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MyWikiBiz, Author Your Legacy — Saturday November 22, 2008

January 9 in history:

• 1349, the Jewish population of Basel, Switzerland, believed by the residents to be the cause of the ongoing bubonic plague, is rounded up and incinerated

• 1768, Philip Astley stages the first modern circus (London)

• 1799, British Prime Minister William Pitt introduces income tax to raise funds for the war against Napoleon

• 1839, the French Academy of Sciences announces the Daguerreotype photography process

• 1861, during the American Civil War: The "Star of the West" incident occurs near Charleston, South Carolina. It is considered by some historians to be the "First Shots of the American Civil War".)

• 1863, the first section of the London Underground Railway opens -- between Paddington and Farringdon Street.

• 1880, the Great Gale of 1880 devastates parts of Oregon and Washington with high wind and heavy snow

• 1905, according to the Julian Calendar which was used at the time, Russian workers stage a march on the Winter Palace that ends in the massacre by Tsarist troops known as Bloody Sunday, setting off the Russian Revolution of 1905

• 1951, the United Nations headquarters officially opens in New York City

• 1968, the Surveyor VII space probe made a soft landing on the moon, marking the end of the American series of unmanned explorations of the lunar surface.

• 1968, The only known snowfall occurs in Mexico City, additional snow falls on Jan. 10 and 11

• 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

• 1986, after losing a patent battle with Polaroid, Kodak exits the instant camera business

• 1991, the Soviets storm Vilnius to stop Lithuanian independence

• 2002, the United States Department of Justice announces it is going to pursue a criminal investigation of Enron