Today in history

Highlights in history on this date: 1520 – Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan reaches Pacific Ocean from the Atlantic after passing through a South American strait now bearing his name.

1821 – Panama declares itself independent of Spain and joins the Republic of Colombia.

1885 – British forces occupy Mandalay in Burma.

*1893 – New Zealand women vote in a general election for the first time.

1905 – Sinn Fein Party, part of the Irish Republican movement, is founded in Dublin, Ireland.

1916 – German planes make their first raid on London, already subject to Zeppelin bombardments.

1919 – Lady Astor is elected first woman member of Britain’s Parliament.

1937 – General Francisco Franco begins naval blockade of Spanish coast.

1943 – U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet leader Josef Stalin meet in Tehran, Iran, during World War II.

1977 – Rhodesia announces 1200 have been killed in its recent raids against black nationalist guerrillas across the border in Mozambique.

1991 – Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi says he will not surrender two Libyans accused of the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland.

2000 – Rescuers in Jakarta struggle to find survivors after devastating floods and landslides on Indonesia’s Sumatra island kill more than 100 people.

2001 – Enron Corp., the largest U.S. energy-trading concern, collapses after its credit is downgraded to junkbond status and its smaller rival, Dynegy Inc., backs out of a US$9 billion deal to buy the troubled company.

2003 – Opponents of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez hold a drive to collect the 2.4-million signatures needed for a recall election to remove Chavez from office.

2004 – Iran agrees not to test any centrifuges as part of a total suspension of nuclear activities that could yield weapons-grade uranium, in what diplomats describe as an apparent about-face to avoid possible U.N. Security Council sanctions.

2008 – Five Kiwis and two German pilots die when an Air New Zealand Airbus crashes into the Mediterranean while on a test flight.

2011 – European leaders rush to stop a rampaging debt crisis that threatens to shatter their 12-year-old experiment in a common currency and devastate the world economy as a result.

Today’s Birthdays: Jon Stewart, U.S. television host (1962– ); Ed Harris, U.S. actor (1950– ); Berry Gordy Jr., U.S. Motown Records founder (1929– ).