January 9 ...

In 1788 Connecticut became the fifth state to join the United States. In 1799 British Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger introduced an income tax, at two shillings (10p) in the pound, to raise funds for the Napoleonic Wars. In 1861 the state of Mississippi seceded from the United States. In 1902 New York state introduced a bill to outlaw flirting in public. In 1905 Russian civil disturbances known as the Revolution of 1905 forced Czar Nicholas II to grant some civil rights. In 1913 thirty-seventh President of the US Richard Milhous Nixon was born in Yorba Linda, CA. Nixon is the only US president to resign from office. In 1934 Green Bay Packer Hall-of-Fame quarterback Bart Starr was born in Montgomery, AL. In 1936 the US Army adopted the semi-automatic rifle. In 1944 Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page was born in Heston, England. In 1951 United Nations headquarters officially opened in New York City. In 1969 the supersonic airplane Concorde made its first trial flight, at Bristol, England. In 1972 the ocean liner RMS Queen Elizabeth was destroyed by fire in Hong Kong harbor. In 1991 US Secretary of State James Baker and Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz met for 6 1/2 hours in Geneva, but failed to reach any agreement that would forestall war in the Persian Gulf. In 1995 Russian cosmonaut Valeri Poliakov, 51, completed his 366th day in outer space aboard the Mir space station, breaking the record for the longest continuous time spent in outer space. In 2002 the US Justice Department announced that it was pursuing a criminal investigation of Enron Corp. The company had filed for bankruptcy on December 2, 2001. In 2003 archaeologists announced that they had found five more chambers in the tomb of Qin Shihuang, China's first emperor. The rooms were believed to cover about 750,000 square feet.