Today in history
1815 - France’s Marshal Ney is shot after a treason trial for aiding Napoleon Bonaparte at Waterloo.
1915 - Evacuation of Anzac forces from Gallipoli begins.
1941 - Japanese planes attack the United States Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbour, Hawaii, destroying many aircraft and ships and precipitating the United States declaration of war on Japan.
1949 - Nationalist government of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, fleeing the Communist takeover of mainland China, establishes its seat of government in Taiwan.
1971 - Unmanned Soviet space capsule sends back radio and television signals from planet Mars.
1972 - Imelda Marcos, wife of Philippines’ President Ferdinand Marcos, is slashed during public ceremony in Manila by man who is killed at the scene.
1975 - Indonesia invades East Timor.
1992 - The Indian Government announces a ban on fundamentalist groups after more than 200 Muslim and Hindus are killed and a Muslim shrine in Ayodhya is demolished.
1996 - After nearly 18 days aloft, Columbia and its astronauts return to Earth, ending the longest space shuttle flight ever.
2000 - Activists protesting near a European Union summit in Nice, France, set fire to a bank and attack fire services when they arrive to put out the blaze.
2001 - A consortium of philanthropic foundations announces an initiative to provide treatment for an estimated 2.5 million pregnant women infected with HIV in subsaharan Africa.
2004 - Hamid Karzai is sworn in as Afghanistan’s first popularly elected president, promising to bring peace to the war-torn nation.
2008 - Pakistani troops raid a militant camp and arrest Zaki-urrehman Lakhvi, a suspected mastermind of the attacks in the Indian city of Mumbai on November 26-29 that killed more than 171 people.
2010 - Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is arrested in the United Kingdom, on Swedish arrest warrant. He was wanted for questioning over allegations of rape, unlawful coercion, and sexual molestation.
2012 - Jacintha Saldanha, a nurse caught up in a royal hoax call from Australian DJS Mel Greig and Michael Christian, is found dead in London. Three days earlier the pair, posing as Queen Elizabeth and Prince Charles, had phoned the London hospital.
Today’s Birthdays:
Saigo Takamori, Japanese Restoration hero (1827-1877); Noam Chomsky, US linguist and political activist (1928-); Larry Bird, US basketball star (1956-); John Terry, English soccer player (1980-); Emily Browning, Australian actress (1988-).