HIGHLIGHTS IN HISTORY ON THIS DATE
1340 Edward III of England declares himself King of France, a claim that leads to the Hundred Years’ War. The Kings of England call themselves Kings of France until
1801. 1695 Mustafa II succeeds as Sultan of Turkey on death of Ahmad II.
1822 Greek independence is formally proclaimed.
1865 Treaty between Spain and Peru virtually recognises Peru’s independence. 1880 Thomas Edison receives a patent for his electric incandescent lamp.
1914 Haiti’s President Oreste abdicates during revolt, and US Marines land to preserve order.
1943 US bombers stage first all- out US air raid on Germany in World War II, a daylight attack on Wilhelmshaven; Germany begins civil conscription of women.
1945 Soviet troops liberate the Nazi concentration camps Auschwitz and Birkenau in Poland.
1951 An era of US atomic testing in the Nevada desert begins as an Air Force plane drops a one- kiloton bomb on Frenchman Flats. 1964 France establishes diplomatic relations with China.
1967 Three US Apollo astronauts die in flash fire aboard space capsule; United States, Soviet Union and 60 other nations sign treaty to limit military activities in outer space.
1973 Accords are signed in Paris, providing for the withdrawal of US troops from Vietnam, leading to the collapse of South Vietnam in 1975.
1981 Indonesia’s Tampo
Mas II passenger ship catches fire and sinks in Java Sea, killing 580 people. 1991 President Mohammed Siad Barre of Somalia flees the capital, Mogadishu as a coalition of rebels seize power. The country plunges into virtual anarchy.
1995 Burmese soldiers win a key battle against one of the world’s oldest insurgencies, capturing the base of Burma’s largest Karen rebel army in the Burmese jungle.
1997 The people of Chechnya go to the polls to elect Aslan Maskhadov for President only months after Russian forces turned most of the capital to rubble.
1998 Bowing to the wish of the Pope, the Catholic Church in Germany stops issuing certificates allowing abortion.
2001 The police fires teargas and warning shots as thousands of rock- throwing students in Jakarta storm the gates of Indonesia’s Parliament in the largest protest yet against the country’s President.