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Almanac

By The Associated Press

Today in History

Today is Monday, Jan. 27, the 27th day of 2020. There are 339 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in History:

On Jan. 27, 1981, President Ronald Reagan and his wife, Nancy, greeted the 52 former American hostages released by Iran at the White House.

On this date:

In 1756, composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born in Salzburg, Austria.

In 1832, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, who wrote “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” under the pen name Lewis Carroll, was born in Cheshire, England.

In 1880, Thomas Edison received a patent for his electric incandescent lamp.

In 1943, some 50 bombers struck Wilhelmshaven in the first all-American air raid against Germany during World War II.

In 1945, during World War II, Soviet troops liberated the Nazi concentration camps Auschwitz and Birkenau in Poland.

In 1967, astronauts Virgil I. “Gus” Grissom, Edward H. White and Roger B. Chaffee died in a flash fire during a test aboard their Apollo spacecraft.

In 1972, “Queen of Gospel” Mahalia Jackson, 60, died in Evergreen Park, Ill.

In 1973, the Vietnam peace accords were signed in Paris.

In 1984, singer Michael Jackson suffered serious burns to his scalp when pyrotechnics set his hair on fire during the filming of a Pepsi-Cola TV commercial at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles.

In 1998, first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, on NBC’s “Today” show, charged the sexual misconduct allegations against her husband, President Bill Clinton, were the work of a “vast right-wing conspiracy.”

In 2001, Jennifer Capriati upset three-time winner Martina Hingis 6-4, 6-3 to win the Australian Open title and her first Grand Slam tournament championship.

In 2003, the Bush administration dismissed Iraq’s response to U.N. disarmament demands as inadequate. Meanwhile, chief U.N. inspector Hans Blix charged that Iraq had never genuinely accepted U.N. resolutions demanding its disarmament and warned that “cooperation on substance” was necessary for a peaceful solution.

Ten years ago: Acknowledging that “change has not come fast enough,” President Barack Obama vowed in his State of the Union address to get jobless millions back to work while fighting for ambitious overhauls of health care, energy and education.

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