January 28, 1981 (Wednesday)
- President Reagan signed Executive Order 12287, immediately ending all United States federal price and allocation controls on gasoline and fuel oil. Price controls had been in effect since 1971. Although the short-term effect was a rise in gas prices, American oil companies increased their production and created an oil glut by summer.
- Paquisha War: Ecuador and Peru fought a war after Ecuadorian forces had established an outpost 40 miles (64 km) into territory that had been lost to Peru in 1942. Despite initial reports by Peru of hundreds of deaths on both sides, Ecuador acknowledged that two of its soldiers were killed, and Peru had one killed and three wounded.
- Born: Elijah Wood, American actor (The Lord of the Rings), in Cedar Rapids, Iowa
Read more about this topic: January 1981
Famous quotes containing the word january:
“Here lies interred in the eternity of the past, from whence there is no resurrection for the days—whatever there may be for the dust—the thirty-third year of an ill-spent life, which, after a lingering disease of many months sank into a lethargy, and expired, January 22d, 1821, A.D. leaving a successor inconsolable for the very loss which occasioned its existence.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)