In Eng Foong Ho v Attorney-General, the Court of Appeal of Singapore held that equality before the law was satisfied by a "reasonable nexus" between state action and the object of the law.
5 January 943
A Saturday in history
Weekday
Saturday
Season
Winter (N. Hemisphere)
Century
10th century
Records
352
2009
2008Mikheil Saakashvili was decisively re-elected as President of Georgia in "the first genuinely competitive presidential election" in the history of the country.
2007The Taiwan High Speed Rail opened, connecting Taipei and Kaohsiung.
2005The dwarf planet Eris was discovered by a team using images from the Samuel Oschin telescope at Palomar Observatory.
2003The Metropolitan Police arrested six people in conjunction with an alleged terrorist plot to release ricin on the London Underground, although no toxin was found.
2000Sri Lankan Tamil politician Kumar Ponnambalam was killed in an assassination suspected to have been sanctioned by President Chandrika Kumaratunga.
1991Georgian troops attacked Tskhinvali, the South Ossetian capital, beginning the First South Ossetia War.
1991The embassy of the United States to Somalia was evacuated by helicopter airlift days after violence enveloped Mogadishu during the Somali Civil War.
1976The Troubles: In response to the killings of six Catholics the previous night, South Armagh Republican Action Force gunmen killed ten Protestants in County Armagh, Northern Ireland.
1975The bulk carrier Lake Illawarra struck a bridge over the River Derwent in Hobart, Australia, causing the deaths of seven of the ship's crewmen and five motorists on the bridge.
1970A magnitude-7.1 earthquake struck Tonghai County in southern China, killing at least 10,000 people and eventually spurring the creation of the nation's largest earthquake monitoring system.
1949In his State of the Union speech, U.S. president Harry S. Truman (pictured) announced: "Every segment of our population, and every individual, has a right to expect from his government a fair deal."
1941Second World War: Australian and British troops defeated Italian forces in Bardia, Libya, the first battle of the war in which an Australian Army formation took part.
1933Construction began on the Golden Gate Bridge across the Straits of the Golden Gate, the entrance to San Francisco Bay.
1925Nellie Tayloe Ross was inaugurated as Governor of Wyoming, the first woman to serve as the governor of a U.S. state.
1922Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton (pictured) died of a heart attack during his final expedition.
1919The German Workers' Party, the precursor of the Nazi Party, was founded by Anton Drexler.
1869Te Kooti's War: After surviving a five-day siege in the pā at Ngātapa, Māori leader Te Kooti escaped from New Zealand's Armed Constabulary.
1757King Louis XV survived an assassination attempt by Robert-François Damiens, who later became the last person in France to be executed by drawing and quartering.
1675Franco-Dutch War: French troops defeated Austrian and Brandenburg forces at the Battle of Turckheim (pictured) in Alsace.
Photo archive
24 historic images from this day — tap to open the gallery.
What was life like?
Prices, jobs, food, music and everyday routine — the world as it felt to live in.
Sources & fact check
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