January 9th
1788
Connecticut became the fifth state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.
1793
Frenchman Jean Pierre Blanchard, using a hot-air balloon, flew between Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and Woodbury, New Jersey.
1861
Mississippi seceded from the Union.
1861
The Star of the West, a merchant vessel bringing reinforcements to Federal Troops at Fort Sumter, South Carolina, retreated after being fired on by a battery in the harbor.
1865
George Albin Sr. died on this date at Nashville, Tennessee during the Civil War.
1913
Richard Milhous Nixon, the 37th president of the United States, was born in Yorba Linda, California.
1945
During World War II, American forces began landing at Lingayen Gulf in the Philippines.
1957
Anthony Eden resigned as British prime minister.
1964
Anti-U.S. rioting broke out in the Panama Canal Zone, resulting in the deaths of 21 Panamanians and three U.S. soldiers.
1968
The Surveyor 7 space probe made a soft landing on the moon, marking the end of the American series of unmanned explorations of the lunar surface.
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.
1980
Saudi Arabia beheaded 63 people for their involvement in the November 1979 raid on the Grand Mosque in Mecca.
1993
Seven people were found shot to death at a restaurant in Palatine, Illinois.
1997
A Conair commuter plane crashed 18 miles short of the Detroit Metropolitan Airport, killing all 29 people on board.