|
1509 |
France
declares war on Venice. |
|
1652 |
Dutch
under van Riebeeck found Cape Town in South Africa. |
|
1770 |
Birth
of William Wordsworth, English poet. The English Lake
District supplied the inspiration for much of his best
poetry. |
|
1862 |
In the
American Civil War, the Federal army under Ulysses S Grant
defeats the Confederates under Albert Johnston at the Battle
of Shiloh. |
|
1897 |
Turkey
declares war on Greece. |
|
1907 |
Birth
of Le Duan (died 1986), general secretary of the Communist
Party of Viet Nam from 1976 to his death. He was one of the
first members of Indochina Communist Party, now the
Communist Party of Viet Nam, and the field leader of the
struggle against the US aggression in South Viet Nam. |
|
1912 |
Birth
of Hoang Khuong An (died 1942), Vietnamese intellectual and
a militant anti-fascist. As secretary of the Communist Youth
Union in Lyon, France, and a training professor of Lycee
Carnot in Versailles, he participated in activities against
fascism. A French ship was named after him. |
|
1927 |
Students
at the Dong Khanh Lyceum in Hue strike against the arrogant
attitude of a French teacher. Following this action, a
number of them including Vo Nguyen Giap, joined the
revolutionary movement against French rule. |
|
1943 |
The
drug LSD is first produced at Sandoz Laboratorie in Basel,
Switzerland, by Albert Hofman. |
|
1945 |
US
aircraft carrier planes sink Japan’s largest battleship,
the Yamamoto, in World War II. |
|
1947 |
Death
of Henry Ford, US motor manufacturer. He pioneered the
assembly line mass production technique. |
|
1948 |
The
constitution of the World Health Organisation (WHO) comes
into force. |
|
1949 |
In the
First Indochina War, Viet Nam’s President Ho Chi Minh
orders the formation of local armed forces at provincial
levels. |
|
1963 |
The
Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia is established with
Marshall Tito as its president for life. |
|
1972 |
Vietnamese
forces launch a 100-day operation against the
"pacification campaign" mounted by the US and the
Sai Gon administration in the Cuu Long (Mekong) Delta,
inflicting 57,000 casualties and destroying 130 aircraft. |
|
1974 |
Major
oil-producing countries meeting in Geneva decide to set up
funds for developing nations hit hard by higher petroleum
prices. |
|
1975 |
The
Democratic Republic of Viet Nam and the Republic of Dahomey,
now the Republic of Benin establish diplomatic relations at
ambassadorial level. |
|
1990
|
The
Scandinavian Star, a Bahamas-registered ferry operated
by the Da No Line, caught fire while on a journey between
Norway and Denmark; 158 people were killed. |
|
1993 |
Macedonia,
a former republic of Yugoslavia, is allowed to enter the
United Nations after a compromise with Greece over the name
of the country. |
|
2001 |
NASA
launched the Mars Odyssey from the Cape Canaveral
Air Force Station, on a US$297 million mission to search for
water on Mars. |
|
2002 |
Costa
Ricans in a runoff election choose Abel Pacheco of the
ruling right-of-center Social Christian Unity Party as their
next president. |
|
2003 |
An
audio tape purportedly made by Osama bin Laden, the fugitive
leader of the al Qaida terrorist organization, is delivered
to the Associated Press; urging Islamic followers to devote
themselves to "martyrdom," by engaging in suicide
attacks against the US and Britain. — AP/REUTERS/VNS |
