Subscribe | UPI Odd Newsletter Subscribe Today is Jan. 18. It was on this date in 1701 that Frederick III of Brandenburg was crowned as King Frederick I of Prussia. Then, on this date in 1871, William of Prussia was crowned the first German emperor in a nice little ceremony at Versailles. Advertisement Indira Gandhi, daughter of the late Indian leader Nehru, became prime minister of India on this date in 1966. Her son Rajiv would, in turn, become prime minister following his mother's assassination in Oct. 1984. Rajiv Gandhi also would be killed, by a suicide bomber, while campaigning. Moscow announced on this date in 1943 that the 16-month Nazi siege of Leningrad had been lifted. Leningrad used to be, and today once again is, St. Petersburg, the second-biggest city in Russia. It was on this date in 1990 that Washington, D.C., Mayor Marion Barry was arrested in an FBI sting at a hotel in the capital. He was charged with buying and smoking crack cocaine. (He was videotaped doing it.) The same day Marion Barry was arrested, a Los Angeles jury in the nation's longest criminal trial acquitted Raymond Buckey, 31, and his mother, Peggy McMartin Buckey, 63, on 52 charges of molestation of students at the McMartin Pre-School. A mistrial was declared on the 13 other counts. All charges were dropped against Mrs. Buckey. Her son was retried later in the year, with the trial ending in a hung jury July 27. All remaining charges were dropped Aug. 1. Advertisement And it was on this date in 1996 that Lisa Marie Presley, the daughter of "The King" Elvis Presley, filed for divorce from the self-proclaimed "Prince of Pop" Michael Jackson after 20 months of marriage. The court documents cited irreconcilable difference. We now return you to the present, already in progress.
