HISTORY AT A GLANCE

TODAY is Wednesday May 8 the 128th day of 2013. There are 237 days left in the year. Highlights in history on this date: 1972 – Vietnam War – US President Richard Nixon announces his order to place mines in major North Vietnamese ports in order to stem the flow of weapons and other goods to that nation. 1972 – Four Black September terrorists hijack Sabena Flight 571. Israeli Sayeret Matkal commandos recapture the plane the following day. 1973 – A 71-day standoff between federal authorities and the American Indian Movement members occupying the Pine Ridge Reservation at Wounded Knee, South Dakota ends with the surrender of the militants. 1976 – The rollercoaster Revolution, the first steel coaster with a vertical loop, opens at Six Flags Magic Mountain. 1978 – First ascent of Mount Everest without supplemental

oxygen, by Reinhold Messner and Peter Habeler. 1980 – The eradication of smallpox is endorsed by the World

Health Organisation. 1984 – The Soviet Union announces that it will boycott the

1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. 1984 – Corporal Denis Lortie enters the Quebec National Assembly and opens fire, killing three and wounding 13. René Jalbert, sergeant-at-arms of the assembly, succeeds in calming him, for which he will later receive the Cross of Valour. 1987 – The Loughgall Ambush: The SAS kills eight Provisional Irish Republican Army volunteers and a civilian during an ambush in Loughgall, Northern Ireland. 1988 – A fire at Illinois Bell’s Hinsdale Central Office triggers an extended 1AESS network outage once considered the ‘worst telecommunications disaster in US telephone industry history’ and still the worst to occur on Mother’s Day. 1997 – A China Southern Airlines Boeing 737 crashes on approach into Bao’an International Airport, killing 35 people.