Tuesday, January 9 1792 The treaty of Jassy ended the Russo-Turkish war; the Russian frontier was extended and the Ottomans also gained territory.

1793 French aeronaut Jean-Pierre Blanchard made the first balloon flight over the North American Continent.

1873 Napoleon III, emperor of France and nephew of Napoleon I, died; defeat by Prussia in 1871 forced him into exile in England, where he lived until his death.

1908 Simone de Beauvoir, French novelist and critic, and Jean-Paul Sartre's long-time companion, born.

1913 Richard Nixon, 37th U.S. president, born. He resigned in 1974 under threat of impeachment.

1923 Don Juan de la Cierva, Spanish flier and inventor, made the first successful flight of an autogiro, forerunner of the helicopter.

1953 South Korean passenger ferry Chang-Tyong-Ho sank off Pusan with the loss of 349 lives.

1960 Construction work started on the Aswan Dam in Egypt.

1962 Japan and the United States signed an agreement for Japan to pay $290 million in settlement of its debt for post-war U.S. aid.

1964 Twenty-two Panamanian students died during riots which began after U.S. residents of the Panama Canal zone prevented them from hoisting their flag there.

1973 Zimbabwe closed its Zambesi River border with Zambia due to guerrilla attacks.

1980 In Saudi Arabia, 63 people were beheaded for their part in the siege of the Great Mosque in Mecca in November 1979.

1984 The Jordanian Parliament was reconvened for the first time in ten years.

1992 Serbs in Bosnia-Herzegovina declared their own republic and said it would remain part of federal Yugoslavia.

1996 Chechen rebels seized some 2,000 hostages in a southern Russian town and threatened to kill them if their demands were not met.

1996 International donors pledged a total of $1.37 billion in aid to the new Palestinian authority.

1998 Northern Ireland Secretary Mo Mowlam met convicted loyalist killers in Belfast's Maze Prison. Later the prisoners voted to send their political allies back into multiparty peace talks.