Current events of 23 January 2008 (2008-01-23) (Wednesday) edit history watch

20 people are killed in a military transport plane crash near Mirosławiec, northern Poland; senior Polish Air Force officers are among the victims. (BBC News) Scaled Composites SpaceShipTwo, being built for Virgin Galactic to become the world's first commercial spacecraft, is unveiled, and will begin test flights in mid-2008. (BBC News) Contractors for the Big Dig project pay $400 million to settle a lawsuit from the Massachusetts government over a fatal tunnel collapse and associated flaws. (AP via Google News) January 2008 stock market downturn: Asian stock markets recover, with the Hong Kong Hang Seng Index rising 10.7% and the Mumbai BSE Sensex rising 5.2%, but European markets are still weak, with the London FTSE 100 Index, the Paris CAC 40 and the Frankfurt DAX all posting significant losses. (AP via Yahoo! Finance) Despite early added losses, as much as 323 points, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closes up 298.98 points (2.5%) to 12,270.17. (AP via Yahoo! Finance) Thousands of Palestinians flee into Egypt, as the border wall with Gaza in Rafah is blown up by militants. (BBC News) (AP via Google News) Police in Zimbabwe arrest Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of the Movement for Democratic Change, the principal opposition party. (ABC News Australia)