TODAY<$> is Thursday, January 26, the 26th day of 2006. There are 339 days left in the year.

ON THIS DATE:

1788 - First fleet of ships bringing convicts from Britain arrive in Australia to establish penal colonies.

1841 - Britain formally occupies Hong Kong, which the Chinese had ceded to the British.

1993 - Vaclav Havel is elected president of the new Czech Republic, one of the successors to the Czechoslovak federation.

1998 - US President Bill Clinton says that he “did not have sexual relations with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky.” He acknowledges a relationship some months later.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY:<$>

“What we really are matters more than what other people think of us” — Jawaharlal Nehru