By The Associated Press

Today in History

Today is Saturday, Jan. 11, the 11th day of 2020. There are 355 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in History:

On Jan. 11, 1908, President Theodore Roosevelt proclaimed the Grand Canyon National Monument (it became a national park in 1919).

On this date:

In 1861, Alabama became the fourth state to withdraw from the Union.

In 1913, the first enclosed sedan-type automobile, a Hudson, went on display at the 13th National Automobile Show in New York.

In 1935, aviator Amelia Earhart began an 18-hour trip from Honolulu to Oakland, California, that made her the first person to fly solo across any part of the Pacific Ocean.

In 1943, the United States and Britain signed treaties relinquishing extraterritorial rights in China.

In 1964, U.S. Surgeon General Luther Terry issued “Smoking and Health,” a report which concluded that “cigarette smoking contributes substantially to mortality from certain specific diseases and to the overall death rate.”

In 1977, France set off an international uproar by releasing Abu Daoud, a PLO official behind the massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics.

In 1978, two Soviet cosmonauts aboard the Soyuz 27 capsule linked up with the Salyut 6 orbiting space station, where the Soyuz 26 capsule was already docked.

In 1989, nine days before leaving the White House, President Ronald Reagan bade the nation farewell in a prime-time address, saying of his eight years in office: “We meant to change a nation and instead we changed a world.”

In 1995, 51 people were killed when a Colombian DC-9 jetliner crashed as it was preparing to land near the Caribbean resort of Cartagena — however, 9-year-old Erika Delgado survived.

In 2000, whittling away more of the federal government’s power over states, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled, 5-4, that state employees cannot go into federal court to sue over age bias. Carlton Fisk and Tony Perez were elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

In 2001, the Army acknowledged that U.S. soldiers killed an “unknown number” of South Korean refugees early in the Korean War at No Gun Ri, but said there was no evidence they were ordered to do so.

In 2003, calling the death penalty process “arbitrary and capricious, and therefore immoral,” Illinois Gov. George Ryan commuted the sentences of 167 condemned inmates, clearing his state’s death row two days before leaving office.

Ten years ago: A federal judge in San Francisco began hearing arguments in a lawsuit aimed at overturning Proposition 8, California’s voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage.