Pol Pot under house arrest in Combodia
1998 - Pol Pot, the former leader of Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge guerrilla group, has been tracked down and found sick, dispirited and firmly in the custody of his former comrades in their north Cambodian jungle stronghold. Pol Pot looked very ill and spoke in a barely audible voice. “My political life is finished. I probably cannot say any more,” Pol Pot said. Top-ranking Khmer Rouge official Nuon Chea, responsible for keeping Pol Pot in custody, said the man blamed for more than a million deaths during his 1975-79 “killing fields” rule, would never be handed over to the international community to answer for his crimes. Pol Pot, who is more than 70 years old, was purged by his former comrades after a bloody falling out among the group’s top leaders.
January 6
1838 - Samuel Morse publicly demonstrates his telegraph for the first time in New Jersey.
1919 - The 26th US President, Theodore Roosevelt, dies in Oyster Bay, New York.
1930 - The first diesel-engined automobile trip is completed, from Indianapolis, Indiana, to New York City.
1942 - Pan American Airways Pacific Clipper arrives in New York after making the first round-the-world trip by a commercial airplane.
1958 - The Gibson Guitar Company launches its iconic ‘Flying V’ electric guitar.
1963 - Iran’s Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi launches his “white revolution,” including redistributing land to peasants and giving women the right to vote.
1968 - The first human heart transplant in the US is performed by Dr. Norman Shumway.
1980 - Former Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi scores a stunning political comeback in general elections.
1986 - British Defence Secretary Michael Heseltine resigns.
1993 - Ballet supremo Rudolf Nureyev dies in Paris at the age of 54.
1998 - Fifty-one people die in a train crash in Karna, India.
2000 - A medium-sized bomb rips through the carriage of a stationary train at a Delhi railway station injuring 22 people.
2002 - Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar flees Afghanistan.
2009 - Shaikh Hasina sworn as Bangladesh’s Prime Minister.
2010 - Rose Rayhaan by Rotana in Dubai officially opens as the world’s tallest hotel.
2011 - Abu Dhabi Municipality bans pets in public places.
2012 - A former Turkish military chief General Ilker Basbug is jailed for coup plot.
2013 - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas issues a presidential decree replacing the Palestinian National Authority with the State of Palestine.
2014 - Former Miss Venezuela Monica Spear and her ex-husband are shot dead in an attempted robbery in Venezuela.
2016 - North Korea says it has successfully carried out hydrogen bomb test.
