This Day in History – Jamaica Observer

Today is the 101st day of 2017. There are 264 days left in the year.

TODAYS HIGHLIGHT

2002: Police fight pitched battles with protesters after more than 150,000 people march on the presidential palace demanding President Hugo Chavezs ouster as a general strike grips the country. Nineteen people are killed and 350 injured.

OTHER EVENTS

1689: William III and Mary II were crowned as joint sovereigns of Britain.

1713: The Treaty of Utrecht was signed, ending the War of the Spanish Succession.

1814: Napoleon Bonaparte abdicates unconditionally as emperor of France and is banished to Elba by the Treaty of Fontainebleau.

1899: The treaty ending the Spanish-American War is declared in effect; the Philippines are transferred from Spain to the United States.

1913: Postmaster General Albert S Burleson, during a meeting of President Woodrow Wilsons Cabinet, proposed gradually segregating whites and blacks who worked for the Railway Mail Service, a policy which went into effect and spread to other agencies.

1919: New Zealanders vote in a referendum against prohibition.

1921: Iowa becomes the first US state to impose a cigarette tax.

1945: During World War II, American soldiers liberated the notorious Nazi concentration camp Buchenwald in Germany.

1951: President Harry S Truman relieved General Douglas MacArthur of his commands in the Far East.

1953: Oveta Culp Hobby became the first Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare.

1961: Nigeria imposes total boycott on trade with South Africa.

1963: Pope John XXIII issued his final encyclical Pacem in Terris Peace on Earth.

1970:

Apollo 13 blasts off on a mission to the moon that is disrupted when an explosion cripples the spacecraft; the astronauts manage to return safely.

1979: Idi Amin is deposed as president of Uganda as rebels and exiles backed by Tanzanian forces seize control.

1980: US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission issues regulations specifically prohibiting sexual harassment of workers by supervisors.

1981: US President Ronald Reagan returns to the White House from the hospital, 12 days after he was wounded in an assassination attempt.

1986: Washington state employees win a lawsuit requiring the state to pay women as much as men for comparable work.

1991: UN Security Council announces a formal end to the Gulf War, accepting Iraqs pledge that it will pay for war damages and scrap its weapons of mass destruction.

1993: Despite appeals for calm, two whites are burned to death in South Africa by a black crowd, a day after the assassination of black leader Chris Hani.

1994: US President Bill Clinton orders trade sanctions against Taiwan for trafficking in endangered tiger and rhinoceros parts.

1999: India tests an improved medium-range missile, capable of carrying a nuclear warhead more than 2,000 kilometres (1,240 miles). Pakistan tests a similar missile two days later.

2001: Israeli tanks and bulldozers rumble into the Khan Yunis refugee camp in Palestinian-controlled territory in the Gaza Strip, damaging 30 homes and triggering fighting that kills two Palestinians and wounds more than two dozen.

2002: Wouter Basson, a scientist who headed South Africas covert chemical- and germ-warfare operations during the apartheid era, is acquitted on 46 charges of murder, conspiracy, drug possession and fraud.

2003: Hong Kong bans quarantined residents from leaving the city as the deadly SARS virus turns up in Indonesia and the Philippines, in both cases among foreigners who had recently been to Hong Kong.

2008: French troops capture six pirates after they released 30 hostages who were aboard a tourist yacht off Somalias coast.

2009: Protesters in Bangkok storm a summit of Asian leader, breaking through glass doors to demand the resignation of Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva.

2012: George Zimmerman, the Florida neighbourhood watch volunteer who fatally shot 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, was arrested and charged with second-degree murder. A California prison panel denied parole to mass murderer Charles Manson in his 12th and probably final bid for freedom.

2013: A US intelligence report concludes that North Korea has advanced its nuclear know-how to the point that it could arm a ballistic missile with a nuclear warhead.

TODAYS BIRTHDAYS

John I, King of Portugal (1385-1433); George Canning, English statesman (1770-1827); Manuel Quintana, Spanish poet (1772-1857); John Davidson, Scottish poet/playwright (1857-1909); Gustav Vigeland, Norwegian sculptor (1869-1943); Bill Irwin, US actor (1950- ); Joss Stone, British singer (1987- ); Ethel Kennedy (1928- ) American human-rights campaigner and widow of Senator Robert F Kennedy; Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Ellen Goodman (1928-); Actor Meshach Taylor (1947-2014); Songwriter-producer Daryl Simmons (1957-); Singer Lisa Stansfield (1966-); Rapper David Banner (1974- )

AP

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This Day in History - Jamaica Observer