Today is Thursday, Jan. 4, the fourth day of 2018. There are 361 days left in the year.
Today's Highlight in History:
On Jan. 4, 1868, "The Moonstone" by Wilkie Collins, considered by some the first full-length English detective novel, began to be serialized in Britain and the U.S. in All the Year Round and Harper's Weekly (it was published in book form in July 1868).
On this date:
In 1717, France, Britain and Holland formed a Triple Alliance against Spain.
In 1896, Utah was admitted as the 45th state.
In 1904, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Gonzalez v. Williams, ruled that Puerto Ricans were not aliens and could enter the United States freely; however, the court stopped short of declaring them citizens. (Puerto Ricans received U.S. citizenship in March 1917.)
In 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, in his State of the Union address, called for legislation to provide assistance for the jobless, elderly, impoverished children and the handicapped.
In 1943, for the second time, Soviet dictator Josef Stalin made the cover of TIME as the magazine's 1942 "Man of the Year."
In 1951, during the Korean War, North Korean and Communist Chinese forces recaptured the city of Seoul (sohl).
In 1960, author and philosopher Albert Camus (al-BEHR' kah-MOO') died in an automobile accident in Villeblevin, France, at age 46.
In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson delivered his State of the Union address in which he outlined the goals of his "Great Society."
In 1967, "The Doors," the self-titled debut album of the rock group featuring the song "Light My Fire," was released by Elektra Records.
In 1974, President Richard Nixon refused to hand over tape recordings and documents subpoenaed by the Senate Watergate Committee.
In 1987, 16 people were killed when an Amtrak train bound from Washington, D.C., to Boston collided with Conrail locomotives that had crossed into its path from a side track in Chase, Maryland.
In 1995, the 104th Congress convened, the first entirely under Republican control since the Eisenhower era.
