Thursday, August 11

2005-08-11 07:14

Today is Thursday, August 11, the 223rd day of 2005. There are 142 days left in the year.

Highlights in history on this date:

1611 - Because of his mental instability, the Hapsburg archdukes force Emperor Rudolf to resign his Bohemian crown to his brother, Matthias.

1712 - Treaty of Araru ends Swiss War, guaranteeing domination of Protestants over five Catholic cantons.

1771 - Governor Ryk Tulbagh dies in Cape Town after being governor of the Cape for 20 years.

1786 - Penang is ceded to Britain by Rajah of Kedah in Malaya.

1863 - French establish protectorate over Cambodia.

1871 - Basutoland is annexed to the Cape.

1929 - Arabs launch attacks on Jews in Palestine over disputes on Jewish use of Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, considered holy by both Jews and Arabs.

1935 - Nazi storm troopers stage mass demonstrations against Jews in Germany.

1937 - Iraqi dictator Bakr Sidqi is assassinated, a year after he staged the first-ever military coup in modern Arab history.

1945 - Allies inform Japan that its surrender offer is acceptable as World War 2 in Pacific nears end.

1950 - King Leopold III of Belgium abdicates because of criticism of his actions during World War 2. His son Baudouin becomes king the next year.

1952 - Prince Hussein is proclaimed King Hussein of Jordan on termination of King Talal's reign.

1954 - Formal peace announcement in Indochina ends more than seven years of fighting with the French and Communist Vietminh. Vietnam is partitioned into North and South.

1960 - A US helicopter picks out of the Pacific Ocean the first capsule ever recovered from space. The 135kg instrument-packed capsule was carried into orbit by Discoverer XIII, a 765kg satellite launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California the day before.

1965 - Race riot begins in the Watts section of Los Angeles, United States, lasting six days. Thirty-four people are killed and more than 1 000 injured.

1968 - Three people are killed and 44 persons injured during a clash with the police at the Watts Summer Festival in Los Angeles, commemorating the third anniversary of the Watts riots.

1973 - United States officially ends combat involvement in Indochina, the same day the Viet Cong charge that 71 prisoners of war turned over to them by South Vietnam are not Communist supporters but want to return to Saigon.

1983 - The US Agency for International Development agrees to send US$75 million in aid to Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia to help reconstruction efforts following the worst droughts and floods in four decades.

1991 - Shiite Muslim kidnappers in Lebanon free American hostage Edward Tracy and French hostage Jerome Leyraud.

1991 - Justice Ismail Mohamed becomes South Africa's first black judge.

1992 - Heavy fire blasts Sarajevo, and UN officials say about 28 000 people, mostly Muslims, are being forced from their homes in northern Bosnia in one of the biggest single acts of "ethnic cleansing."

1993 -- The second draft of the Interim Constitution is tabled, giving exclusive powers to regions.

1995 - The Serbian government disperses bitter Serb refugees driven from Croatia by an army offensive that put an end to the Serb rebellion.

1997 - An international meeting called to rescue Thailand's shaky economy offers the country US$16 billion in loans.

1998 - Congolese rebels fighting President Laurent Kabila say they are closing in on the capital, while the government rounds up Tutsis, suspected of supporting the rebellion.

1999 - The last solar eclipse of the millennium casts a shadow extending from Land's End at the southwestern tip of England to the Bay of Bengal near India. The moon's shadow darkens parts of Europe, Africa and Asia.

2000 - A Hungarian prisoner left in a Russian psychiatric hospital after World War 2 and forgotten for five decades returns to Hungary - a homeland he hasn't seen since the 1940s.

2001 - Roman Catholic Archbishop Emmanuel Milingo of Zambia, who in May married Maria Sung in a ceremony performed by the Unification Church, agrees to renounce his marriage and return to the Catholic Church after the Vatican threatened to excommunicate him.

2002 - Clashes among local militias, a rebel group and the Ugandan army kills at least 90 people. The victims, many of whom had been hacked to death, included women and children.

2003 - Liberian President Charles Taylor resigns and leaves the country for exile in Nigeria. Taylor's departure was seen as a major step in bringing peace to the nation, which had been plagued by civil war for 14 years.

Today's Birthdays:

James Bryan Herrick, US cardiologist (1861-1954);
Bertram Mills, English circus entrepreneur (1873-1938);
Enid Blyton, British author (1897-1968);
Angus Wilson, British author (1913--);
Alex Haley, US author (1921-1992);
Ian Charleston, British actor (1949-1990);
Hulk Hogan, U.S. wrestler/actor (1953--).

Thought For Today:

It is easier to make a saint out of a libertine than out of a prig -George Santayana, Spanish-born philosopher (1863-1952). - Sapa-AP

- SAPA