This Day in HISTORY
Today is the 14th day of 2021. There are 351 days left in the year.
TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT
1907: An earthquake in Jamaica destroys Kingston, takes 1,000 lives and leaves 25,000 homeless. It causes fires across the capital and triggers a tsunami on the north coast. The damage is put at $25 million.
OTHER EVENTS
1784: United States ratifies peace treaty with England, formally ending American War of Independence.
1809: England and Spain form alliance against Napoleon Bonaparte.
1814: Denmark cedes Norway to Sweden in Treaty of Kiel.
1858: Felice Orsini’s plot to assassinate Napoleon III is uncovered.
1867: Peru declares war on Spain.
1942: Forces under US General Douglas Macarthur resist Japanese attacks on Bataan in Philippines in World War II.
1950: United States recalls all consular personnel from China.
1962: At least 36 Algerians and Europeans are killed in disorder and terrorist attacks in Algeria’s major cities.
1966: Indonesia closes its mission at United Nations as it prepares to withdraw from the world organisation.
1986: Vinicio Cerezo is sworn in as Guatemala’s first civilian president in 16 years.
1991: On the eve of United Nations’ deadline for use of force in Iraq, European Community decides it is useless to send a diplomatic mission to Baghdad.
1994: Japanese police raid two companies suspected of selling electronics to the North Korean missile programme.
1995: In Colombia, leftist rebels attack police stations in several towns, killing six policemen and three other people.
1996: Alvaro Arzu is sworn in as Guatemala’s new president.
1997: In Cairo, Egypt, a crowded public bus smashes through a metal fence and plunges 35 metres (115 feet) into the Nile. At least 39 people die.
1998: The UN Security Council votes unanimously to rebuke Iraq for not giving arms inspectors full access. Iraq accuses an American arms inspector of being a spy.
1999: The US tells the World Trade Organization that US$520 million in European imports will face punitive tariffs unless an agreement is reached on the sale of US bananas.
2000: Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines agrees to pay Alaska US$3.5 million for dumping toxic chemicals — including dry-cleaning fluid — and oilcontaminated water into the state’s waters.
2001: Cambodia’s Senate approves a law to create a tribunal to try Khmer Rouge leaders. A Cabinet minister says the court will spare no leader of the murderous regime.
2002: The US House Energy and Commerce Committee releases a letter sent in August 2001 by an executive of Enron Corp to Kenneth Lay, the energy company’s chairman and chief executive officer, pointing out improprieties in the nowbankrupt Enron’s accounting practices.
2003: The US Food and
Drug Administration suspends 27 US gene therapy trials after a second child in four months develops leukemia-like symptoms in a French trial that used a similar technique.
2004: In a new signal that Libya is serious about renouncing its weapons of mass destruction, the North African country ratifies the nuclear test ban treaty despite the fact that its nuclear programme was far from producing a weapon. The treaty is yet 12 nations short of the 44 ratifications needed for it to enter into force.
2005: In Sri Lanka, the infant dubbed Baby 81 nurses from a bottle of milk and kicks playfully at a pink blanket as nine desperate, heartbroken women quarrel over him — all claiming he was torn from them by the tsunami.
2007: Iran and Nicaragua announce that they will open embassies in each other’s capitals as Iran’s hard-line President Ahmadinejad courts leftist allies in Latin America to offset Washington’s global influence.
2008: Militants with suicidebomb vests, grenades and AK-47 rifles attack Kabul’s most popular luxury hotel as the Norwegian Embassy holds a meeting. At least eight people, including one American and one Norwegian, are killed.
2009: A French court acquits six doctors and pharmacists in the deaths of at least 114 people who contracted a brain-destroying disease after being treated with tainted human growth hormones.
2010: Protesters enraged over soaring unemployment and corruption drive Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben
Ali from power after 23 years of iron-fisted rule, an unprecedented popular uprising in a region dominated by strongmen who do not answer to their people.
2012: The luxury cruise ship Concordia runs aground off the coast of Tuscany, gashing open the hull and forcing some 4,200 people to evacuate aboard lifeboats to a nearby island. The crash killed 32 people.
TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS
Valdemar I, the Great, Danish king (1131-1182); Zacharias Topelius, Finnish writer (18181898); Albert Schweitzer, French missionary-doctor-musician, Nobel Peace Prize laureate (18751965); Giulio Andreotti, former Italian prime minister (19192013); Faye Dunaway, US actress (1941-)