Today is the 321st day of 2020. There are 45 days left in the year.
TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT
2010: A rare pink diamond smashes the world record for a jewel at auction in Geneva, selling for more than $46 million to a well-known gem dealer.
OTHER EVENTS
1532: In Peru, Spanish explorer Francisco Pizarro takes Inca emperor Atahuallpa prisoner at a feast in his honour and slaughters thousands of his followers.
1632: King Gustavus II of Sweden, “the Lion of the North”, is killed while defeating Holy Roman Empire troops at the Battle of Luetzen, now in Germany.
1848: A liberal insurrection breaks out in Rome, eventually forcing the pope to flee.
1864: Union General William Sherman and his 62,000 troops begin the celebrated “March to the Sea” in Georgia, from Atlanta to Savannah on the Atlantic coast, a crushing defeat to the Confederates in the American Civil War.
1933: Brazil’s President Getulio Vargas assumes dictatorial powers; United States and
Soviet Union establish diplomatic relations.
1941: Nazi Germany launches second failed assault on Moscow in World War II.
1949: Mohammed Reza
Shah Pahlevi, the Shah of Iran, begins a month-long state visit to the United States to discuss military and economic plans with US President Harry Truman. Iran launches a $650-million seven-year plan of economic development and social welfare.
1959: The Rogers and Hammerstein musical The Sound of Music opens on Broadway in New York.
1966: Dr Samuel H Sheppard, who served 10 years in an Ohio penitentiary, is acquitted in his second trial on charges for the murder of his pregnant wife, Marilyn, in 1954.
1967: Twenty-three Turkish Cypriots die fighting on the island of Cyprus.
1970: Pakistani officials say at least a quarter-of-a-million people perish in a typhoon and tidal wave that struck the Bay of Bengal.
1973: Skylab 3, carrying a crew of three astronauts, is launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on an 84-day mission.
1975: A study of the US tax system concludes that the
Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is inconsistent and arbitrary in its practices. The report was the first significant outside investigation of IRS practices in 30 years.
1983: Syrian-backed rebel forces overrun Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Chairman Yasser Arafat’s last military stronghold in Lebanon, the Beddawi refugee camp on the northern outskirts of Tripoli.
1989: The heart of an Israeli soldier who was ambushed and killed by Arabs in the occupied territories is transplanted into the chest of a dying Palestinian man; President F W de Klerk promises repeal of law allowing segregation of public facilities in South Africa.
1990: Hungary announces it will scrap its Soviet-made, ground-toground missiles.
1991: Boris Yeltsin issues a series of decrees that effectively transfer control of his republic’s economy from the Soviet central government to the Russian Federation.
1992: Adding to sanctions, the United Nations orders a naval blockade of Yugoslavia.
1994: Ukrainian Parliament approves Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
1995: An international war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, indicts two Bosnian Serb leaders — Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic — in the killings of Muslims in Srebrenica.
1996: A building housing Russian military personnel and their families near Chechnya collapses after an explosion, killing and trapping 13 people.
1997: Citing medical reasons, China frees its most well-known democracy advocate, Wei Jingsheng, and puts him on a plane to the United States.
1998: Judges at the war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, pass down their first convictions for crimes against Bosnian Serbs. A Bosnian Croat and two Muslims are convicted for murdering, torturing and raping Serb prisoners in 1992.
1999: The United Nations says it failed to help save thousands of Bosnian Muslims from mass murder by Serbs in 1995 because of errors and misjudgement. Over 2,500 bodies have been found and experts predict thousands more will be discovered.
2002: Spain’s King Juan Carlos II and his wife, Queen Sofia, arrive in Mexico City for a four-day State visit. The itinerary includes a session at the Mexican Congress and a visit to President Vicente Fox’s northern ranch.
2003: Voters in Serbia and Montenegro fail for the third time to elect a president with turnout reaching only about 39 per cent in the balloting.
2004: A prominent Jewish group presses Croatia to seek the extradition and prosecution of Milivoj Aschnera, a 91-year-old Nazi-era war crimes suspect who recently fled to Austria.
2005: Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan urges citizens to be calm and reasonable after a Kurdish demonstrator is seriously injured from gunfire — the latest casualty in week-long clashes between angry Kurds and security officials.
2006: Pakistan says it has successfully test-fired a new version of its nuclear-capable medium-range missile, a show of power a day after peace talks with India.
2007: North and South Korea agree to launch cross-border rail service for the first time in more than half-a-century, the latest sign of improving relations between the two sides.
2008: Iraq’s Cabinet overwhelmingly approves a security pact with the United States, ending prolonged negotiations to allow American forces to remain for three more years in the country they first occupied in 2003.
2009: President Barack Obama declares the world is urgently watching for a “meeting of the minds” between the US and China as he meets in Beijing with President Hu Jintao on the globe’s biggest issues — climate change, economic recession, nuclear proliferation, and more.
2011: President Barack Obama says he will send military aircraft and up to 2,500 Marines to northern Australia for a training hub to help allies and protect American interests across Asia, signalling US determination to counter a rising China.
TODAY’S BIRTHDAY
Tiberius, second Roman emperor (42 BC-AD 37); Paul Hindemith, German composer (1895-1963); George S Kaufman, US playwright (1889-1961); Jose Saramago, Portuguese writer (1922-2010); Diana Krall, Canadian jazz singer (1964- )