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• On this date:
• In 1813, the British burned Buffalo, N.Y., during the War of 1812.
• In 1853, the United States and Mexico signed a treaty under which the U.S. agreed to buy some 45,000 square miles of land from Mexico for $10 million in a deal known as the Gadsden Purchase.
• In 1860, 10 days after South Carolina seceded from the Union, the state militia seized the United States Arsenal in Charleston.
• In 1903, about 600 people died when fire broke out at the recently opened Iroquois Theater in Chicago.
• In 1922, Vladimir I. Lenin proclaimed the establishment of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
• In 1936, the United Auto Workers union staged its first "sit-down" strike at the General Motors Fisher Body Plant No. 1 in Flint, Mich. (The strike lasted until Feb. 11, 1937.)
• In 1940, California's first freeway, the Arroyo Seco Parkway connecting Los Angeles and Pasadena, was officially opened by Gov. Culbert L. Olson.
• In 1948, the Cole Porter musical "Kiss Me, Kate" opened on Broadway.
• In 1965, Ferdinand Marcos was inaugurated for his first term as president of the Philippines.
• In 1972, the United States halted its heavy bombing of North Vietnam.
• In 1994, a gunman walked into a pair of suburban Boston abortion clinics and opened fire, killing two employees. (John C. Salvi III was later convicted of murder; he died in prison, an apparent suicide.)
• In 2006, Iraqis awoke to news that Saddam Hussein had been hanged; victims of his three decades of autocratic rule took to the streets to celebrate.
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• Ten years ago: A suspected extremist killed three U.S. missionaries at a Baptist hospital in Yemen. (The gunman, Abed Abdul Razak Kamel, was executed in Feb. 2006.) China catapulted a fourth unmanned craft into orbit.
• Five years ago: Kenya's President Mwai Kibaki (mwy kih-BAH'-kee) was declared winner of an election opponents and observers alleged was rigged; violence flared in Nairobi slums and coastal resort towns, killing scores in the following days. Benazir Bhutto's 19-year-old son, Bilawal Zardari, was named symbolic leader of her Pakistan Peoples Party, while her husband took effective control.
• One year ago: North Korea warned the world there would be no softening of its position toward South Korea's government following Kim Jong Il's death as Pyongy

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