TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY IS TUESDAY, AUGUST 29, 2017 On this day in history:

28 - John the Baptist is beheaded in the first century.

70 - Romans begin their destruction of Jerusalem and the Jewish temple. 1817 - Explorers Oxley and Evans return to Bathurst after unsuccessfully following the Lachlan River. 1833 - The Factory Act was passed in England to settle child labour laws.

1842 - The Treaty of Nanking was signed by the British and the Chinese. The treaty ended the first Opium War and gave the island of Hong Kong to Britain.

1941 - Arthur Fadden, the second of five men who served as Australian Prime Minister during the Second World War, is sworn into office.

1944 - During the continuing celebration of the liberation of France from the Nazis, 15,000 American troops marched down the Champs Elysees in Paris.

1945 - US General Douglas MacArthur left for Japan to officially accept the surrender of the Japanese. 1983 - Two US marines were killed in Lebanon by the militia group Amal when they fired mortar shells at the Beirut airport.

1990 - Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, in a television interview, declared that America could not defeat Iraq.

1991 - The Communist Party in the Soviet Union had its bank accounts frozen and activities were suspended because of the Party’s role in the failed coup attempt against Mikhail Gorbachev. 1991 - The republics of Russia and Ukraine signed an agreement to stay in the Soviet Union.

1992 - The UN Security Council agreed to send troops to Somalia to guard the shipments of food. 2004 - India test-launched a nuclear-capable missile able to carry a one-ton warhead. The weapon had a range of 1,560 miles.