This Day in World History January 8

Jan 08, 2023 News

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Watergate burglars go to court

Kaieteur News – The Watergate scandal was a major political scandal in the United States involving the administration of President Richard Nixon (1972 to 1974) that led to his resignation. The scandal stemmed from the Nixon administration’s continual attempts to cover up its involvement in the June 17, 1972, break-in of the Democratic National Committee Headquarters at the Washington, D.C., Watergate Office Building.

After the five perpetrators were arrested, the press and the Justice Department connected the cash found on them at the time, to the Committee for the Re-Election of the President. Further investigations, along with revelations made during subsequent trials of the burglars, led the House of Representatives to grant the U.S. House Judiciary Committee additional investigative authority—to probe into “certain matters within its jurisdiction”, and led the Senate to create the U.S. Senate Watergate Committee, which held hearings. Witnesses testified that Nixon had approved plans to cover up his administration’s involvement in the break-in, and that there was a voice-activated taping system in the Oval Office. Throughout the investigation, Nixon’s administration resisted its probes, and this led to a constitutional crisis. The Senate Watergate hearings were broadcast “gavel-to-gavel” nationwide by PBS and aroused public interest. In January of 1973, five of the burglars pleaded guilty, while two other persons were convicted. (Wikipedia)

Farmer reports “perhaps most completely and carefully documented” UFO sighting of all time

A little after 5 pm on 8th January 1981, a farmer Renato Nicolai of Trans-en-Provence France, was at his home building a concrete shelter for an outside water pump. His home overlooked the land below it as it was built on a raised level.

As he noticed how cold it was becoming, he heard a “sort of faint whistling”. He turned his attention towards the sound and in front of him was a “device in the air” at the tree-top height at the very edge of the land of his property. He would distinctly remember the device “was not spinning”. And furthermore, it was “coming lower to the ground”. He moved closer to a stone cabin on his property so he could watch the object land. As it moved, there were no flames or clear signs of propulsion or an engine. Almost as soon as it touched down on the ground it rose again, the whistling sound still audible. It would take off with speed towards the woodland nearby. It had the shape of “two saucers, one on top of the other” and was a lead color. The higher it went Nicolai could see ‘four openings’ on the underside, although no lights or flames were visible from inside. Still a short distance away from where the craft landed, he would wait for a moment until he was happy it had gone. Then, he would walk toward the landing site where he could clearly see a circle around two meters across. Within this circle were “abrasions” or scorch marks. Following his reporting of the incident, further reports would reveal more intricate details of the area. One of those investigating groups was GEPAN who would investigate such mysterious sightings. They would find “mechanical pressure” most likely the cause of the impression left at the site. Very likely, the craft was of a weight of between four to five tons. Furthermore, indications were that the underside of the craft (at least) was of a temperature of between 300 to 600 degrees Celsius (between 500 and over 1,100 degrees Fahrenheit). Due to the relatively close location of the Canjuers military base, Nicolai would ponder if the device was some kind of secret military reconnaissance craft. And while UFO enthusiasts had an obvious interest in the case, many theories bizarrely enough, would revolve around “natural phenomena” despite the report of a very physical and real nuts-and-bolts machine, as well GEPAN’s own suggestion that a four or five-ton machine had made the impression on the land. (UFOinsight.com)

Air Africa 1996 accident has largest ground fatalities in history

The 1996 Air Africa crash occurred on 8^th January when an overloaded Zairese Air Africa’s Antonov An-32B aircraft, bound for Kahemba Airport, overshot the runway at N’Dolo Airport in Kinshasa, Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo), after failing to take off and ploughed into Kinshasa’s Simbazikita street market.

Four of the six member crew from the aircraft which had been wet leased from Moscow Airways, managed to survive. However, between 225 and 348 fatalities and around 253 serious injuries occurred on the ground. This crash remains the deadliest in African history, and also one with the most ground fatalities of any air disaster in history, superseded only by the intentional crashes of American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175 in the September 11 attacks.

US President George Bush signs No Child Left Behind Act

On January 8, 2002, President George W. Bush signed the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) into law. The sweeping update to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, created new standards and goals for the nation’s public schools, and implemented tough corrective measures for schools that failed to meet them. Today, it is largely regarded as a failed experiment.

The new law mandated that states create measures of Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) based on standardized tests. Schools that did not meet AYP requirements were subject to increasingly harsher actions by the state, such as giving students the options to transfer after 2 years of missing AYP goals or even the wholesale restructuring of a school after 5 years.

While some schools did see improvements in test scores, the results were uneven and often negative. Teachers complained that standardized testing cut into class time and forced them to “teach to the test” rather than to their students’ needs. Many felt that requiring all schools statewide to achieve the same goals unfairly punished both schools that were already performing well and schools in underserved areas. Others argued in principle against threatening underperforming schools with corrective measures, while some accused Republicans of using the law to turn private schools over to charter school companies or private businesses. In 2015, NCLB was replaced with the Every Student Succeeds Act, which retained parts of the old law but attempted to make it less punitive to underperforming schools. The NCLB is often cited as an overly harsh approach to education reform. (History.com)

Joaquín “El Chapo”Guzmán is recaptured following his escape from a maximum security prison in Mexico

Joaquín Archivaldo Guzmán Loera commonly known as “El Chapo” is a former Mexican drug lord and a former leader within the Sinaloa Cartel, an international crime syndicate. He is considered to have been one of the most powerful drug traffickers in the world.

He oversaw operations whereby vast amounts of cocaine, methamphetamine, marijuana, and heroin were produced, smuggled into, and distributed throughout the United States and Europe. Leadership of the cartel also brought immense wealth and power with Forbes ranking the kingpin as one of the most powerful people in the world between 2009 and 2013. The US Drug Enforcement Administration estimated that he matched the influence and wealth of Pablo Escobar. Guzmán was first captured in 1993 in Guatemala and was extradited and sentenced to 20 years in prison in Mexico for murder and drug trafficking. He bribed prison guards and escaped from a federal maximum-security prison in 2001. He was arrested again in Mexico in 2014 but escaped prior to formal sentencing in 2015, through a tunnel dug by associates into his jail cell. Mexican authorities recaptured him following a shoot-out in January 2016 and extradited him to the U.S. a year later. In 2019, he was found guilty of a number of criminal charges related to his leadership of the Sinaloa Cartel and was sentenced to life imprisonment, and incarcerated in ADX Florence, Colorado, US.

Iran shoots down Ukrainian passenger plane by mistake kills all 176 on board

A Ukrainian passenger plane that crashed in Iran on January 8, 2020, was shot down by mistake, by an Iranian anti-aircraft missile.

The Ukraine International Airlines Flight PS752, bound for the country’s capital of Kiev, crashed just minutes after taking off from Imam Khomeini International Airport in Tehran, killing all 176 people aboard. US officials told Fox News that military officials believe Iran shot down the Ukrainian airliner by mistake using a Russian-made surface-to-air missile. (Fox News)

 

 

 

 

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