Unix Timestamp: 1073001600
Friday, January 2. 2004, 12:00:00 AM UTC

Somali pirates seize an Indonesian chemical tanker with 24 crew in the Gulf of Aden and a British cargo ship with 26 cars 620 miles off the Horn of Africa. //timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/rest-of-world/Somali-pirates-hijack-India-bound-chemical-tanker/articleshow/5404159.cms ("Times of India") //www.rttnews.com/ArticleView.aspx?Id=1169169SMap=1 (RTT News) //news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8437581.stm (BBC)

A Swedish charter aircraft carrying 150 passengers touches down at Baghdad International Airport, becoming the first European commercial flight to land there since 1990. //www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jBjzrB283ngvL3NYgUm9iuczhJcg (AFP via Google News)

Ethiopia withdraws its military forces from Somalia after two years of helping the Transitional Federal Government combat insurgents. //news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7808495.stm (BBC)

Crude oil prices surge past $100 a barrel briefly in trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. //biz.yahoo.com/ap/080102/oil_prices.html (AP via Yahoo! Finance)

The price of petroleum hits $100 per barrel for the first time.

The first 49 of a promised 1,264 West African peacekeepers arrive at Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire, to help supervise the cease-fire between the government of President Laurent Gbagbo and the main rebel group, the Patriotic Movement of the Ivory Coast. Rebellion against the Gbagbo government began September 19, 2002. The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) agreed to send peacekeepers on September 29. The EECOWAS peacekeepers will join 2,500 French forces. Rebel groups occupy the northern half of Côte d'Ivoire.

United States Army division commanders are beginning a war game at US V Corps headquarters at Heidelberg, Germany, called VICTORY SCRIMMAGE. The exercise is under the command of Lieutenant General William S. Wallace, who is expected to command American ground forces in a planned U.S. war against Iraq.

Disney's Grand Californian Hotel Spa opens at the Disneyland Resort.

Russia begins to circulate new rubles to stem inflation and promote confidence.

President of RussiaBoris Yeltsin ends price controls, resulting in prices of some goods and services becoming 3 to 5 times more expensive.

In eastern El Salvador, Salvadoran rebels shot down a United States Army helicopter and executed the two surviving members of its three-man crew.

Prime MinisterRanasinghe Premadasa takes office as the third President of Sri Lanka

Chadian–Libyan conflict ndash Battle of Fada: The Chadian army destroys a Libyan armoured brigade.

A strike of public transportation workers in New York City begins (it will end January 13).

NAACP Executive Secretary Roy Wilkins praises U.S. President John F. Kennedy's personal role in advancing civil rights.

U.S. SenatorJohn F. Kennedy (D-MA) announces his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination.

The San Francisco and Los Angeles stock exchanges merge to form the Pacific Coast Stock Exchange.

José Antonio Remón Cantera, president of Panama, is assassinated at a race track in Panama City.

Luis Muñoz Marín becomes the first democratically elected Governor of Puerto Rico.

WWII: Free French General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny is appointed to command French Army B, part of the Sixth United States Army Group in North Africa.

WWII: Manila is captured by Japanese forces. All defending soldiers in Manila are killed.

South Dakota native Ernest Lawrence invents the cyclotron, used to accelerate particles to study nuclear physics.

The New York State Assembly refuses to seat five duly elected Socialist assemblymen.

The forces of Russian White Admiral Alexander Kolchak surrender in Krasnoyarsk. The Great Siberian Ice March ensues.

The second of the Palmer Raids takes place with another 4,025 suspected communists and anarchists arrested and held without trial. These raids take place in several U.S. cities.

The Royal Bank of Canada takes over Quebec Bank.

Russo-Japanese War: The Russian Army surrenders at Port Arthur, China.

The International Alpha Omicron Pi Sorority is founded.

Webb C. Ball introduces railroad chronometers, which become the general railroad timepiece standards in North America.

Fred Spofforth claims the first Hat-trick in Test cricket.

Ignacio María González becomes head of state of the Dominican Republic for the first time.

Amadeus I becomes King of Spain.

Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia dies and is succeeded by Wilhelm I.

First photo of the Moon taken by photographer Louis Daguerre

The Panic of 1819, the first major financial crisis in the United States, begins.

Lord Byron marries Anna Isabella Milbanke in Seaham, County Durham.

Russia and Prussia partition the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

Georgia ratifies the United States Constitution and becomes the fourth U.S. state under the new government.

Virginia passes a law ceding its western land claims, paving the way for Maryland to ratify the Articles of Confederation.

American Revolution ndash Second Battle of Trenton: George Washington's army fights the Second Battle of Trenton, New Jersey.

Britain captures Calcutta (part of the fighting in the Seven Years' War).

Alexander Pope's poem Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot published in London.

Boabdil, the last MoorishKing of Granada, surrenders his city to the army of Ferdinand and Isabella after a lengthy siege, ending the 10-year Granada War and the Reconquista which lasted almost 800 years. Christopher Columbus is in Alhambra, and sees the Moorish king come out of the city gates and kiss the hands of the Spanish king, queen and prince.

The Vikings conquer much of Ireland.

February beginning of the regency of Zoe Karbonopsina, mother of the Byzantine emperor Constantine VII, for which she was competing with the patriarch Nicolas Mystikos (end of the regency in 920).ref name=Bréhier

The Byzantine Empire battles with Bulgaria over the city of Adrianople, which changes hands several times.

In al-Andalus: a drought episod leads to a terrible famine in the Iberian peninsula which continues in 915.ref name=rucquoi1993 In his centralization effort, the Umayyad caliph, Abd al-Rahman III reconquers Sevilla from the Banu Hajjaj clan.ref name =portugalmedievalPicard, C. (2000)" Le Portugal musulman (VIIIe-XIIIe siècle). L'Occident d'al-Andalus sous domination islamique". Paris: Maisonneuve Larose pp.54.

Ordoño II, king of Galicia, becomes king of Leon after the death of his brother, García. He settles his court in León.Ch Paquis, Louis Dochez //books.google.fr/books?id=P7sCAAAAYAAJpg=PA414 "Histoire d'Espagne" Béthune et Plon, 1844

Ireland's first city, Waterford, is founded on the River Suir.

The town of Warwick, England is founded on the River Avon.

March or April ndash Pope John X succeeds Pope Lando as the 122nd pope.

Pope John II becomes the 56th pope of Rome.

Winter ndash Emperor Valentinian I appoints Jovinus, his Master of the Horse ("Magister Equitum"), general of the army. He defeats the Alamanni in three successive battles and push them out of Gaul.

Valens builds a pontoon bridge across the Danube and drives the Visigoths farther north, where they will come under pressure from the advancing Huns.

The Alamanni cross the frozen Rhine in large numbers, and invade the Gallic provinces. They capture Alsace and a large part of the Swiss Plateau.

The "Tabula Peutingeriana", a map showing Roman possessions and roads, is created about this time.

AprilndashMay ndash Emperor Valens defeats the troops of Procopius in the Battle of Thyatira, bringing an end to his revo Serenianus and Marcellus are killed. He flees the battlefield, but is executed by Valens.