HISTORY AT A GLANCE

TODAY is Tuesday, August 15, the 227th day of 2017. There are 138 days left in the year. Highlights in history on this date:

1945 – Effective surrender of Japan in World War II, Korea

gains Independence from Japan. 1947 – India gains Independence from British rule after near 190 years of Crown rule and joins the Commonwealth of Nations. 1947 – Founder of Pakistan, Muhammad Ali Jinnah is sworn in

as first Governor-General of Pakistan in Karachi. 1948 – The Republic of Korea is established south of the 38th

parallel north. 1963 – President Fulbert Youlou is overthrown in the Republic

of the Congo, after a three-day uprising in the capital. 1971 – President Richard Nixon completes the break from the gold standard by ending convertibility of the United States dollar into gold by foreign investors. 1971 – Bahrain gains independence from the United Kingdom. 1973 – Vietnam War: The United States bombing of

Cambodia ends. 1974 – Yuk Young-soo, First Lady of South Korea, is killed during an apparent assassination attempt upon President, Park Chung-hee. 1975 – Bangladeshi leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman is killed along with most members of his family during a military coup. 1975 – Takeo Miki makes the first official pilgrimage to Yasukuni Shrine by an incumbent prime minister on the anniversary of the end of World War II. 1977 – The Big Ear, a radio telescope operated by Ohio State University as part of the SETI project, receives a radio signal from deep space; the event is named the “Wow! signal” from the notation made by a volunteer on the project. 2005 – Israel’s unilateral disengagement plan to evict all Israelis from the Gaza Strip and from four settlements in the northern West Bank begins. 2005 – The Helsinki Agreement between the Free Aceh Movement and the Government of Indonesia was signed, ending almost three decades of fighting. 2013 – At least 27 people are killed and 226 injured in an explosion in southern Beirut near a complex used by Lebanon’s militant group Hezbollah in Lebanon. A previously unknown Syrian Sunni group claims responsibility in an online video. 2013 – The Smithsonian announces the discovery of the olinguito, the first new carnivoran species found in the Americas in 35 years. 2015 – North Korea moves its clock back half an hour to

introduce Pyongyang Time, 8.5 hours ahead of UTC.