Today in history
Today’s Birthdays:
Yves Montand, Italian-born singeractor (1921-1991); Margaret Thatcher, former British prime minister (1925-2013); Lenny Bruce, US comedian (1925-1966); Marie Osmond, US singer (1959-); Kelly Preston, US actress (1962-); Fanie De Villiers, South African cricketer (1964-), Nancy Kerrigan, US actor and figure skater (1969-), Sacha Baron Cohen, British comedian (1971-); Ian Thorpe, Australian swimmer (1982-), Amelia Kerr, NZ cricketer (2000-). 54 – Roman emperor Claudius I dies, after being poisoned by his wife, Agrippina. 1861 – Kingdom of Italy is divided into prefectures. 1952 – Egypt reaches agreement with Sudan on Nile waters. 1969 – Soviet Union sends third spacecraft into orbit in as many days, putting seven cosmonauts in space. 1985 – Tamil guerrillas attack government troops in two ceasefire violations in Sri Lanka. 1993 – A fanatical fan of tennis player Steffi Graf is convicted of stabbing her arch-rival Monica Seles but receives only a two-year suspended sentence. 1995 – A Dusseldorf court finds four young right-wing extremists guilty of setting a fire to a house in Solingen, killing five Turks in the deadliest attack on foreigners in Germany since the Nazi era. 1998 – A gas explosion sets off a pile of gunpowder used to make illegal fireworks in Tultepec, Mexico, obliterating a two-block area and killing at least 10 people. 2001 – President Hosni Mubarak issues an order that 83 suspected Islamic militants stand trial in Egypt’s state security court. 2003 – Philippines security forces shoot and kill Fathur Rahman alghozi, allegedly a major figure in regional terrorist group Jemaah Islamiah. Al-ghozi escaped from prison in Manila on July. 2005 – Islamic militants launch a major attack on police and government buildings in the provincial capital of Nalchik in Russia’s volatile Caucasus region, turning the city into a war zone. At least 49 people including 25 militants are killed. 2007 – Myanmar’s junta arrests three of the country’s most prominent political activists, believed to be among the last leaders remaining at large from a student group at the forefront of a 1988 democracy uprising and the protests that started in August. 2013 – Bill Shorten wins Australian Labor leadership and Tanya Plibersek becomes deputy leader; Mass evacuations spare India the widespread deaths many had feared from a powerful cyclone that roared ashore as the country sorts through the wreckage of flooded towns, including tens of thousands of destroyed thatch homes.