On this day - August 5
2009-08-05 08:04
Today is Wednesday, August 5, the 217th day of 2009. There are 148 days left in the year.
Highlights in history on this date:
1716 - Savoy's Prince Eugene defeats Turks at Peterwardein, now part of the Yugoslav Republic.
1772 - In St Petersburg, rulers of Russia, Prussia and Austria sign the first of three partitions ending Poland's sovereign rule until 1918.
1810 - Napoleon Bonaparte imposes tax on all colonial imports into France.
1861 - The US federal government levies an income tax for the first time.
1884 - Cornerstone of Statue of Liberty is laid at entrance to New York harbour.
1943 - Capture of Catania gives Allied forces command of Sicilian Straits off Italy during World War II.
1944 - More than 1 000 Japanese, taken as prisoners of war by Australia, unsuccessfully attempt to escape from a camp in Cowra, New South Wales; 234 are killed and 108 wounded.
1949 - United States aid to Nationalist China ceases; Earthquake in Ecuador takes about 6 000 lives.
1954 - Eight Western oil companies sign an agreement with Shah of Iran, restored to power after a coup, ending a worldwide boycott imposed after Iran's democratically elected government nationalised the oil industry.
1962 - South African anti-apartheid fighter Nelson Mandela is arrested at a police roadblock; US movie star Marilyn Monroe is found dead in bedroom of her Los Angeles home.
1963 - United States, Britain and Soviet Union sign a treaty outlawing nuclear tests in atmosphere, in space and under water.
1965 - Cook Islands in South Pacific grants internal self-government by New Zealand.
1969 - The US space probe Mariner 7 flies by Mars, sending back unprecedented photographs and scientific data.
1973 - Palestinian "Black September" guerrillas attack a line of travellers at Greece's Athens airport with grenades and machine guns, killing three and wounding 55.
1977 - Ten family members of the late Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie escape from house arrest in Addis Ababa and reach Sweden. There are reprisals against Selassie's family and political associates following his overthrow in 1974.
1990 - US troops intervene in Liberia's civil war to rescue about 70 Americans in Monrovia following hostage threat by rebels.
1991 - Iraq admits to UN inspection team that it carried out germ warfare research for four years, but claims it abandoned research shortly after 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
1992 - Nelson Mandela leads 100 000 blacks in Pretoria in a protest to end white rule.
1994 - Nato jets attack Serbs near Sarajevo after they seized a tank and other weapons from a UN depot and fire on a UN helicopter.
1996 - US President Bill Clinton signs a bill to punish foreign businesses that invest in Iran and Libya.
1997 - Korean Air jumbo jet carrying 254 persons slams into a mountain in Guam while trying to land during a night-time thunderstorm. Only 26 people survive.
1999 - Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak expands his Cabinet from 17 to 23 members and appoints Israel's first Arab deputy foreign minister.
2000 - Police in eastern Germany detain dozens of neo-Nazi supporters trying to hold a rally, while hundreds of Germans protest the recent rise in racist attacks.
2001 - Afghanistan's ruling Taliban jail eight foreign aid workers for allegedly preaching Christianity in the Muslim nation.
2002 - Four masked gunmen attack a Christian school for the children of Protestant missionaries in Murree, 55km north of Islamabad, killing six and wounding three others, all Pakistanis.
2006 - The Taiwanese government breaks off diplomatic relations with Chad, saying the African nation was under pressure from China to end its relations with Taiwan, so the island's leaders made the break before Chad could move on its own.
2007 - Lebanon's opposition captures one of two parliament seats up for election to replace assassinated ruling party lawmakers in a tense showdown between the US-backed government and opponents supported by Syria and Iran.
2008 - An American woman receives five puppies cloned from her beloved late pitbull, becoming the inaugural customer of a South Korean company that says it is the world's first successful commercial canine cloning service.
Today's Birthdays:
Ilya Repin, Russian painter (1844-1930); Guy de Maupassant, French writer (1850-1893); John Huston, US film director (1906-1987); Neil Armstrong, US astronaut and first man to set foot on Moon (1930--); Loni Anderson, US actress (1946--); Tawny Kitaen, US actress (1961--); Maureen McCormick (1956--).
Thought For Today:
I slept, and dreamed that life was Beauty; I woke, and found that life was Duty - Ellen Sturgis Hooper, American poet (1816-1841).
Sapa-AP