Allies hit Iraq in lightning raid
1993 -American, French and British warplanes blasted anti-aircraft missiles and radars in southern Iraq and the White House warned Baghdad that more raids could follow unless it stopped violating Gulf War ceasefire terms. In remarks swiftly followed by a message of support from United States President-elect Bill Clinton, who takes office exactly one week hence, the White House also said President George Bush had ordered a battalion-sized task force back to Kuwait to underscore US commitment to that country’s continued independence in light of renewed Iraqi threats to annex it. Army officials said the contingent would put about 1,700 US military personnel, about half of them combat troops, back in the country freed of Iraqi occupation by a western-Arab coalition.
January 13
1893 - Britain’s Independent Labour Party, a precursor to the current Labour Party, meets for the first time.
1915 - Earthquake in central Italy kills 30,000 people.
1959 - Belgium grants reforms in Belgian Congo following disturbances.
1963 - West African Republic of Togo’s President Sylvanus Olympio is murdered.
1967 - Gnassingbe Eyadema seizes power in Togo in a bloodless coup.
1980 - Guerrilla leader Joshua Nkomo returns to Rhodesia.
1982 - An Air Florida 737 crashes into a bridge after takeoff and falls into the Potomac River, killing 78 people.
1985 - A passenger train derails in Ethiopia, with four of its five coaches plunging into a ravine, killing more than 425 people.
1988 - Taiwanese President Chiang Chingkuo dies of a heart attack.
1991 - President Mario Soares of Portugal is re-elected.
1994 - Italian Premier Carlo Ciampi resigns.
1995 - A fast-moving passenger train rams into a stationary train in Bangladesh, killing 39 people.
2000 - Microsoft chairman Bill Gates steps aside as chief executive.
2001 - Earthquake and landslides kill 850 in El Salvador.
2002 - Iranian members of parliament call for walkout in a dispute between reformists and conservatives over the imprisonment of MP Hussain Loghmanian.
2007 - China and Russia veto a US resolution in the UN Security Council calling on Myanmar’s military junta to stop persecution of minority and opposition groups.
2008 - US President George W. Bush makes historic visit to the UAE.
2009 - Lebanese musician and poet Mansour Al Rahbani dies at the age of 83 in Beirut.
2012 - Passenger cruise ship Costa Concordia capsizes off the coast of Italy, kills 12 people.
2014 - Damen Shipyard Sharjah in Al Hamriyah free zone is inaugurated.
2016 - A suicide bomber blows up outside a polio vaccination centre in Quetta, Pakistan, killing at least 15 people.
