Monday, July 12

2004-07-12 07:19

Today is Monday, July 12, the 193rd day of 2004. There are 172 days left in the year.

Highlights in history on this date:

1856 - American adventurer William Walker declares himself president of Nicaragua, a position he holds for about a year before being forced out by neighboring states.

1869 - Parliamentary system is adopted by Napoleon III of France.

1902 - Australia's Parliament passes Immigration Restriction Act to stop non-European immigration, and gives women right to vote.

1941 - British-Soviet mutual aid pact of World War II is signed.

1957 - Prince Karim, 20-year-old student at Harvard University, becomes Aga Khan and leader of 20 million Ismaili Muslims following the death of his grandfather.

1960 - France agrees to independence of Dahomey, Niger, Upper Volta, Ivory Coast, Chad, Central Africa and the Congo.

1967 - Chinese Communist mobs in Hong Kong wreck government building and attack police in most violent of four days of anti-British rioting.

1971 - Orangemen in Northern Ireland march in city streets to celebrate half century of Protestant rule.

1973 - US pilots fly heavy air strikes against Cambodian insurgents as fighting is reported south and west of Phnom Penh.

1977 - US President Jimmy Carter says he favours development of neutron bomb because of its less destructive effect.

1983 - Britain and China begin formal year-long negotiations in Beijing on the return of Hong Kong to Chinese sovereignty.

1987 - Dr Frederik van Zyl Slabbert, at the head of a 52-strong delegation, expresses satisfaction at the outcome of the talks with the African National Congress in Dakar, Senegal. The ANC says it has "reaffirmed our belief that Afrikaners and Africans can resolve the conflict".

1990 - Boris Yeltsin resigns from the Soviet Union's Communist Party during the 28th meeting of the Party Congress.

1990 - Shantytown women strip to the waist and confront bulldozers sent to demolish their Dobsonville, Soweto, homes. However, the women's protest is ignored and the demolitions go ahead.

1991 - The five permanent members of UN Security Council tell Iraq's ambassador his country must swiftly disclose extent of its nuclear programme or face serious consequences.

1991 - The ANC calls for the release of more than 900 political prisoners it says are still being held in South Africa and Bophuthatswana. The detentions are an obstacle to negotiations, it says.

1994 - Germany's highest court clears the way for German forces to take part in military operations beyond the country's borders, reversing a post-World War II strategy intended to keep the country from becoming a threat.

1995 - Bosnian Serbs separate men from women and children among the captured after the fall of Srebrenica and take over the UN base that was supposed to protect them.

1997 - Basque separatists in Spain shoot hostage Miguel Angel Blanco in the head and dump his body. The murder sets off days of protests, some of more than a million people, against separatist violence.

1998 - Three young Catholic boys burn to death in a sectarian attack in Northern Ireland.

1999 - The 52-member Organisation of African Unity begins a conference in Algeria to address African problems ranging from a $220 billion debt to civil conflicts.

2000 - The long-delayed International Space Station's service module is lifted off into orbit.

2001 - Bulgaria's former king, Simeon II, is named prime minister.

2002 - UN Security Council approves a resolution that grants US peacekeepers serving in UN missions immunity from prosecution by the International Criminal Court, for at least a year.

2003 - Salamat Hashim, the leader of the rebel Moro Islamic Liberation Front, dies. The group had been fighting to establish a breakaway Islamic state in the southern Philippines.

Today's Birthdays:

Hipolito Yrigoyen, first democratically elected president of Argentina (1852-1933); Elijah Wedgewood, British pottery maker (1730-1795); Henry David Thoreau, US author-naturalist (1817-1862); George Eastman, US inventor (1854-1932); Amedeo Modigliani, Italian artist (1884-1920); Pablo Neruda, Chilean poet and Nobel laureate (1904-1973); Van Cliburn, US pianist (1934--); Bill Cosby, US actor-comedian (1937--).

Thought For Today:

No man is happy without a delusion of some kind. Delusions are as necessary to our happiness as realities - Christian Nestell Bovee, American author (1820-1904). - Sapa-AP

- SAPA