TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY IS TUESDAY, AUGUST 1, 2017

On this day in history:

1498 - Christopher Columbus landed on Isla Santa (Venezuela).

1834 - Slavery was outlawed in the British empire with an emancipation bill.

1853 - The Bendigo Goldfields petition, calling for the granting of more rights for miners, is presented before Governor La Trobe.

1894 - The first Sino-Japanese War erupted. The dispute was over control of Korea.

1914 - Germany declared war on Russia at the beginning of the First World War.

1936 - Adolf Hitler presided over the Olympic Games as they opened in Berlin.

1943 - In the Solomon Islands, the US Navy patrol torpedo boat PT-109 sank after being hit by the Japanese destroyer Amagiri. The boat was under the command of Lt John F Kennedy. Eleven of the 13 crew survived.

1944 - In Warsaw, Poland, an uprising against Nazi occupation began. The revolt continued until October 2 when Polish forces surrendered. 1949 - The Snowy Mountains Authority comes into being, initiating Australia’s greatest feat of engineering in the 20th century.

1949 - The Australian government sends in army troops to work the mines during the extensive Coal Miner’s Strike, effectively ending the strike.

1957 - The North American Air Defense Command (NORAD) was created by the United States and Canada.

1973 - The movie American Graffiti opened.

1975 - The Helsinki accords pledged the signatory nations to respect human rights. 1986 - John McEnroe and Tatum O’Neal were married. 1998 - The US books and music chain Borders opens its first European outlet with a 40,000-square-foot store on London’s Oxford Street. 2006 - Cuban leader Fidel Castro turned over absolute power when he gave his brother Raul authority while he underwent an intestinal surgery.

2008 – Eleven mountaineers from international expeditions died on K2, the second-highest mountain on Earth in the worst single accident in the history of K2 mountaineering.