This Day in HISTORY
TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT
2004: Saddam Hussein appears in Iraqi court for the first time, scoffing at charges of war crimes and genocide.
OTHER EVENTS
1847: The US Post Office issues the first adhesive-backed stamps.
1867: The provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec, and Ontario officially become the Dominion of Canada.
1910: South Africa becomes a dominion of British Empire, after the British defeat the Dutch settlers in the Boer War (18991902).
1916: The British army attacks German lines at the start the First Battle of the Somme during World War I, sustaining their heaviest casualties ever in one day: 20,000 dead.
1921: Revolutionaries Mao Zedong and Chen Duxiu, who turned to Marxism after the
1917 Bolshevik revolution victory in Russia, secretly meet and establish the Communist Party of China.
1961: Algerians vote overwhelmingly for independence from France.
1962: Rwanda and Burundi gain independence from Belgium.
1967: China’s Communist
Party proclaims the overthrow of President Liu Shaoqi.
1968: Britain, Soviet Union, United States and 58 non-nuclear nations sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
1969: Denmark becomes the first country in the world to allow the sale and production of pornography after adult censorship is lifted.
1974: Australia’s road signs switch from imperial to metric; President Juan Peron of Argentina dies during his third term in office.
1983: Australia’s High Court rules against building the controversial Gordon-belowfranklin dam in Tasmania.
1990: Economies and social welfare systems of East and West Germany are officially merged.
1991: After the democratic revolutions of 1989 in eastern Europe, the Warsaw Pact is declared “non-existent” at a final meeting in Czechoslovakia.
1994: Palestine Liberation Organisation leader Yasser Arafat drives from Egypt into Gaza, ending his 27-year exile and returning with all the trappings of a head of State.
1996: The world’s first voluntary euthanasia law takes effect in the Northern Territory.
1997: After 156 years as a British colony, Hong Kong awakens to its first day as part of China. Prince Charles and former Governor Chris Patten leave aboard the royal yacht Britannia.
1999: Queen Elizabeth II opens Scotland’s first Parliament in nearly 300 years.
2001: Twenty-seven slashed bodies are found in Aceh,
Indonesia, where more than
870 people have been killed in a separatist war by the Free Aceh Movement or GAM rebels.
2002: A Boeing 757 cargo jet crashes mid-air into a Russian passenger airliner over southern Germany, killing 71.
2008: France’s army chief resigns following a weekend military show in which 16 people were wounded when real bullets were used instead of blanks.
2009: Iran’s embattled Opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi tells supporters “it’s not yet too late” to push for their rights, and he joins a reformist ex-president in condemning the regime for a post-election crackdown both said was tantamount to a coup.
2010: Surgeon Jayant Patel,
60, is sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment for the manslaughter of three patients and causing grievous bodily harm to a fourth, while director of surgery at Bundaberg Base Hospital between 2003 and 2005.
2011: The Australian Greens gain the balance of power for the first time in the senate, with nine sitting members.
2012: A pro-democracy heckler interrupts a speech by China’s President Hu Jintao at the swearing-in of Hong Kong’s new leader.
2012: The carbon tax comes into effect, with the US$23 per tonne price on emissions directly impacting 294 electricity generators and other companies.
2013: Demonstrations by millions across Egypt call for the resignation of President Mohammed Morsi.
2014: David Greenglass, a spy for the Soviet Union who spent ten years in prison for his role in the cold war, and who gave testimony that sent his brotherin-law and sister, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, to the electric chair, dies, aged 92.
2015: The United Nations’
World Heritage Committee decides against declaring the Great Barrier Reef is “in danger”, but it will remain under close watch for four years; US and Cuba agree to open embassies in each other’s country, ending 50 years of detente.
2016: British Home Secretary Theresa May emerges as the front-runner to lead the Conservative Party after David Cameron’s resignation following the Brexit vote.
2017: Cardinal George Pell hires top criminal barrister Robert Richter, QC, to help defend him on charges of historical sexual assault.
TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, German philosopher and mathematician (1646-1716);
George Sand (Armandine Dudevant), French author (18041876); Charles Laughton, Britishborn actor (1899-1965); James Cagney, US actor (1904-1986);
Olivia de Havilland, British actress
(1916-2020); Sydney Pollack, American film director (19342008); Diana, Princess of Wales
(1961-1997); Sir Seretse Khama, first president of Botswana (19211980); Twyla Tharp, US dancer/ choreographer (1941- ); Deborah Harry, US singer (1945- ); Carl Lewis, US Olympic athlete (1961); Nick Giannopoulos, Australian comedian (1963- ); Pamela Anderson, US actress (1967- ); Liv
Tyler, American actress (1977- )