Today in history
1831 – Naturalist Charles Darwin sets out on a voyage to the Pacific aboard the HMS Beagle. His discoveries during the voyage helped form the basis of his theories on evolution.
1927 – Joseph Stalin’s faction wins at All-union Congress in Soviet Union, and Leon Trotsky is expelled from the Communist Party.
1944 – In World War II, Soviet forces surround Budapest; US forces smash across the German Bulge in Belgium and relieve US troops under siege at Bastogne.
1945 – Foreign ministers of Britain, United States and Soviet Union meet in Moscow and call for provisional democratic government in Korea; the World Bank is created with an agreement signed by 28 nations.
1949 – The Netherlands’ Queen Juliana grants Indonesia sovereignty after more than three centuries of Dutch rule.
1956 – United Nations fleet begins clearing the Suez Canal after the Suez War.
1972 – Australia halts military aid to South Vietnam, ending its involvement in the Vietnam War.
1979 – Soviet forces seize control of Afghanistan. President Hafizullah Amin, who was overthrown and executed, is replaced by Babrak Karmal.
1985 – American naturalist Dian Fossey, who studied gorillas in the wild, is found hacked to death at a research station in Rwanda.
1987 – The death of New Zealander Rewi Alley, aged 90, who had become well-known for his efforts promoting relationships with China.
1997 – Billy Wright, one of the most feared Protestant guerrilla leaders in Northern Ireland, is shot and killed in prison by inmates belonging to an Irish Republican Army splinter group.
2006 – The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court rules state lawmakers cannot be compelled to vote on a proposed constitutional ban on gay marriage.
2007 – Pakistan opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, 54, is killed by an attacker who shot her after a campaign rally and then blew himself up. The government later says she died from a skull fracture suffered when her head slammed against her car. At least 20 others are also killed.
2008 – International aid agencies warn that Zimbabwe’s humanitarian crisis is deepening, with a sharp rise in acute child malnutrition and a worsening cholera epidemic.
2011 – Surprised airport workers in Argentina find hundreds of wriggling poisonous snakes and endangered reptiles inside the baggage of a Czech man who was about to board a flight to Spain.
Today’s Birthdays: Johannes Kepler, German astronomer (1571-1630); Marlene Dietrich, German actress (1901-1992).