TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY IS MONDAY, AUGUST 13, 2018

On this day in history:

1521 - Spain’s Hernando Cortez captures from the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan - present day Mexico City.

1792 - French revolutionaries arrested the entire French royal family and imprisoned them. 1817 - Explorer John Oxley discovers the Bogan River in central western NSW. 1868 A massive earthquake near Arica, Peru, causes more than 25,000 deaths and the subsequent tsunami causes considerable damage as far away as Hawaii and New Zealand.

1898 Spanish American War: Spanish and American forces engaged in a mock battle for Manila, after which the Spanish commander surrendered in order to keep the city out of Filipino rebel hands.

1932 - Adolf Hitler refused to take the post of vice-chancellor of Germany. He was going to hold out “for all or nothing”. 1940 - World War II: Three Cabinet ministers die when their aircraft crashes in Canberra.

1941 - World War II: The Australian Women’s Army Service is formed.

1942 World War II: The U.S. Army begins building facilities to house the Manhattan Project to develop the world’s first atom bombs.

1942 - Henry Ford unveiled his Soybean Car. It was a plastic-bodied car that weighed about 450kg less than a steel car.

1960 - Echo I, a balloon satellite, allowed the first two-way telephone conversation by satellite. 1961 - East Germany closes the border between the east and west of Berlin with a barbed wire fence to thwart attempts to escape to the West. This will become the Berlin Wall. 1989 - Thirteen people die in the world’s worst hot-air balloon crash, near Alice Springs.

1990 - Iraq moved $4 billion in bullion, currency and other goods seized from Kuwait to Baghdad.

1992 - Woody Allen began legal action to win custody of his three children. A judge ruled against Allen in 1993.

2015 At least 76 people are killed and 212 others are wounded in a truck bombing in Baghdad, Iraq.