Fashion designer Saint Laurent retires
2002 - Yves Saint Laurent, the master fashion designer who created undying trends like the pantsuit and came to represent the ultimate in elegance, announced his retirement. Saint Laurent, 65, said at his Paris salon that he was closing the haute couture fashion house he had started 40 years ago. He talked at length about his battles with drugs, depression and loneliness, but gave no indication that those problems were the reason for his retirement. The designer, whose shyness is well-known, read from a prepared statement without looking up at the small room crowded with reporters and employees. “I have chosen today to bid adieu to this profession that I have loved so much,” Saint Laurent said. He left immediately thereafter, without answering questions.
January 7
1610 - The astronomer Galileo Galilei sees four of Jupiter’s moons.
1714 - British inventor Henry Mill is granted a patent for the first typewriter.
1782 - The first commercial American bank, the Bank of North America, opens.
1789 - The first US presidential election is held.
1894 - A patent for motion picture film is granted to W.K. Dickson.
1913 - A cracking process to obtain gasoline from crude oil is patented in the US.
1927 - Commercial trans-Atlantic telephone service is inaugurated between New York and London.
1931 - Guy Menzies flies the first solo non-stop trans-Tasman flight (from Australia to New Zealand) in 11 hours and 45 minutes.
1953 - US President Harry Truman announces the development of the H-bomb.
1959 - United States recognises Fidel Castro’s Cuban government.
1968 - Surveyor 7 space probe makes a soft landing on the moon.
1972 - India resists pressure from the United States and grants full diplomatic recognition to China.
1979 - Vietnamese forces capture the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh.
1986 - US proclaim economic sanctions against Libya.
1989 - Japanese Emperor Hirohito dies of cancer at the age of 87.
1997 - British tycoon Richard Branson and two co-pilots soar slowly skyward in a giant balloon on a “great adventure”, hoping to be the first balloonists to fly round the world.
1998 - Oil tanker sinks off Ajman.
1999 - The United States Senate opens the impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton, first such trial in 130 years.
2006 - The Brazilian commander of UN peacekeepers in Haiti is found dead after shooting himself in the head.
2007 - Archbishop Stanislaw Wielgus of Warsaw, an appointee of Pope Benedict XVI, resigns after admitting to spying for Poland’s former communist regime.
2009 - John Atta-Mills is sworn in as president of Ghana.
2015 - At least 12 people are killed in shootings at the office of satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo in eastern Paris, France.
