History at a glance

TODAY is Sunday August 14 the 226th day of the year. There are 139 days left in the year.

Highlights in history on this date:

1900 - The Boxer Rebellion, a peasant uprising aimed at forcing all foreigners from China, was finally defeated when an international force captured Peking (now Beijing).

1912 - U.S. Marines invade Nicaragua to support the U.S.-backed government installed there after José Santos Zelaya had resigned three years earlier.

1945 - Japan accepted the Allies’ terms of unconditional surrender, ending World War Two.

1945 - The Viet Minh launches August Revolution amid the political confusion and power vacuum engulfing Vietnam.

1947 - Pakistan gains Independence from the British Empire and joins the Commonwealth of Nations.

1949 - Konrad Adenauer was appointed first chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany.

1980 - Lech Walesa leads strikes at the Gdansk, Poland shipyards.

1988 - Enzo Ferrari, Italian racing pioneer and sports car builder, died at his home in Modena aged 90.

2000 - The Russian Orthodox Church declared the last tsar, Nicholas II, and his family saints, 82 years after their murder by a Bolshevik firing squad in April 1918.

2003 - One of the biggest power outages hit large areas of North America trapping thousands in crowded subways and forcing millions of evacuated office workers onto the streets.

2004 - Hurricane Charley devastates Florida.

2005 - A Cypriot airliner belonging to Helios Airlines crashed into a mountainous area north of Athens, killing all 121 people on board.

2006 - A U.N.-brokered truce to end five weeks of fighting between Israel and Lebanese Hizbollah guerrillas came into effect. The war, which erupted after Hizbollah’s capture of two Israeli soldiers in a crossborder operation, cost the lives of around 1,110 people in Lebanon, and 156 Israelis.

2015 - U.S. embassy re-opens in Havana after 54 years.