Today in History

Today is Friday, Jan. 9, the ninth day of 2015. There are 356 days left in the year.

Today's Highlight in History:

On Jan. 9, 1945, during World War II, American forces began landing on the shores of Lingayen Gulf in the Philippines as the Battle of Luzon got underway, resulting in an Allied victory over Imperial Japanese forces.

On this date:

In 1788, Connecticut became the fifth state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.

In 1793, Frenchman Jean Pierre Blanchard, using a hot-air balloon, flew between Philadelphia and Woodbury, New Jersey.

In 1861, Mississippi became the second state to secede from the Union, the same day the Star of the West, a merchant vessel bringing reinforcements and supplies to Federal troops at Fort Sumter, South Carolina, retreated because of artillery fire.

In 1914, the County of Los Angeles opened the country's first public defender's office. The fraternity Phi Beta Sigma was founded at Howard University in Washington, D.C.

In 1931, Bobbi Trout and Edna May Cooper broke an endurance record for female aviators as they returned to Mines Field in Los Angeles after flying a Curtiss Robin monoplane continuously for 122 hours and 50 minutes.

In 1957, Anthony Eden resigned as British prime minister for health reasons; he was succeeded by Harold Macmillan.

In 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.

In 1972, reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes, speaking by telephone from the Bahamas to reporters in Hollywood, said a purported autobiography of him by Clifford Irving was a fake.

In 1995, in New York, the trial of Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman and 11 other defendants accused of conspiring to wage holy war against the United States began. (All the defendants were convicted of seditious conspiracy, except for two who reached plea agreements with the government.) British actor-comedian Peter Cook died in London at age 57. "The Late Late Show with Tom Snyder" premiered on CBS.

In 1997, a Comair commuter plane crashed 18 miles short of the Detroit Metropolitan Airport, killing all 29 people on board.

Ten years ago: Mahmoud Abbas, the No. 2 man in the Palestinian hierarchy during Yasser Arafat's rule, was elected president of the Palestinian Authority by a landslide. Sudan's vice president (Ali Osman Mohammed Taha) and the country's main rebel leader (John Garang) signed a comprehensive peace agreement, concluding an eight-year process to stop a civil war in the south.

Five years ago: In a video broadcast posthumously, the Jordanian doctor who'd killed seven CIA employees in a suicide attack in Afghanistan on Dec. 30, 2009, called on all jihadists to attack U.S. targets to avenge the death of Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud (BEH'-tuh-luh mah-SOOD'). Peyton Manning became the first player to win The Associated Press' NFL Most Valuable Player award four times.

One year ago: New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie fired one of his top aides, Deputy Chief of Staff Bridget Anne Kelly, and apologized repeatedly for his staff's "stupid" behavior, insisting during a news conference that he had no idea anyone around him had engineered traffic jams as part of a political vendetta against a Democratic mayor. A chemical plant spill into West Virginia's Elk River contaminated the water supply for Charleston, forcing more than 300,000 water customers in nine counties to stop using tap water. Activist poet-playwright Amiri Baraka, 79, died at a hospital in Newark, New Jersey.

Thought for Today: "One's lifework, I have learned, grows with the working and the living. Do it as if your life depended on it, and first thing you know, you'll have made a life out of it. A good life, too." — Theresa Helburn, American theatrical producer (1887-1959).

(Above Advance for Use Friday, Jan. 9)