This Day in HISTORY
Today is the 59th day of 2024. There are 307 days left in the year.
TODAY’S HIGHLIGHTS
1854: Some 50 slavery opponents meet in Ripon, Wisconsin, to call for the creation of a new political group which becomes the Republican Party.
1996: Daiwa Bank Ltd of Japan agrees to plead guilty to a criminal cover-up of US$1.1 billion in bondtrading losses and to pay US$340 million in fines, settling one of history’s biggest banking frauds.
2008: Kenya’s rival politicians sign a power-sharing agreement and shake hands, after weeks of bitter negotiations on how to end the country’s post-election crisis which set off violence that killed more than 1,000 people and eviscerated the East African country’s economy.
OTHER EVENTS
1525: Cuauhtemoc, the last Aztec emperor, is tortured and executed by Spanish conqueror Hernan Cortes.
1594: Britain’s Royal Physician Roger Loper is arrested for alleged conspiracy to poison Queen Elizabeth.
1933: A Nazi decree suppresses civil liberties in Germany.
1947: The Taiwanese rebel against Nationalist forces moving in from mainland China; thousands are killed in a month of fighting.
1957: Jockey Johnny Longden secures his 5,000th career victory.
1962: The United States announces that new atomic tests will be conducted in the atmosphere near to Johnson Island in the Pacific.
1974: The United States and Egypt re-establish diplomatic relations after a seven-year breach.
1975: More than 40 people are killed in the London Underground when a subway train smashes into the end of a tunnel.
1976: At the 18th Grammy Awards singer Natalie Cole becomes the first African American to win Best New Artist; her song Love Will Keep Us Together wins Record of the Year.
1983: The final TV episode of M*A*S*H, a two-hour special, airs on CBS and a record 125 million watch in the USA.
1984: At the 26th Grammy Awards Michael Jackson wins eight Grammys.
1986: Sweden’s Prime Minister Olof Palme is assassinated on a street in Stockholm while walking home from a movie theatre.
1987: Philippines President Corazon Aquino announces a
“full and complete amnesty” for communist rebels who lay down their arms.
1990: The Soviet legislature passes a landmark law allowing citizens to acquire land and bequeath it to their children.
1991: The Gulf War ends after Iraq accepts a ceasefire following their retreat from Kuwait.
1997: Purchasers of cigarettes in US must prove they are over 18.
2003: A US district court finds reputed Ku Klux Klan member Ernest Avants guilty of aiding and abetting the 1966 murder of Ben Chester White, a 67-year-old black farm worker in Jackson, Mississippi.
2006: Officials announce finding the deadly strain of bird flu in a cat in Germany — the first time the virus is identified in an animal other than a bird in central Europe.
2007: Two Picasso paintings, Maya and the Doll and Portrait of Jacqueline, worth a total of nearly US$66 million, are stolen from the house of the artist’s granddaughter in Paris.
2009: President Robert Mugabe throws calls on Zimbabwe’s last white farmers to leave.
2011: The United States and European allies intensify efforts to isolate Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, redoubling demands for him to step down, questioning his mental state, and warning that those who stay loyal to him risk losing their wealth and being prosecuted for human rights abuses.
2018: A total of 700 illegal churches are closed in Rwanda for being too noisy and lacking building permits.
2019: Youtube announces it will stop all comments on videos featuring children because of paedophiles leaving inappropriate remarks.
2020: Court of Arbitration for Sport bans Chinese triple Olympic gold medallist Sun Yang from swimming for eight years for breaking anti-doping rules.
2021: Hong Kong charges 47 with “conspiracy to commit subversion”, in the harshest implementation of new security laws imposed by China.
TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS
Mary Morris Knibb, Jamaican founder of Morris Knibb Preparatory School, teacher, social worker, politician and philanthropist (1886-1964); Edna Manley, mother of Jamaican art, co-founder of Jamaica School of Art, and wife of Jamaica’s national hero and first and only Premier Norman Manley (19001987); Bugsy Siegel, American gangster (1906-1947); Luka Dončić, Slovenian basketball player (1999- )