HISTORY AT A GLANCE
TODAY is Saturday, April 8, the 98th day of 2017. There are 267 days left in the year. Highlights in history on this date:
1950 – India and Pakistan sign the Liaquat–Nehru Pact. 1953 – Mau Mau leader Jomo Kenyatta is convicted by
Kenya’s British rulers. 1954 – South African Airways Flight 201 A de Havilland DH.106 Comet 1 crashes into the sea during night killing 21 people. 1960 – The Netherlands and West Germany sign an agreement to negotiate the return of German land annexed by the Dutch in return for 280 million German marks as Wiedergutmachung. 1961 – A large explosion on board the MV Dara in the Persian
Gulf kills 238. 1964 – Gemini 1 (unmanned test flight) launched. 1968 – BOAC Flight 712 catches fire shortly after take off. As a result of her actions in the accident, Barbara Jane Harrison is awarded a posthumous George Cross, the only GC awarded to a woman in peacetime. 1970 – Bahr El-Baqar primary school bombing: Israeli bombers
strike an Egyptian school. Forty-six children are killed. 1974 – At Atlanta–Fulton County Stadium, Hank Aaron hits his 715th career home run to surpass Babe Ruth’s 39-year-old record. 1975 – Frank Robinson manages the Cleveland Indians in his first game as major league baseball’s first African American manager. 1992 – Retired tennis great Arthur Ashe announces that he has AIDS, acquired from blood transfusions during one of his two heart surgeries. 1993 – The Republic of Macedonia joins the United Nations. 2004 – War in Darfur: The Humanitarian Ceasefire Agreement is signed by the Sudanese government and two rebel groups. 2005 – Over four million people attend the funeral of Pope
John Paul II. 2006 – Shedden massacre: The bodies of eight men, all shot to death, are found in a field in Ontario, Canada. The murders are soon linked to the Bandidos Motorcycle Club. 2008 – The construction of the world’s first building to
integrate wind turbines is completed in Bahrain. 2013 – The Islamic State of Iraq enters the Syrian Civil War and begins by declaring a merger with the Al-Nusra Front under the name Islamic State of Iraq and ashSham