Today in history
TODAY IN HISTORY
30 BC — Cleopatra of Egypt commits suicide by letting an asp bite her.
1528 — French army capitulates at Aversa and subsequently is expelled from Naples and Genoa in Italy.
1645 — Dutch and American Indians make treaty of peace at New Amsterdam, New York.
1781 — French fleet of 24 ships under the Comte de Grasse defeats the British under Admiral Graves at the battle of Chesapeake Capes in the American War of Independence.
1881 — Clement Ader patents the first stereophonic sound system in Germany.
1914 — German forces take Amiens in France in World War I.
1914 — Battle of Tannenberg, one of history’s great military disasters, ends after the Russian Second Army under Samsonov is enveloped and crushed by the Germans, losing 30,000 men. Samsonov committed suicide.
1918 — Vladimir Lenin, new leader of Soviet Russia is shot and wounded by Fanya Kaplan and her accomplice sister Dora, both supposedly members of the Social Revolutionary Party.
1941 — World War II siege of Leningrad begins as Nazi forces take Mga.
1945 — Hong Kong is liberated when the British navy under Rearadmiral Cecil Harcourt sails into Victoria harbour to accept the Japanese surrender.
1963 — ‘‘Hot line’’ between the Kremlin and the White House, designed to reduce the risk of accidental war, is installed.
1973 — Kenya bans the hunting of elephants and the trade in ivory.
1982 — PLO leader Yasser Arafat abandons his headquarters in Beirut following Israeli invasion of Lebanon.
1999 — East Timor votes in a referendum to decide whether to stay part of Indonesia or become independent. The turnout is a huge 99 per cent, and the result is massively in favour of independence.
2002 — North Korea and South Korea agree to reconnect a crossborder railway and road by the end of 2002.
2003 — The American coal-minerturned-tough-guy-actor Charles Bronson dies aged 81.
2013 — North Korea rescinds its invitation for a senior US envoy to travel to Pyongyang to seek the release of a detained American, abruptly dimming hopes for improved relations already strained by the North’s nuclear program.
Today’s Birthdays:
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, English author (1797-1851); Ernest Rutherford, New Zealand scientist (1871-1937);John Peel, British radio DJ (1939-2004); Cameron Diaz, US actor (1972-).