Today in history
1596 — Turks under Mohammed III defeat Austrian Archduke Maximillian’s forces near Erlau, Hungary.
1641 — Great Irish Massacre occurs after discovery of conspiracy against British.
1864 — Forces led by Union Major General Samuel Curtis repelled Confederate Maj. Gen. Sterling Price’s army in the Civil War Battle of Westport in Missouri.
1941 — the Walt Disney animated feature ‘‘Dumbo’’, about a young circus elephant who learns how to fly, premiered in New York.
1942 — British Eighth Army attacks Axis forces to begin Battle of El Alamein in Egypt during World War II.
1954 — Britain, France, United States and Soviet Union agree to end occupation of Germany.
1962 — Soviet Union warns that a US blockade of arms shipments to Cuba may risk a thermonuclear war.
1973 — Israeli military command announces that Israel and Egypt have agreed to new cease-fire in Middle East war.
1996 — A historian reveals that the Swiss bank accounts of presumed Holocaust victims were used to settle Switzerland’s postwar compensation disputes with Poland and Hungary.
1998 — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat agree on a breakthrough land-forpeace West Bank accord after eight days of negotiations in the US.
2001 — Indonesia’s parliament passes a bill granting the rebellious province of Irian Jaya sweeping autonomy, a greater share of resource revenues and a new name — Papua.
2005 — Hurricane Wilma punishes Mexico’s Caribbean coastline for a second day, ripping away storefronts, peeling back roofs and forcing tourists and residents trapped in hotels and shelters to scramble to higher floors. At least seven people are killed.
2011 — Cries of panic and horror fill the air as a 7.2-magnitude earthquake strikes eastern Turkey, killing at least 138 people as buildings pancaked and crumpled into rubble. The death toll was expected to rise as rescuers sifted through the rubble.
2013 — German Chancellor Angela Merkel complains to President Barack Obama after learning that US intelligence may have targeted her mobile phone.
2014 — Mali reports its first case of Ebola, marking a major setback for West African efforts to contain the deadly virus that has now affected six countries in the region and left nearly 5000 dead.
Today’s Birthdays: Johnny Carson, former US Tonight Show host (1925-2005); Michael Crichton, US author (1942—2008); Weird Al Yankovic, US musical parodist (1959—).