On January 8, ...

... 1961, in referenda held simultaneously in France and Algeria, voters approved a plan to give Algeria its independence after many years of French colonial rule. At the time of the vote, according to the BBC, "Algeria ha[d] the largest white settler population of any French African colony, with a million people of French descent holding power over eight million Algerian Muslims"; meanwhile, Muslims "ha[d] little political or economic power, and few legal rights, and discontent [was] at such a level that half a million French troops [we]re stationed in the country."
... 1990, Canada joined the Organization of American States, an international entity that had been established in 1948. The event culminated a governmental decision, made the previous autumn, for Canada to "become a full-fledged hemispheric actor."