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May 14
14/05/2008 08:26 - (SA)
Today is Wednesday, May 14, the 135th day of 2008. There are 231 days left in the year.
Highlights in history on this date:
1509 - French defeat Venetians at Agnadello and become masters of northern Italy.
1610 - Francois Ravaillac, a fanatical Roman Catholic, assassinates France's King Henry IV, who gave a measure of religious freedom to Protestants.
1702 - Sweden's King Charles XII takes Warsaw.
1796 - First smallpox inoculation is administered by Edward Jenner in England.
1801 - The pasha of Tripoli declares war on the United States for its refusal to pay for safe passage of its ships in the Mediterranean. The Tripolitan pirates are defeated four years later.
1811 - Paraguay gains independence from Spain. Now celebrated as National Independence Day holiday.
1897 - Britain, by treaty with Ethiopia, abandons certain claims in Somaliland but Emperor Menelek refuses to surrender claims to land near the Nile.
1921 - Fascists gain in Italian elections, supplying a springboard for Benito Mussolini's dictatorship.
1948 - British mandate in Palestine ends, and an independent state of Israel is formed; Arab Legion of Transjordan invades Palestine and enters Jerusalem.
1955 - Warsaw Pact formed by Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and the Soviet Union.
1964 - Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev opens Aswan Dam in Egypt.
1972 - Okinawa reverts to Japan after 27 years under US jurisdiction.
1987 - Troops storm Fiji Parliament, declaring military government after kidnapping prime minister and his cabinet in South Pacific's first coup.
1988 - Iraqi warplanes attack and set ablaze five ships at offshore oil-loading terminal that belongs to Iran.
1989 - Baltic nationalists call for economic independence from Moscow by following year.
1991 - Winnie Mandela is sentenced to six years in prison following conviction on kidnapping charges in South Africa, but is freed on the equivalent of $72 bail.
1992 - Intense fighting in Sarajevo traps 350 UN personnel in the Bosnian city.
1993 - A car bomb devastates a street in a fashionable Rome neighbourhood, injuring 23 people.
1994 - In a challenge to the United States, North Korea says that is has begun removing nuclear fuel from its largest reactor without international inspectors present.
1995 - President Carlos Menem wins a second term by a wide margin in Argentine elections.
1996 - A Nigerian freighter with 3 500 Liberian war refugees is allowed to dock in Ghana after being turned away from African ports for 10 days.
1997 - Turkish soldiers, tanks and jets invade northern Iraq to root out Kurdish guerrillas from mountain hideouts.
1998 - Riots convulse Jakarta and 15 000 troops take up position around the Indonesian city.
1999 - Yugoslavs say 87 civilians die when Nato bombs a village in Kosovo. Nato says the village was a military base, and that the dead were forced to be human shields by Serb soldiers.
2000 - Tens of thousands attend the "Million Mom March" in Washington DC to demand stricter gun control and to memorialise those lost to gun violence.
2001 - European Commission, the European Union's executive body, establishes diplomatic relations with North Korea.
2002 - Suspected Islamic militants attack an Indian army base in Kashmir, shooting soldiers and their families. The assault leaves at least 33 people dead, including 10 children.
2003 - South Korean President Roh Moo Hyun meets for the first time with President George W Bush in Washington, DC, during Roh's first visit to the United States.
2004 - A senior Pentagon official says that Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, the senior US commander in Iraq, has moved to limit the military's allowable interrogation tactics, eliminating most coercive techniques from even being considered. In the past, requests for such methods were allowed with specific permission.
2005 - Turkish soldiers kill nine Kurdish rebels in a military operation in Turkey's predominantly Kurdish southeast following a European court judgement that the rebels' imprisoned leader did not receive a fair trial.
2006 - Rene Preval, the only elected president in Haiti's history to finish his term, is sworn in to again lead the impoverished nation in its latest attempt at democracy after decades of armed uprisings and lawlessness.
2007 - A Chinese rocket blasts a Nigerian communications satellite into orbit, marking an expansion of China's commercial launching services for foreign space hardware.
Today's Birthdays:
Gabriel D Fahrenheit, German physicist (1686-1736); Otto Klemperer, German conductor (1885-1973); Pakistani ruler Ayub Khan (1907-1974); George Lucas, US film director and producer (1944--); Robert Zemeckis, US film director (1952--); David Byrne, Scottish-born pop singer (1952--); Shanice, singer (1973--); Cate Blanchett, actress (1969--).
Thought For Today:
Act well at the moment, and you have performed a good action to all eternity - Johann Kaspar Lavater, Swiss theologian (1741-1801).
Sapa-AP
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