HISTORY AT A GLANCE

TODAY is Friday, August 18, the 230th day of 2017. There are 135 days left in the year. Highlights in history on this date:

1940 – World War II: The Hardest Day air battle, part of the Battle of Britain. At that point, the largest aerial engagement in history with heavy losses sustained on both sides.

1945 – Sukarno takes office as the first president of Indonesia, following the country’s declaration of independence the previous day.

1958 – Vladimir Nabokov’s controversial novel Lolita is published in the United States.

1958 – Brojen Das from Bangladesh swims across the English Channel in a competition, as the first Bengali and the first Asian to do so. He came first among 39 competitors.

1963 – American civil rights movement: James Meredith becomes the first black person to graduate from the University of Mississippi.

1965 – Vietnam War: Operation Starlite begins: United States Marines destroy a Viet Cong stronghold on the Van Tuong peninsula in the first major American ground battle of the war.

1966 – Vietnam War: The Battle of Long Tan ensues after a patrol from the 6th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment clashes with a Viet Cong force in Phu?c Tuy Province.

1971 – Vietnam War: Australia and New Zealand decide to withdraw their troops from Vietnam.

1976 – In the Korean Demilitarized Zone at Panmunjom, the Axe murder incident results in the death of two US soldiers.

1977 – Steve Biko is arrested at a police roadblock under the Terrorism Act No. 83 of 1967 in King William’s Town, South Africa. He later dies from injuries sustained during this arrest bringing attention to South Africa’s apartheid policies.

1983 – Hurricane Alicia hits the Texas coast, killing 22 people and causing over US$1 billion in damage (1983 dollars).

1989 – Leading presidential hopeful Luis Carlos Galán is assassinated near Bogotá in Colombia.

2005 – A massive power blackout hits the Indonesian island of Java, affecting almost 100 million people, one of the largest and most widespread power outages in history.

2008 – President of Pakistan Pervez Musharraf resigns under threat of impeachment.

2008 – War of Afghanistan: Uzbin Valley ambush occurs.