This Day in HISTORY
TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT
1964: US civil rights leader Reverend Dr Martin Luther King Jr wins the Nobel Peace Prize.
OTHER EVENTS
1806: Napoleon Bonaparte defeats Prussians at Jena, and Saxons at Auerstadt. 1912: Theodore Roosevelt, campaigning for the US presidency, is shot in the chest in Milwaukee. The bullet hit a metal eyeglasses case and a thick paper copy of a speech he was to give, making the wound relatively shallow, and he went ahead with the scheduled speech. 1939: A German submarine sinks the British battleship HMS Royal Oak in Scapa Flow, with loss of 833 lives. 1944: British and Greek troops liberate Athens from Germans; German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel commits suicide rather than face execution for allegedly conspiring against Adolf Hitler. 1947: US Air Force Captain Chuck Yeager becomes the first person to fly faster than sound, as he tests a rocket-powered research plane over California. 1960: The idea of a Peace Corps is first suggested by Democratic US presidential candidate John F Kennedy to an audience of students at the University of Michigan. 1964: US civil rights leader Reverend Dr Martin Luther King Jr wins the Nobel Peace Prize. 1968: The first live telecast from a manned US spacecraft is transmitted from Apollo 7. 1982: Vietnam turns over to US officials the remains of five Americans believed to have been murdered in Cambodia under Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge regime. 1986: Holocaust survivor and human rights advocate Elie Wiesel wins the Nobel Peace Prize. 1989: Jordan officially launches its first national election campaign in 22 years. 1991: Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi wins the Nobel Peace Prize for her struggle to achieve democracy in her homeland. 1992: A judge in Rostov-ondon, Russia, convicts Andrei Chikatilo of the sex murders of 52 children and young women over a 12-year period. The horrific nature of the crimes makes Chikatilo one of the worst serial killers in history. 1994: Israeli leaders Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres share the Nobel Peace Prize with PLO leader Yasser Arafat. 1997: Dozens of protesters shouting “Clinton go home!” burn an effigy of US President Bill Clinton and throw manure on his limousine, marring an otherwise smooth visit to Brazil. 1998: Wole Soyinka, Nobel laureate and a critic of the Nigerian Government, returns to his homeland for the first time in four years and is greeted by jubilant crowds. 1999: Former Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere, the father of Tanzanian independence and a symbol of Africa’s hopes as it emerged from the shadow of colonial rule, dies at 77 of leukaemia. 2002: Britain suspends the Northern Ireland assembly, saying direct British rule was being introduced over the province because of “a loss of confidence on both sides of the community”. It was the fourth suspension since December 1999. 2003: John Allen Muhammad, one of two suspects in a series of October 2002 sniper shootings in the Washington, DC, area that killed 10 people and wounded three others, pleads not guilty to four murder charges. 2005: The famed La Scala opera house closes its doors along with most other Italian theatres and cinemas as performers and staff go on strike against planned government budget cuts they say will cripple funding for the arts. 2008: Syria formally recognises Lebanon by establishing diplomatic relations with the nation. 2009: Iraq’s Government says at least 85,000 Iraqis were killed from 2004 to 2008, officially answering one of the biggest questions of the conflict — how many perished in the sectarian violence that nearly led to a civil war? 2010: The United States endorses fragile Afghan efforts to negotiate peace with the Taliban, backing off its prior stance that talks with the Taliban were premature until the war is all but won. 2011: Britain’s defence minister Liam Fox quits his post after days of allegations about the influence-peddling of a close personal friend who joined key visits overseas and posed as an unofficial aide. 2012: Extreme athlete Felix Baumgartner lands gracefully on earth after a 24-mile 39-kilometre) jump from the stratosphere in a daring, dramatic feat that officials say made him the first skydiver to fall faster than the speed of sound. 2013: Gunmen in Syria release three Red Cross staffers and a Red Crescent volunteer who had been kidnapped in the rebel-held territory.
TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS
Eamon de Valera, Irish statesman (1882-1975); Dwight D Eisenhower, US general and 34th US president (1890-1969); Mobuto Sese Seko, Zairian dictator (1930-1997), Cliff Richard, British singer (1940- ); Roger Moore, British actor (1927- ).