Today in history
1709 — British sailor Alexander Selkirk is rescued after being marooned on a desert island for five years. His story inspired Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe.
1872 — Holland sells trading posts on African Gold Coast to Britain.
1878 — Greece declares war on Turkey.
1953 — United States announces that it no longer will block Chinese Nationalist raids against mainland China.
1969 — Death of Boris Karloff (William Henry Pratt), British-born film actor.
1974 — Khmer Rouge bombard Phnom Penh, killing 17 people.
1982 — Coroner Gerry Galwin commits Lindy Chamberlain to stand trial on charge of murdering her 10-week-old daughter Azaria, who disappeared at Ayers Rock, central Australia, in August 1980.
1984 — Medicare scheme formally adopted in Australia.
1996 — Death of film dancer Gene Kelly, aged 83.
1998 — A Cebu Pacific Air’s DC-9 aircraft crashes in southern Philippines, killing all 104 people aboard.
2003 — A powerful explosion destroys a Nigerian bank and kills at least 33 people in Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial capital. Rioting and looting break out as hundreds of people fight over cash from the wrecked bank.
2006 — Foreign aid workers and journalists start leaving the Gaza Strip after masked Palestinian gunmen, incensed by cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed in European newspapers, surround an EU office and threaten to attack Europeans.
2011 — Australian soldier Corporal Richard Edward Atkinson, 22, a member of the 1st Combat Engineer Regiment, is killed by an insurgent improvised explosive device. He is the 22nd Australian to die in Afghanistan since the launch of operations a decade earlier.
2015 — Willem Westra van Holthe challenges NT Chief Minister Adam Giles for leadership of the Country Liberal Party, and wins a party-room vote. However, Giles refuses to resign and van Westra eventually becomes his deputy; Tony Abbott tells the National Press Club he won’t stand down as Australian prime minister. The United Nations raises the death toll from fighting in eastern Ukraine to more than 5350 people.
2016 — US airstrikes in eastern Afghanistan hit an ISIS radio station and kill 29 militants.
Today’s Birthdays: Eleanor (Nell) Gwyn, English actress (1651-1687); James Joyce, Irish author (1882-1941); Farrah Fawcett, US actress-model (1947-2009); Christie Brinkley, US model (1954-); Shakira, Colombian singer (1977-); Gemma Arterton, English actress (1986-); Gerard Pique, Spanish football player (1987-).