@rh24bold:Today in History

Today is Tuesday, Jan. 6, the sixth day of 2009. There are 359 days left in the year.

On this date:

In 1912, New Mexico became the 47th state.

In 1919, the 26th president of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt, died in Oyster Bay, New York, at age 60.

In 1942, the Pan American Airways Pacific Clipper arrived in New York more than a month after leaving California and following a westward route.

In 1967, US Marines and South Vietnamese troops launched Operation Deckhouse Five, an offensive in the Mekong River delta.

In 1982, truck driver William G. Bonin was convicted in Los Angeles of 10 of the "Freeway Killer" slayings of young men and boys. (Bonin was later convicted of four other killings; he was executed in 1996.)

Thought for Today:

"What this generation was bred to at television's knees was not wisdom, but cynicism." — Pauline Kael, American movie critic (1919-2001).