Milestones

ENGAGED. PRINCESS SAYAKO, 35, to Yoshiki Kuroda, a 39-year-old government employee; in Tokyo. The princess, who is the only daughter of Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko, drew praise from many single Japanese women for her decision to delay marriage until she found the right partner. Her fianc is an urban planner for the Tokyo metropolitan administration and is reported to be a close school friend of the princess’s elder brother, Prince Fumihito.

HONORED. VIJAY SINGH, 41, Fijian golfer; as PGA Player of the Year, ending Tiger Woods’ five-year grip on the award; in New York City. Singh, who also took the Arnold Palmer Award for winning the most prize money (more than $10 million), racked up nine PGA victories and 18 top-10 finishes for the year. He is the first non-U.S. golfer to be named Player of the Year since Australia’s Greg Norman in 1995.

LANDED. UNITED AIRLINES FLIGHT 869 FROM SAN FRANCISCO TO HO CHI MINH CITY, on Friday night, the first U.S. airline to fly to Vietnam since the Communist takeover in 1975. The flight will run daily until at least Tet, the Vietnamese new year in February, for which up to 200,000 overseas Vietnamese return home.

REOPENED. LA SCALA, celebrated Italian opera house; after a three-year, $81 million renovation; in Milan. The event drew 2,000 VIPs, including Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and actress Sophia Loren, and featured a performance of Antonio Salieri’s Europa Revealed, La Scala’s inaugural opera in 1778.

DIED. JAY VAN ANDEL, 80, billionaire co-founder of direct-sales behemoth Amway; in Ada, Michigan. With his childhood friend Richard DeVos, Van Andel founded the company in the pair’s basements in 1959 and built it into a worldwide network of individual distributors who sold cosmetics and furniture polish and earned a cut for recruiting others. In the 1970s the U.S. government investigated Amway, suspecting it was a pyramid scheme, but the charges were never proved. In 2000, Amway became part of a larger sales and business-services company, Alticor Inc., formed by Van Andel’s and DeVos’ families.

DIED. FREDERICK FENNELL, 90, conductor credited with inventing the contemporary woodwind ensemble; in Siesta Key, Florida. His innovative recordings for Mercury Records, starting in the 1950s, helped create a model for the more than 20,000 wind ensembles in U.S. schools.

DIED. SHIING-SHEN CHERN, 93, mathematician whose “new geometry” theories on how the curvature of a surface can help determine an object’s shape influenced fields from theoretical physics to computer graphics; in Tianjin, China. As a teacher, Chern was also influentialso much so that Robert Uomini, a former student of his at the University of California, Berkeley, set up a chair for him at the school with funds from the $22 million Uomini won in the California state lottery in 1995.

RECUPERATING. DICK CLARK, 75, veteran TV producer and ex-American Bandstand host; after suffering a mild stroke; in the Los Angeles area. He said he was hopeful that he would be able to emcee what has become a holiday staple: American TV’s annual Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve.

RETIRED. MIA HAMM, 32, after 17 years on the U.S. women’s national soccer squad, during which time the team won two world championships, two Olympic gold medals, worldwide fame and legions of young fans; along with teammates Julie Foudy and Joy Fawcett. After playing a final gamea 5-0 win in California against MexicoHamm, whose 158 international goals set a record for both men’s and women’s soccer, said, “It’s been a blast. We’ve done what we sought to do.”

RETIRING. JOHN W. YOUNG, 74, the world’s longest-serving astronaut; after 42 years; in Houston. Young joined NASA in 1962 following a stint in the U.S. Navy and piloted the first manned flight of the Gemini program three years later. In 1981, having previously traveled twice to the moon, he commanded Columbia on the first space-shuttle mission. He is the only astronaut to have flown four types of spacecraft.