Jan 26 - a day rich in history for India

A day on which India not just became a republic and the Dandi march was launched, but one of tragedy as well, when the Gujarat earthquake struck.

Today is Wednesday, January 26, the twenty sixth day of 2005.
There are 340 days left in the year.

Highlights in history on this date:

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1609 - The Ottoman Empire signs Peace Treaty of Karlowitz with Austria, Russia, Poland and Venice ceding control of most of Transylvania and Hungary. The treaty significantly diminishes Turkish influence in east-central Europe and makes Austria the dominant power there.
1654 - Dutch settlers are expelled from northeastern Brazil, ending a 24-year struggle to wrest the colony from the Portuguese. 1778 - Australia is settled by the British.

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

1802 - US Congress passes an act calling for a library to be established within the Capitol.
1841 - Britain formally occupies Hong Kong, which the Chinese had ceded to the British.
1865 - Britain announces no more convicts will be shipped to Australia.
1885 - The Mahdist forces take Khartoum in Sudan after a nine-month siege. They slaughter most of the inhabitants and the British garrison.

1929 - Congress party decides that it will strive for Purna Swaraj.
1930 - Mahatma Gandhi begins a march across India against British occupation.
1931 -Mahatma Gandhi is released from prison in India for discussions with government.
1934 - Germany signs 10-year nonaggression pact with Poland.
1942 - First U.S. expeditionary force arrives in Europe in World War II, with troops put ashore in Northern Ireland.
1947 - Sweden's 40-year-old crown prince Gustav Adolf is killed in a plane crash in Denmark, leaving five small children, among them the current King Carl XVI Gustav, without their father.
1950 - India officially proclaims itself a republic as Rajendra Prasad takes the oath of office as president.
1952 - Famed Shepherd's Hotel in Cairo, Egypt, is burned during riots by mobs demanding British withdrawal from the Suez.
1957 - Jammu andKashmir Constitution for incorporation with India goes into effect.
1962 - US launches Ranger 3 to land scientific instruments on the moon, but the probe misses its target by some 35,483 kilometers (22,000 miles).
1987 - US President Ronald Reagan vows he will make no concessions to Lebanese terrorists, and warns Americans to get out of Lebanon.
1988 - The Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Phantom of the Opera opens Broadway's Majestic Theater in New York.
1990 - Romanian Vice President Dmitru Mazilu resigns to protest increasingly repressive policies of that country's interim government.
1991 - Seven Iraqi warplanes fly to Iran to avoid destruction in Gulf War.
1992 - In Mauritania, police open fire at opposition supporters protesting election of military ruler.
1993 - Vaclav Havel is elected president of the new Czech Republic, one of the successors to the Czechoslovak federation.
1994 - Civilians mob a food convoy and shoot six of its police escorts in a grim demonstration of how hunger and desperation are fueling lawlessness in Bosnia.
1995 - Three powerful bombs rip through a celebration at a sports stadium in Kashmir as the state governor addresses the crowd. Seven people are killed and 47 injured.
1996 - Polish Prime Minister Jozef Oleksy, accused of spying for Moscow for 13 years, resigns.
1997 - Police wielding batons beat back demonstrators as tens of thousands march through Belgrade in a continuing protest against government annulment of local elections.
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.
1999 - The first official commemoration of homosexual Holocaust victims takes place at a Memorial Day service at the former Sachsenhausen concentration camp. An estimated 10,000 gays were persecuted during World War II.

2001 - The most powerful earthquake -a 7.9 temblor - to strike India in half a century levels parts of western Gujarat killing more than 2,000 people and injuring more than 3,000.
2003 - A China Airlines jet lands in Shanghai, China and picks up passengers, becoming the first Taiwanese airliner to do so in mainland China since 1949.
2004 - US intelligence agencies need to explain why their research indicated Iraq possessed banned weapons before the American-led invasion, says the outgoing top US inspector, David Kay, who now believes Saddam Hussein had no such arms.

Today's Birthdays:
Ugo Fiscolo, Italian author (1778-1827)
Douglas MacArthur, US general (1880-1964)
Paul Newman, US actor (1925--)
Bob Uecker, US baseball player/sports announcer/actor (1935--)
David Strathairn, US actor (1949--)
Lucinda Williams, US country singer (1953--)
Eddie Van Halen, Dutch-born guitarist (1957--)