› TODAY IN HISTORY
1828 Birth of Jean-henri Dunant, Swiss founder of the Red Cross and co-winner of the first Nobel Peace Prize in 1901. This date was later chosen to be International Red Cross Day.
1859 Joint French and Spanish forces start attacks on Vietnamese Huế Court’s defences at the entrance to the royal city.
1921 Sweden abolishes capital punishment.
1954 Opening of the Geneva Conference on Indochina. Participating in the conference are representatives of the governments of the Democratic Republic of Việt Nam, the Soviet Union, the People’s Republic of China, the French Republic, the United States, the United Kingdom, the kingdoms of Cambodia and Laos, and representatives of the French-backed government under former King Bảo Đại.
1963 People in Huế, including nearly 10,000 Buddhists begin mass protests against the Sài Gòn administration’s terror campaign against Buddhism.
1969 Representatives of the National Front for the Liberation of South Việt Nam at the Paris Conference on Việt Nam present their 10-point overall solution for the restoration of peace in South Vieät Nam.
1989 The Socialist Republic of Việt Nam and the Federal Republic of Brazil set up full diplomatic relations.
1996 South Africa’s Constitutional Assembly adopts the country’s permanent post-apartheid constitution.
2001 Japan’s Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, who appointed a record five women to his Cabinet, proposes changing the law which prohibits women from ascending to the Chrysanthemum Throne. By legend, the sovereign dates to 660 BC and is the world’s oldest hereditary monarchy.
2003 The US Senate votes, 960, to ratify the expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) to include seven countries in Eastern Europe.
2005 Survivors, political dignitaries and others gather inside the the Mauthausen Nazi concentration camp to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the liberation of what one speaker describes as "hell on earth".
2006 Argentina requested the extradition of five former Uruguayan military officers and a former police officer wanted in the 1976 disappearance of Maria Claudia Garcia, the missing daughter-inlaw of poet Juan Gelman.
2008 Spain formally laid claim to a shipwreck that yielded a US$500 million treasure, saying it has proof the vessel was Spanish. Officials said the shipwreck at the heart of the dispute is the Nuestra Senora de las Mercedes, a Spanish warship sunk by the British navy southwest of Portugal in 1804 with more than 200 people on board.
2012 A South African judge ordered prosecutors to investigate whether Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe’s government committed human rights abuses against his rivals ahead of 2008 elections.
2015 In northeastern Nigeria suspected Boko Haram extremists attacked a business school with gunfire and two bomb blasts before being overcome by security forces in Potiskum.
2017 The UN said war and famine have forced more than 2 million children in South Sudan to flee their homes.
2018 Vladimir Putin was sworn in as Russia’s president for a fourth term, extending his almost two-decade rule by another six years at a time of high tension with Western countries. The 65-yearold, in power since 1999, is on course to become one of the longest-serving Russian leaders after his victory in March’s elections.
2020 China opens to an independent investigation to determine the origins of the coronavirus sweeping the world, its ambassador to Berlin said amid US allegations that it came from a laboratory.
2021 An attack by an unmanned aerial surveillance system targets Iraq’s Ain al-asad air base in western Iraq which hosts US and other international forces, but it causes no injuries, US Army Colonel Wayne Marotto, spokesman for the Us-led coalition, said. AP/