This Day in HISTORY
TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT
1998: The European Union lifts a worldwide export ban on British beef. The ban was imposed after experts announced a possible link between “mad cow” disease and a fatal disease in humans.
OTHER EVENTS
1499: Perkin Warbeck, pretender to English throne, is executed.
1531: Peace of Kappel ends second civil war in Switzerland.
1848: The Female Medical Educational Society is established in Boston, Massachusetts, the same year the all-male American Medical Association is formed.
1890: Grand Duchy of Luxembourg is separated from the Netherlands.
1891: Deodoroda Fonseca, first president of Brazil, is ousted by a navy revolt.
1936: Life magazine, created by American Henry R Luce, is first published.
1943: US forces defeat Japanese in Pacific battle of Tarawa in World War II.
1945: Most US wartime rationing of foods, including meat and butter, ends.
1971: China takes seat as a permanent member of UN
Security Council.
1986: Philippine President Corazon Aquino dismisses defence chief Juan Ponce Enrile after reported coup attempt.
1989: At least 300,000 people jam Prague’s Wenceslas Square to demand democratic reforms in Czechoslovakia.
1990: Iraq ends curfew in occupied Kuwait, but begins calling up army reservists in their thirties.
1993: Record cold is blamed for at least 34 deaths in parts of Europe and prompts the French army to send out troops to feed the homeless in Paris.
1997: Somali villagers isolated for weeks by flooding finally receive aid from boats travelling down the Juba river.
1999: Kuwait’s Parliament rejects a decree giving women the right to vote and run for office.
2000: The US presidential election stretches into the Thanksgiving Day holiday without a president-elect as the fierce tug of war between George W Bush and Al Gore over Florida’s crucial electoral votes reaches the US Supreme Court.
2003: Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze resigns in the face of massive, almost daily protests that followed the flawed November 2 parliamentary elections.
2005: Ellen Johnson-sirleaf is confirmed as the winner in Liberia’s first post-war elections. The new president says her victory marks a new beginning for her country and for African women.
2006: In London, a rare radioactive substance is used to kill EX-KGB spy turned Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko, who called Russian President Vladimir Putin “barbaric and ruthless” and blamed him personally for the poisoning.
2007: Lebanon’s political tumult intensifies as President Emile Lahoud leaves office at the end of his term without a successor and hands security powers to the army. The rival, pro-western Cabinet rejects the declaration.
2008: President Hugo
Chavez’s allies win a majority in Venezuela’s state and municipal elections, but the Opposition makes important gains.
2009: The world’s largest atom smasher makes another leap forward by circulating beams of protons in opposite directions at the same time and causing the first particle collisions in the $10-billion machine after more than a year of repairs.
2010: In a seismic shift on one of the most profound — and profoundly contentious — Roman Catholic teachings, the Vatican says that condoms are the lesser of two evils when used to curb the spread of AIDS, even if their use prevents a pregnancy.
2011: Yemen’s autocratic leader Ali Abdullah Saleh agrees to step down after months of demonstrations against his 33year rule, pleasing the US and its Gulf allies.
TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS
Thomas Birch, English historian (1705-1766); Boris Karloff, British-born actor (1887-1969); Paul Celan, Romanian poet (1920-1970); Vo Van Kiet, former Vietnamese prime minister (19222008); Krzysztof Penderecki,
Polish composer (1933- ); Bruce Hornsby, US singer (1954- );
Oded Fehr, Israeli actor (1970- )