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Monday, October 25
25/10/2004 07:28 - (SA)
Today is Monday, October 25, the 299th day of 2004. There are 67 days left in the year.
Highlights in history on this date:
1415 - The English defeat a vastly greater French force at the Battle of Agincourt.
1586 - Mary Queen of Scots, the focus of Catholic plots on the throne of England, is sentenced to death.
1616 - Dutch mariner Dirk Hartog discovers Australia.
1760 - Britain's King George III succeeds his late grandfather, George II.
1794 - Russia withdraws from war against France.
1812 - The US frigate United States captures the British vessel Macedonian during the War of 1812.
1815 - Serb rebellion against Turkish rule begins, resulting in considerable autonomy for Serbs.
1838 - Voortrekker leader Louis Trichardt dies of fever in Lourenco Marques (Maputo).
1854 - The British Light Brigade charges heroically near Sevastopol, Russia, during Crimean War.
1874 - Britain annexes Fiji islands.
1900 - Transvaal is annexed formally by Britain at Pretoria, South Africa.
1909 - Murder of Japan's Prince Ito by Korean fanatics leads to Japanese dictatorship in Korea.
1918 - The Canadian steamship Princess Sophia founders off the coast of Alaska; nearly 400 people perish.
1922 - Fascists march on Rome and the Italian king nominates Benito Mussolini as prime minister.
1936 - Germany and Italy form Rome-Berlin Axis.
1938 - Japanese troops take Hankow, and Chinese government establishes itself at Chungking; Libya is declared part of Italy.
1941 - Germany's first offensive against Moscow in World War 2 fails.
1951 - Peace talks aimed at ending the Korean War resume in Panmunjom after a 63-day interval.
1956 - Egypt, Jordan and Syria form a unified military command.
1962 - US ambassador Adlai E Stevenson presents photographic evidence of Soviet missile bases in Cuba to the UN Security Council; US author John Steinbeck is awarded the Nobel Prize in literature.
1964 - President Kaunda takes power in Zambia
Zambia is the ninth African state to gain independence from the British crown.
1966 - Indonesia's former Foreign Minister Subandrio is sentenced to death after right-wing military generals Suharto and Nasution stage a coup and wrest power from Sukarno.
1971 - The UN General Assembly votes to admit mainland China and expel Taiwan.
1974 - Foreign ministers of 19 Arab countries meet in Rabat, Morocco, and vote strong support for Palestine Liberation Organisation.
1974 - The QwaQwa homeland receives self-government status.
1983 - US Marines and Rangers, assisted by soldiers from six Caribbean nations, invade Grenada at the order of US President Ronald Reagan, who says the action is needed to protect US citizens there.
1987 - Indian peacekeeping forces wrest control of a Jaffna town in northern Sri Lanka but still face Tamil rebel snipers.
1988 - The Soweto Students' Congress and the Azanian Co-ordinating Committee are restricted in terms of emergency regulations.
1989 - Soviet State Bank announces the ruble will be devalued by nearly 90 percent for visiting foreigners.
1990 - Lebanese President Elias Hrawi consolidates control over Beirut by ordering the departure of sectarian militias from the previously divided capital. This leaves Beirut free of private armies, and under the rule of a unified central government, for the first time since the Lebanese civil war began in 1975.
1990 - The South African Agricultural Union opens its membership to all races despite strong opposition from the Transvaal Agricultural Union.
1991 - About 90 anti-apartheid movements, claiming to represent more than 15 million South Africans, establish a "patriotic united front" to press for black majority rule.
1993 - Israel begins freeing Palestinian prisoners under a deal with Palestine Liberation Organisation.
1994 - A massive oil spill from a broken pipeline pollutes two rivers and tundra in Russia's far north.
1995 - Israeli troops start pulling out from Jenin on the West Bank, the first city to be handed over under the Israel-Palestine Liberation Organisation autonomy agreement.
1996 - The fundamentalist Islamic Taliban claim to capture another Afghanistan province, their first advance since seizing the capital, Kabul, a month earlier.
1997 - Ten days after a Tamil rebel truck bomb devastated Colombo's business district, Sri Lankan police arrest hundreds of Tamils in a sweep that shuts down the capital.
1998 - Two days after a peace accord with the Israelis, street battles rage in the West Bank between members of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's political faction and Palestinian security forces.
1999 - Israel opens a land link between the West Bank and Gaza Strip, a so-called safe passage allowing Palestinians to travel between the autonomous areas.
2000 - Sources tell investigators that Yemeni carpenter helped the attackers who bombed the USS Cole. Seventeen American sailors were killed in the suicide bombing.
2001 - The US House of Representatives approves legislation that will give law enforcement and intelligence agencies broader powers to investigate suspected terrorists.
2002 - US Senator Paul Wellstone is killed when his small chartered airplane crashes in freezing rain near Eveleth, Minnesota. One of the Senate's most outspoken liberals, he had been in the midst of a close re-election campaign.
2003 - Russia's Federal Security Service arrest billionaire Mikhail Khodorkovsky, chief executive officer of top-ranked Russian oil conglomerate OAO Yukos. The arrest spurs a sharp drop in the Russian stock market as investors anticipate a crackdown on private business interests.
Today's Birthdays:
Thomas B Macauley, British historian (1800-1859); Georges Bizet, French composer (1838-1875); Pablo Picasso, Spanish painter and sculptor (1881-1973); Admiral Richard Evelyn Byrd, American polar explorer (1888-1957); Former King Michael of Romania (1921--); Helen Reddy, Australian pop singer (1941--).
Thought for Today:
It is an undoubted truth that the less one has to do, the less time one finds to do it in - Lord Chesterfield, English author and statesman (1694-1773).
- SAPA
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