Wednesday, July 7

2004-07-07 07:18

Today is Wednesday, July 7, the 188th day of 2004. There are 177 days left in the year.

Highlights in history on this date:

1718 - Alexis, son of Russia's Peter the Great, dies in a Moscow fortress after being tortured on his father's orders and questioned about a conspiracy.

1753 - An Act is passed for naturalisation of Jews in England.

1803 - The Commissary-General of the Cape, Jacob Abraham de Mist, in his capacity as Deputy Grand Master National, dedicates the temple of the lodge De Goede Hoop in Cape Town.

1815 - Allied forces enter Paris following Napoleon Bonaparte's abdication.

1898 - US annexes island of Hawaii.

1937 - Japanese and Chinese troops clash near Marco Polo Bridge, Beijing, an incident that leads to Sino-Japanese war.

1960 - Belgium sends troops to the newly independent Congo.

1973 - Iraq executes 23 people accused of attempting to overthrow the government.

1987 - At least 46 Hindus are killed in India in two attacks on buses by suspected Sikh terrorists.

1987 - The director of Maputo's harbour meets SA Foreign Trade organisations to discuss a joint "masterplan" to encourage SA exporters and importers to use the harbour.

1990 - Diplomats say thousands of Albanians crowding into foreign embassies will be allowed to leave their communist homeland.

1990 - Tens of thousands of people march without incident in cities and towns across South Africa at the end of a week of action against violence in Natal called by the African National Congress, the Congress of South African Trade Unions, the South African Youth Congress and the United Democratic Front.

1991 - King Hussein of Jordan cancels martial law provisions that went into effect after Jordan lost the West Bank in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.

1993 - Hurricane Calvin hits the Mexican mainland, leaving a trail of flooding and destruction along the Pacific Coast.

1994 - Yemen's two-month civil war ends when northern troops overrun the southern capital.

1995 - After nearly four months in orbit, American astronaut Norman Thagard lands at Kennedy Space Centre with seven others who took part in the first US-Russian space linkup in 20 years.

1997 - Britain's House of Lords backs a bill that would give princesses equal rights with princes in succession to the throne.

1998 - Nigeria's most prominent political prisoner, Moshood Abiola, dies of an apparent heart attack a few days before he was expected to be released.

1999 - A strike by more than 200 000 unionised truck drivers enters its third - and last day - snaring traffic throughout Argentina. The protest is against a new tax on automobiles, boats and aircraft earmarked to boost teachers' salaries.

2000 - Eager kids around the globe grab volumes of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, the boy wizard's fourth magical adventure - a massive hit even before its publication.

2001 - After four days the United States surrenders Air Force Sgt. Timothy Woodland, accused of rape, to Japanese authorities. He is later sentenced to 32 months in jail. US officials' delay enraged people on Okinawa, where three American serviceman raped a 12-year-old girl in 1995.

2002 - At least 34 miners die when a fire breaks out in a coal mine in the eastern Ukraine region of Donetsk.

2003 - US President George W Bush's administration acknowledges for the first time that Bush relied on faulty intelligence when he claimed in his January State of the Union address that Iraq had sought to buy uranium from Africa.

Today's Birthdays:

Gustav Mahler, Austrian composer (1860-1911); Marc Chagall, Russian artist (1887-1985); Vittorio de Sica, Italian director (1901-1974); Margaret Walker, U.S. writer (1915--); Pierre Cardin, French fashion designer (1922--); Shelley Duvall, actress (1949--); Ringo Starr, British musician (1940--).

Thought For Today:

Memory depends very much on the perspicuity, regularity, and order of our thoughts. Many complain of the want of memory, when the defect is in their judgment; and others, by grasping at all, retain nothing - Margaret Fuller, American critic and social reformer (1810-1850).

- SAPA