by the federal IRS but angrily denying any administration cover-up after last year’s deadly attacks in Benghazi, Libya.
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Gov’t obtains wide AP phone records in probe
The Justice Department secretly obtained two months of telephone records of reporters and editors for The Associated Press in what the news cooperative’s top executive called a “massive and unprecedented intrusion” into how news organizations gather the news.
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