Thursday, January 1, 1998
Britain assumes presidency of the European Union.
On the horizon
On Friday, January 2, World Chess Championship finals begin
in Lausanne, Switzerland.
On Saturday, January 3, NFL divisional playoffs begin.
On Sunday, January 4, the Palestinian Authority is scheduled
to announce the results of the first West Bank and Gaza
On Monday, January 5, Iraq faces deadline to submit a new
aid distribution plan to be executed under the oil-for-food
On this day
In 1502, Portuguese navigators landed at a port on the coast
of South America and named it Rio de Janeiro (River of
In 1515, Francis, Duke of Angouleme, became Francis I of
France on the death of Louis XII.
In 1660, Samuel Pepys began his famous diary.
In 1776, George Washington unveiled the Grand Union Flag,
the first national flag in America after King George III of
England called on American forces to surrender.
In 1785, the Times newspaper was first published in Britain
as the Daily Universal Register.
In 1801, the Act of Union between Great Britain and Ireland
became effective, creating the United Kingdom.
In 1804. after leading a rebellion against the French,
Jean-Jacques Dessalines declared Haiti independent.
In 1808, Sierra Leone became a British crown colony.
In 1833, Britain claimed sovereignty over the Falkland
In 1863, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation
Proclamation formally freeing all slaves in the Confederate
In 1877, Queen Victoria was proclaimed Empress of India.
In 1886, Britain annexed Upper Burma.
In 1901, the Commonwealth of Australia came into being with
Edmund Barton as its first prime minister.
In 1913, in the United States, parcel post started for the
first time; the previous weight limit had been four pounds.
In 1914, the British colony of Nigeria was formed.
In 1915, the British battleship Formidable was sunk by a
torpedo in the English Channel, killing 547.
In 1919, the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic was
In 1923, a confederation of Russia, Byelorussia, Ukraine and
Transcaucasia was established; the Union of Soviet Socialist
Republics came into effect the following July.
In 1925, the capital city of Norway, known as Christiana or
Kristiana since 1674, resumed its name of Oslo.
In 1942, in Washington, 26 countries signed the "Declaration
of the United Nations," affirming opposition to Axis powers
and confirming that no co-signatory would make a separate
In 1956, Sudan became an independent republic.
In 1958, the European Economic Community, known as the
Common Market, came into being.
In 1959, Fidel Castro seized power in Cuba after dictator
Fulgencio Batista fled to the Dominican Republic.
In 1960, Cameroon achieved independence from France.
In 1962, the Beatles auditioned for Decca records, only to
be rejected because the company felt "groups of guitars are
on the way out."
In 1966, President David Dacko of the Central African
Republic was overthrown in a coup by Jean-Bedel Bokassa.
In 1972, Maurice Chevalier, French singer and actor, died;
he starred in a number of films including "Love Me Tonight"
In 1973, Britain, Ireland and Denmark became members of the
In 1975, in the Watergate scandal, John Ehrlichman, H.R.
Haldeman and John Mitchell were found guilty of obstruction.
In 1978, an Air India jumbo jet exploded in mid-air near
Bombay, killing 213.
In 1979, the United States and China established diplomatic
relations, 30 years after the foundation of the People's
In 1981, Greece was admitted as the 10th member of the EEC.
In 1984, Brunei became an independent state.
In 1992, the Salvadorean government and the rebel Farabundo
Marti Liberation Front reached a cease-fire accord in El
Salvador's 12-year civil war.
In 1992, Egyptian Boutros Boutros Ghali succeeded Javier
Perez de Cuellar of Peru as U.N secretary-general.
In 1993, Czechoslovakia broke into separate Czech and Slovak
In 1994, actor Cesar Romero died; he went from the New York
stage to more than 100 movies and fame in the 1960s "Batman"
In 1995, suspected serial killer Frederick West, accused of
murdering 12 women and girls in Britain's notorious "House
of Horrors" case, was found hanged in his jail cell.
In 1996, Saudi Arabia's King Fahd handed over the running of
the country to his younger brother Crown Prince Abdullah
after suffering a stroke.
Holidays and more
Today is New Year's Day.
Cuba celebrates Anniversary of the Revolution and Independence Day.
It is Independence Day in Haiti.
It is Independence Day in Sudan.
Actress Ellen DeGeneres is 40.
U.S. Sen. Ernest Hollings is 76.
Actor Frank Langella is 58.
Comedian Don Novello is 55.
Author J.D. Salinger is 79.
Sources: Associated Press,
Chase's Calendar of Events 1998, J.P. Morgan