This day in history

[January 03, 2012]  (AP)  Today is Tuesday, Jan. 3, the third day of 2012. There are 363 days left in the year.

Today's highlight in history:

On Jan. 3, 1959, Alaska became the 49th state as President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed a proclamation.

On this date:

In 1521, Martin Luther was excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church by Pope Leo X.

In 1777, Gen. George Washington's army routed the British in the Battle of Princeton, N.J.

In 1861, more than two weeks before Georgia seceded from the Union, the state militia seized Fort Pulaski at the order of Gov. Joseph E. Brown. The Delaware House and Senate voted to oppose secession from the Union.

In 1911, the first postal savings banks were opened by the U.S. Post Office. (The banks were abolished in 1966.)

In 1938, the March of Dimes campaign to fight polio was organized.

In 1949, in a pair of rulings, the U.S. Supreme Court said that states had the right to ban closed shops.

In 1958, the first six members of the newly formed U.S. Commission on Civil Rights held their first meeting at the White House.

In 1961, President Dwight D. Eisenhower announced the United States was formally terminating diplomatic and consular relations with Cuba.

In 1967, Jack Ruby, the man who shot and killed accused presidential assassin Lee Harvey Oswald, died in a Dallas hospital.

In 1980, conservationist Joy Adamson, author of "Born Free," was killed in northern Kenya by a former employee.

In 1990, ousted Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega surrendered to U.S. forces, 10 days after taking refuge in the Vatican's diplomatic mission.

In 1993, President George H.W. Bush and Russian President Boris Yeltsin signed a historic nuclear missile-reduction treaty in Moscow.

Ten years ago: A three-year federal investigation into the political and personal finances of Senator Robert Torricelli (tohr-ih-SEL'-ee), D-N.J., ended with no criminal charges. A judge in Alabama ruled that former Ku Klux Klansman Bobby Frank Cherry was mentally competent to stand trial on murder charges in the 1963 Birmingham church bombing that killed four black girls. (Cherry was later convicted, and served a life sentence until his death in Nov. 2004.) No. 1 Miami beat No. 4 Nebraska 37-14 in the Rose Bowl.

Five years ago: Gerald R. Ford was laid to rest on the grounds of his presidential museum in Grand Rapids, Mich., during a ceremony watched by thousands of onlookers. Four Americans and an Austrian abducted in southern Iraq spoke briefly and appeared uninjured in a video delivered to The Associated Press. (The men, security contractors for the Crescent Security Group based in Kuwait, were later killed by their captors.)

One year ago: Democrat Jerry Brown was sworn in as California's 39th governor, returning to the office he'd left 28 years earlier. Prosecutors in Dallas declared Cornelius Dupree Jr. innocent of a rape and robbery that had put him in prison for 30 years, longer than any other DNA exoneree in Texas.

Today's birthdays: Record producer Sir George Martin is 86. Actor Robert Loggia is 82. Actor Dabney Coleman is 80. Journalist-author Betty Rollin is 76. Hockey Hall-of-Famer Bobby Hull is 73. Singer-songwriter-producer Van Dyke Parks is 69. Musician Stephen Stills is 67. Rock musician John Paul Jones (Led Zeppelin) is 66. Actress Victoria Principal is 62. Actor-director Mel Gibson is 56. Actress Shannon Sturges is 44. Jazz musician James Carter is 43. Contemporary Christian singer Nichole Nordeman is 40. Actor Jason Marsden is 37. Actress Danica McKellar is 37. Actor Nicholas Gonzalez is 36. Singer Kimberley Locke ("American Idol") is 34. NFL quarterback Eli Manning is 31. Rhythm-and-blues singer Lloyd is 26. Pop-rock musician Nash Overstreet (Hot Chelle (shel) Rae) is 26. Actor Alex D. Linz is 23.

Thought for today: "Not all who wander are lost." -- J.R.R. Tolkien, English author (born this date in 1892, died in 1973)

[Associated Press]

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