HISTORY AT A GLANCE

TODAY is Tuesday, October 3, the 276th day of 2017. There are 89 days left in the year. Highlights in history on this date: 1929 – The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes is renamed to Kingdom of Yugoslavia, “Land of the South Slavs”. 1932 – Iraq gains independence from the United Kingdom. 1935 – Second Italo-Abyssinian War: Italy invades Ethiopia

under General de Bono. 1942 – Spaceflight: The first successful launch of a V-2 /A4rocket from Test Stand VII at Peenemünde, Germany. It is the first man-made object to reach space. 1950 – Korean War: The First Battle of Maryang San, primarily pitting Australian and British forces against communist China, begins. 1952 – The United Kingdom successfully tests a nuclear

weapon to become the world’s third nuclear power. 1957 – The California State Superior Court rules that Allen

Ginsberg’s Howl and Other Poems is not obscene. 1962 – Project Mercury: Sigma 7 is launched from Cape Canaveral, with astronaut Wally Schirra aboard, for a six-orbit, nine-hour flight. 1963 – A violent coup in Honduras pre-empts the October 13 election, ends a period of reform, and begins two decades of military rule. 1981 – The hunger strike by Provisional Irish Republican Army and Irish National Liberation Army prisoners at the Maze Prison in Northern Ireland ends after seven months and ten deaths. 1985 – The Space Shuttle Atlantis makes its maiden flight.

(Mission STS-51-J). 1990 – German reunification: The German Democratic Republic ceases to exist and its territory becomes part of the Federal Republic of Germany. East German citizens became part of the European Community, which later became the European Union. Now celebrated as German Unity Day. 1993 – Battle of Mogadishu: In a failed attempt to capture officials of warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid’s organisation in Mogadishu, Somalia, 18 US soldiers and about 1,000 Somalis are killed in heavy fighting. 1995 – O. J. Simpson is acquitted of the murders of Nicole

Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman. 2009 – The presidents of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Turkey sign the Nakhchivan Agreement on the Establishment of Turkic Council. 2013 – At least 134 migrants are killed when their boat sinks

near the Italian island of Lampedusa. 2013 – The Gambia withdraws from the Commonwealth of

Nations.