HISTORY AT A GLANCE
TODAY is Thursday, September 7, the 250th day of 2017. There are 115 days left in the year. Highlights in history on this date:
1942 – World War II: Australian and US forces inflict a significant defeat upon the Japanese at the Battle of Milne Bay. 1945 – Japanese forces on Wake Island, which they had held
since December of 1941, surrender to U.S. Marines. 1953 – Nikita Khrushchev is elected first secretary of the
Communist Party of the Soviet Union. 1965 – China announces that it will reinforce its troops on the
Indian border. 1965 – Vietnam War: In a follow-up to August’s Operation Starlight, United States Marines and South Vietnamese forces initiate Operation Piranha on the Batangan Peninsula. 1978 – While walking across Waterloo Bridge in London, Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov is assassinated by Bulgarian secret police agent Francesco Giullino by means of a ricin pellet fired from a specially-designed umbrella. 1986 – Desmond Tutu becomes the first black man to lead
the Anglican Church in South Africa. 1986 – General Augusto Pinochet, president of Chile,
escapes attempted assassination. 1988 – Abdul Ahad Mohmand, the first Afghan in space, returns aboard the Soviet spacecraft Soyuz TM-5 after 9 days on the Mir space station. 1999 – A 5.9 magnitude earthquake rocks Athens, rupturing a previously unknown fault, killing 143, injuring more than 500, and leaving 50,000 people homeless. 2005 – Egypt holds its first-ever multi-party presidential
election. 2010 – A Chinese fishing trawler collided with two Japanese Coast Guard patrol boats in disputed waters near the Senkaku Islands. The collisions occurred around 10am, after the Japanese Coast Guard ordered the trawler to leave the area. After the collisions, Japanese sailors boarded the Chinese vessel and arrested the captain, Zhan Qixiong. 2011 – A plane crash in Russia kills 43 people, including nearly the entire roster of the Lokomotiv Yaroslavl Kontinental Hockey League team. 2012 – A series of earthquakes in Yunnan, China, kills 89
people and injures 800 others. 2012 – Canada officially cuts diplomatic ties with Iran by closing its embassy in Tehran and ordered the expulsion of Iranian diplomats from Ottawa, over support for Syria, nuclear plans and alleged rights abuses.