Friday, January 23, 1998

The formal sentencing for Mir Aimal Kasi is to be handed down. In November, a jury recommended he receive the death penalty for fatally shooting two CIA employees in January 1993.

NASA is scheduled to conduct a gravity-assist maneuver designed to guide
the NEAR spacecraft -- launched in February 1996 -- toward its
primary target, asteroid 433 Eros.

On the horizon

On Saturday, January 24, the National Research Council conducts a workshop on
failed stars and super planets.

On Sunday, January 25, the Denver Broncos and defending champ Green Bay Packers battle it out in the Super Bowl in San Diego.

On Monday, January 26, European Union foreign ministers meet in Brussels.

On Tuesday, January 27, President Clinton is tentatively scheduled to deliver his State of the Union address to Congress.

On Wednesday, January 28, the American Bar Association holds its midyear meeting in Nashville.

On this day

In 1516, Ferdinand II of Aragon died and was succeeded as King
of Spain by his grandson Charles V.

In 1570, James Stewart, the Earl of Moray, who was appointed Regent of
Scotland on the abdication of Mary Queen of Scots, was
assassinated by the Hamiltons at Linlithgow.

In 1668, Holland, Britain and Sweden signed the Alliance of
the Hague, known as the Triple Alliance, under which they agreed
to aid one another if attacked.

In 1719, the Principality of Liechtenstein was formed by the
amalgamation of Vaduz and Schellenberg.

In 1793, Russia and Prussia agreed to a second partition of
Poland.

In 1883, Gustave Dore, French artist and one of the most
successful book illustrators of the 19th century, died.

In 1900, in the second British-Boer War, the British attempted
to break through the Boer lines to relieve Ladysmith but were
thwarted at the Battle of Spion Kop.

In 1907, the first American Indian senator, Charles Curtis of
Kansas, began his term in office.

In 1937, the trial of 17 leading Communists began in Moscow
after they were accused of involvement in a plot led by Leon
Trotsky to overthrow the regime and assassinate its leaders.

In 1943, British forces under Field Marshal Montgomery
captured Tripoli, Libya.

In 1943, after nine days of talks in Casablanca, U.S. President Franklin D.
Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill agreed to put an invasion of Italy ahead of opening a second front in northwestern Europe.

In 1960, the U.S. navy bathyscaphe Trieste dived to a record
depth of 35,810 feet (10,916 meters) in the Pacific Ocean..

In 1963, Harold "Kim" Philby, British journalist in Beirut,
disappeared. Later in the year it was revealed that he was the
third man in the Burgess-Maclean espionage affair and had been
granted asylum in Moscow.

In 1968, North Koreans seized the American ship USS
Pueblo, claiming it was spying. The crew were held until
December.

In 1978, Baron Edouard-Jean Empain, one of Europe's most
powerful industrialists, was kidnapped in Paris; he was freed on
March 26.

In 1983, Soviet satellite Cosmos 1402 entered Earth's
atmosphere and crashed into the Indian Ocean.

In 1989, Spanish surrealist painter Salvador Dali died.

In 1995, Jacques Delors formally stepped down as European
Commission president, handing over to Jacques Santer after 10
years of steering Europe towards closer union.

In 1996, South Korean prosecutors formally charged
ex-presidents Roh Tae-woo and Chun Doo Hwan with sedition over
events surrounding the 1980 army massacre of pro-democracy
activists in Kwangju.

Newslink

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