TODAY IN HISTORY

1789 George Washington is inaugurated as America’s

first president.

1900 Hawaii becomes a territory of United States.

1975 The beginning of a unified Socialist Republic of Việt Nam, after the victory over the United States and the Sài Gòn administration, ending 137 years of resistance wars against the French, Japanese and Americans.

1991 Cyclone hits Bangladesh, killing at least 125,000

people.

1998 Birth of the first boy from test tube incubation in Việt Nam, marking a significant progress in the country’s medical sector.

2003 The United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations formally publish a "road map" for Israeli-palestinian peace negotiations that would lead to the creation of an independent Palestinian state in 2005.

2004 Ten countries join the European Union bloc in a historic enlargement that brings in a region separated for decades.

2008 Brazil’s long-term foreign currency sovereign credit rating is raised to BBB− by Standard & Poor’s, marking the first time the country’s foreign currency debt receives an investment grade rating.

2009 The United Kingdom ends combat operations in

the Iraq War.

2010 The Nigerian House of Representatives announces the creation of ten new states, five in the north and five in the south, by 2011.

2011 The recent US tornado outbreak becomes the second deadliest single day tornado event in US history with at least 340 people dead.

2012 The as of yet unfinished One World Trade Centre becomes the tallest building in New York City, overtaking the Empire State Building.

2013 In Illinois, United States, 2-year-old Korean-canadian Hannah Warren, who was born without a trachea, becomes the youngest patient to receive a bioengineered organ made from stem cells.

2014 A gas explosion in a prison in the US town of Pensacola, Florida reportedly kills at least two people, injures 100 and forces an evacuation.

2015 Nasa’s Messenger spacecraft crashes into Mercury after surpassing its one year primary mission by three years.

2016 Kenya burns 105 tonnes of elephant ivory and 1.05 tonnes of rhinoceros horn in order to call for a total ban on the ivory trade.

2017 Zoologists led by the University of Papua announce the first sighting of a pack of New Guinea highland wild dogs in the wild of New Guinea, near the Grasberg mine, in over four decades

2018 North Korea-united States Summit is considering to take place at the Peace House at the DMZ, where the North-south Korea summit was also held.

2019 Japanese imperial transition: Emperor Akihito abdicates the Chrysanthemum Throne in favour of his elder son, Crown Prince Naruhito. He is the first Emperor to abdicate in over two hundred years, since Emperor Kokaku in 1817.

2020 UK PM Boris Johnson says Britain is past the peak of the COVID-19 outbreak. AP/REUTERS/VNS