TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY IS TUESDAY, AUGUST 21, 2018

1770 – James Cook formally claims eastern Australia for Great Britain, naming it New South Wales.

1842 - Hobart Town, the main settlement in Van Diemen’s Land, is proclaimed a city. 1862 - Explorer John McDouall Stuart suffers blindness from scurvy during his return journey from successfully crossing Australia from Adelaide to what is now Darwin.

1911 – The Mona Lisa is stolen by Vincenzo Perugia, a Louvre employee.

1914 – World War I: The Battle of Charleroi, a successful German attack across the River Sambre that pre-empted a French offensive in the same area.

1918 – World War I: The Second Battle of the Somme begins. 1942 – World War II: The Nazi flag is planted atop Mount Elbrus, Europe’s highest peak in the Caucasus mountains, Russia.

1942 – World War II: The Guadalcanal Campaign: Allied forces defeat an attack by Japanese Army soldiers in the Battle of the Tenaru.

1944 – Dumbarton Oaks Conference, prelude to the United Nations, begins. 1944 – World War II: Canadian and Polish units capture the strategically important town of Falaise, Calvados, France. 1945 – Physicist Harry Daghlian is irradiated when a nuclear core gets out of control at Los Alamos National Laboratory in new Mexico US. He prevented a disaster but died 25 days later. The core was named the Demon core after another scientist died in tests with it. 1982 – Lebanese Civil War: The first troops of a multinational force lands in Beirut to oversee the Palestine Liberation Organization’s withdrawal from Lebanon.

1983 – Philippine Opposition Leader Benigno Aquino Jr. is assassinated at the Manila International Airport (now renamed Ninoy Aquino International Airport in his honor).

1986 - A cloud of lethal carbon dioxide gas erupts from volcanic Lake Nyos in Cameroon, West Africa, killing 1800 people within 20km. 1990 - Announcement that Australian 1 cent and 2 cent coins will be withdrawn