Today in History.....January 9

On this day in …

* 1768, the first modern circus was staged in London

* 1945, during World War II, American forces began landing at Lingayen Gulf in the Philippines

* 1957, Anthony Eden resigned as British prime minister

* 1964, anti-U.S. rioting broke out in the Panama Canal Zone, resulting in the deaths of 21 Panamanians and three U.S. soldiers

* 1968, the Surveyor 7 space probe made a soft landing on the moon, marking the end of the American series of unmanned explorations of the lunar surface

* 1972, reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes, speaking by telephone from the Bahamas to reporters in Hollywood, said a purported biography of him by Clifford Irving was a fake

* 1986, the Internal Revenue Service, for the first time, announced it would withhold income tax refunds coming to 750,000 government loan defaulters, most of them former students

* 1994, at the White House, presidential advisers prepared a public and legal defense in President Clinton's impeachment trial on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice. ALSO: Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, meanwhile, pledged "above all, fairness" to the president.

* 1995, House Speaker Newt Gingrich asked for the resignation of House historian Christina Jeffrey after it was revealed she'd once criticized a school program on the Holocaust for not including the "Nazi point of view" or that of the Ku Klux Klan