Thursday, November 24

2005-11-24 07:02

Today is Thursday, November 24, the 328th day of 2005. There are 37 days left in the year.

Highlights in history on this date:

1859 - British naturalist Charles Darwin publishes "On the Origin of Species," explaining his theory of evolution.

1874 - Barbed wire is patented by American Joseph F Glidden.

1936 - Germany and Japan sign anti-Comintern pact.

1941 - The great tank battle of Sidi Rezegh in North Africa rages unabated in World War 2. The South Africans, outnumbered by their German opponents, are stranded in the open desert but manage to destroy 50 of the German tanks. At about 16:30 all the SA guns are out of action after running short of ammunition and the South Africans are forced to surrender.

1942 - Germans suffer heavy losses in Battle of Stalingrad in Soviet Union in World War 2.

1947 - A group of writers, producers and directors known as the "Hollywood 10" are cited for contempt by Congress for refusing to answer questions about alleged Communist influence in the movie industry.

1950 - UN forces launch an offensive on Korea's western front in an effort to knock out the main Chinese Communist forces south of Manchuria.

1956 - The UN General Assembly presses Britain, France and Israel for withdrawal of their troops from Egypt. The United States joins the Soviet and Arab-Asian blocs in voting in favor of the withdrawals.

1961 - UN Security Council calls on UN members to make Africa nuclear weapons-free zone.

1963 - Lee Harvey Oswald, accused assassin of US President John F Kennedy, is shot to death by Jack Ruby in Dallas, Texas.

1964 - Belgian paratroopers, Congolese army and mercenaries recapture Stanleyville in the Congo from rebels.

1970 - Japanese writer Yukio Mishima, who wants to lead Japan back to the way of the samurai, leads sword attack on army general's office in Tokyo, then kills himself in traditional hara-kiri fashion.

1971 - Hijacker Dan Cooper parachutes from a Northwest Airlines 727 over Washington state with $200 000 in ransom. His fate remains unknown.

1972 - United States and Thailand agree that America will maintain substantial military presence - mostly air power - in Thailand for an unspecified period after any Vietnamese cease-fire.

1974 - US President Gerald Ford and Soviet leader Leonid I. Brezhnev, meet in Vladivostok, and reach tentative agreement to limit number of offensive strategic nuclear weapons.

1975 - Earthquake hits eastern Turkey, taking at least 574 lives, and government says total could reach more than 3 000.

1977 - Archaeologist says tomb uncovered near Salonika, Greece, is that of Macedon's King Philip II, father of Alexander the Great.

1985 - Egyptian commandos storm hijacked Egyptian airliner at Malta. An explosion during the assault kills 60 aboard. Two of the dead are hijackers.

1987 - The United States and the Soviet Union agree to scrap short and medium-range missiles in the first superpower treaty to eliminate an entire class of nuclear weapons.

1989 - Elias Hrawi is elected president of Lebanon following assassination of Rene Mouawad; Czech Politburo resigns after massive protests.

1990 - South Africa's Pan-Africanist Congress announces it will join with African National Congress in opposing the white-led government.

1991 - The US space shuttle Atlantis carries out a military mission where a missile-detection satellite is deployed and astronauts practice sighting strategic installations on the ground; Freddie Mercury dies aged 45, just one day after he publicly admitted he was HIV positive.

1992 - A Chinese airliner crashes into a mountain 25 kilometers (15 miles) from its destination in the southern city of Guilin, killing all 144 on board. The crash is the fifth in China in four months.

1993 - Two 11-year-old British boys are convicted in the murder of a Liverpool toddler.

1994 - A man who hijacked a Russian plane releases all 69 hostages and surrenders in Tallinn, Estonia.

1995 - Irish voters decide to legalize divorce, passing a referendum by narrow margin.

1996 - A court annuls election results for the Belgrade, Yugoslavia, city council where an opposition coalition appeared to have won a majority. More than 30,000 people demonstrate against the ruling.

1997 - The Taliban rulers of Afghanistan agree to uproot the poppy crop, the source of half the world's heroin supply.

1998 - America Online confirms it will buy Netscape Communications in a deal worth $10 billion.

1999 - After 16 months of negotiations, the European Union and Mexico reach an accord establishing the most comprehensive free trade deal ever negotiated by the European body and the first with a Latin American partner.

2000 - Japan announces that Peru's disgraced ex-president Alberto Fujimori can live permanently in the land of his ancestors if he so wishes because proof exists that his parents were Japanese. It also means he cannot be extradited.

2001 - Malaysian police arrest Nur Misuari, the governor of the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao and leader of the Moro National Liberation Front, whom the Philippine government blames for an uprising that killed more than 100 people earlier the same week.

2002 - Venezuelan and French Marines participated in Suriname's Independence Day parade, marking 27 years since the country won its freedom from the Netherlands.

2003 - The High Court in Glasgow, Scotland rules that Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, a Libyan intelligence agent convicted in 2001 for the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, will serve 27 years in prison before becoming eligible for parole.

Today's Birthdays:

Baruch Spinoza, Dutch philosopher (1632-1677); Abdel-Illah, crown prince of Iraq (1913-1958); William F Buckley, US magazine publisher and conservative thinker (1925--); Alfredo Kraus, Spanish tenor (1927-1999); Arthur Chaskalson, first chief justice of South African Constitutional Court (1931--); Billy Connolly, Scottish actor/comedian (1942--); Terry Lewis, US record producer (1956--).

Thought For Today:

There is a great deal of difference in believing something still, and believing it again - WH Auden, British poet (1907-1973).

- SAPA