TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY IS FRIDAY, AUGUST 11, 2017

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY:

1824 - New South Wales is constituted a Crown Colony. 1877 - The two moons of Mars were discovered by Asaph Hall, an American astronomer. He named them Phobos and Deimos. 1942 - During the Second World War, Pierre Laval publicly announced “the hour of liberation for France is the hour when Germany wins the war”.

1945 - The Allies informed Japan that they would determine Emperor Hirohito’s future status after Japan’s surrender.

1954 - Seven years of fighting came to an end in Indochina. A formal peace was in place for the French and the Communist Vietminh. 1962 - Andrian Nikolayev, of the Soviet Union, was launched on a 94-hour flight. He was the third Russian to go into space.

1984 - Carl Lewis won his fourth gold medal in the 1984 Summer Olympics.

1990 - Egyptian and Moroccan troops joined US forces in Saudi Arabia to help protect from a possible Iraqi attack.

1994 - The Tenth International Conference on AIDS ended in Japan.

1994 - A US federal jury awarded $286.8 million to about 10,000 commercial fishermen for losses as a result of the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill.

1995 - All US nuclear tests were banned by President Clinton.

1998 - British Petroleum became No. 3 among oil companies with the $49 billion purchase of Amoco. It was the largest foreign takeover of a U.S. company. 2002 - Jason Priestly crashed his car during practice for a race in the Infiniti Pro Series. He suffered a spinal fracture, a moderate concussion, a broken nose, facial lacerations and broken bones in both feet.

2003 - Charles Taylor, President of Liberia, flew into exile after ceding power to his vice president, Moses Blah.

2003 - In Kabul, NATO took command of the 5000-strong peacekeeping force in Afghanistan.