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FRANK & ERNEST® By Bob Thaves SHOE By Chris Cassatt and Gary Brookins PEANUTS® By Charles Schultz HAGAR the Horrible® By Chris Browne GARFIELD® By Jim Davis DILBERT® By Scott Adams RUBES® By Leigh Rubin By Mort Walker BEETLE BAILEY® ZITS BY JERRY SCOTT & JIM BORGMAN BLONDIE® By Dean Young and Stan Drake By The Associated Press Today is Saturday, Jan. 9, the ninth day of 2010. There are 356 days left in the year. Today's Highlight in History: On Jan. 9, 1960, on his 47th birthday, Vice President Richard Nixon became a candidate for the Republican presidential nom- ination. On this date: In 1788, Connecticut became the fifth state to ratify the U.S. Constitution. In 1793, Frenchman Jean Pierre Blanchard, using a hot- air balloon, flew between Philadelphia and Woodbury, N.J. In 1861, Mississippi seceded from the Union. In 1913, Richard Milhous Nixon, the 37th president of the United States, was born in Yorba Linda, Calif. In 1945, during World War II, American forces began land- ing at Lingayen Gulf in the Philippines. In 1964, anti-U.S. rioting broke out in the Panama Canal Zone, resulting in the deaths of 21 Panamanians and several U.S. soldiers. In 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. In 1972, reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes, speaking by telephone from the Bahamas to reporters in Hollywood, said a purported autobiography of him by Clifford Irving was a fake. In 1995, in New York, the trial of Sheik Omar Abdel-Rah- man and 11 other defendants accused of conspiring to wage holy war against the United States began. (All the defendants were convicted of seditious conspiracy, except for two who reached plea agreements with the government.) In 1997, a Comair commuter plane crashed 18 miles short of the Detroit Metropolitan Airport, killing all 29 people on board. Ten years ago: The controversial ''Sensation'' art exhibit ended its three-month run at the Brooklyn Museum, which had gotten into a fight with New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani over what the mayor called the exhibit's offensive anti-Catholic content. Five years ago: Mahmoud Abbas, the No. 2 man in the Palestinian hierarchy during Yasser Arafat's rule, was elect- ed president of the Palestinian Authority by a landslide. Sudan's vice president (Ali Osman Mohammed Taha) and the coun- try's main rebel leader (John Garang) signed a comprehen- sive peace agreement, concluding an eight-year process to stop a civil war in the south. One year ago: The Illinois House voted 114-1 to impeach Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who defiantly insisted again that he had committed no crime. (The Illinois Senate unanimously voted to remove Blagojevich from office 20 days later.) Pres- ident-elect Barack Obama announced he had picked retired Adm. Dennis Blair to be the national intelligence director and Leon Panetta to head the CIA. A Saudi supertanker, the Sir- ius Star, and its crew of 25 were released at the end of a two- month standoff in the Gulf of Aden after pirates were report- edly paid $3 million in ransom. Today's Birthdays: Author Judith Krantz is 82. Football Hall-of-Famer Bart Starr is 76. Sportscaster Dick Enberg is 75. Actress K. Callan is 74. Folk singer Joan Baez is 69. Rock- abilly singer Roy Head is 69. Actress Susannah York is 69. Rock musician Jimmy Page (Led Zeppelin) is 66. Singer David Johansen (aka Buster Poindexter) is 60. Singer Crystal Gayle is 59. Actor J.K. Simmons is 55. Nobel Peace laureate and human rights activist Rigoberto Menchu is 51. Rock musi- cian Eric Erlandson is 47. Actress Joely Richardson is 45. Rock musician Carl Bell (Fuel) is 43. Rock singer Steve Harwell (Smash Mouth) is 43. Rock singer-musician Dave Matthews is 43. Actress-director Joey Lauren Adams is 42. Singer A.J. McLean (Backstreet Boys) is 32. Pop-rock musician Drew Brown (OneRepublic) is 26. Thought for Today: ''Living is a form of not being sure, not knowing what next or how. The moment you know how, you begin to die a little. The artist never entirely knows. We guess. We may be wrong, but we take leap after leap in the dark.'' — Agnes de Mille, American dancer-choreographer (1905-1993). Today in History ALLEY OOP Saturday, January 9, 2010 – Daily News – 3B