TODAY IN HISTORY

1832 Birth of Nguyễn Quang Bích (died 1890), Vietnamese patriot and poet. He led the anti-french royalist movement Cần Vương in northern Việt Nam.

1832 After more than 300 years of Ottoman rule, and with military support from Britain, France and Russia, Greece formally becomes independent..

1912 Columbia University approves plans for awarding the Pulitzer Prize in several categories, after established by Joseph Pulitzer.

1945 Germany surrenders, ending World War II.

1954 Vietnamese resistance forces defeat the French at their fortified camp at Điện Biên Phủ Valley after 56 days of continuous fighting.

1973 US President Nixon denies all knowledge of the

Watergate affair.

1982 Death of Tôn Thất Tùng (born 1912), leading

Vietnamese surgeon.

1994 The Channel Tunnel is opened by the British

Queen and French President Mitterand.

Legislators in Johannesburg take oaths of office and blacks and whites sit down together for the first time to govern South Africa.

1999 Pope John Paul II arrives in Romania, becoming the first pope to visit an Orthodox country since Christianity split into Orthodox and Catholic in 1054.

2004 Army Pfc Lynndie England, shown in photographs smiling and pointing at naked Iraqi prisoners in Abu Gharaib prison, is charged by the military with assaulting the detainees and conspiring to mistreat them. Six soldiers had already been charged with crimes in the abuse of Iraqi prisoners and seven were reprimanded.

2007 Ehud Netzer of Hebrew University announces he has discovered the tomb of Herod the Great at Herodium, West Bank.

2008 Dmitry Medvedev is sworn in as the 3rd President

of the Russian Federation.

2014 Fighting between pro-russian and Kiev forces continue amid fears internationally of a civil war in the Ukraine.

2015 British General Elections: Conservative Party win outright majority and David Cameron returns as Prime Minister.

2017 Emmanuel Macron wins France’s presidential

election defeating Marine Le Pen.

2019 Turkish electoral body decides to re-run the Istanbul mayoral election, won by the opposition, amid worldwide criticism.

2020 Toxic leak at Indian chemical factory near Visakhapatnam kills at least 13 and injures many when it tried to reopen after lockdown.