TODAY is Thursday, January 14, the 14th day of 2010. There are 351 days left in the year.

On this date

In 1858, Napoleon III, Emperor of the French, and his wife, Empress Eugenie, escaped an assassination attempt led by Italian revolutionary Felice Orsini, who was later captured and executed.

In 1943, Allied leaders British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt and French Gen. Charles de Gaulle opened a wartime conference in Casablanca and demanded the unconditional surrender of the Axis powers.

In 1953, Josip Broz Tito was elected president of Yugoslavia by the country's Parliament.

In 1963, George C. Wallace was sworn in as governor of Alabama with a pledge of "segregation forever".

In 1965, the prime ministers of Ireland and Northern Ireland met for the first time in 43 years.

In 1969, the Soviet spacecraft Soyuz 4 was launched, followed the next day by Soyuz 5; they achieved the first docking of two manned spacecraft in Earth orbit.

In 1969, 27 people aboard the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise, off Hawaii, were killed when a rocket warhead exploded, setting off a fire and additional explosions.

In 1970, Diana Ross and the Supremes performed their last concert together, at the Frontier Hotel in Las Vegas.

In 2000, in a massive demonstration demanding the return of Elian Gonzalez, tens of thousands of Cuban women marched to the US mission in Havana.

Thought for Today

"If you limit your actions in life to things that nobody can possibly find fault with, you will not do much." – Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll), English author (1832-1898).