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August 28
28/08/2008 08:31 - (SA)
Today is Thursday, August 28, the 241st day of 2008. There are 125 days left in the year.
Highlights in history on this date:
1532 - Forces of Suleiman I, sultan of Turkey, ravage Carinthia and Croatia.
1574 - Treaty of Bristol settles commercial disputes between English and Spanish merchants.
1619 - Gabor Bethlen of Transylvania invades Hungary.
1833 - British Parliament bans slavery throughout British Empire.
1879 - British troops capture Cetywayo in Zulu War.
1910 - Montenegro is proclaimed independent kingdom under Nicholas I.
1916 - Italy's declaration of war against Germany takes effect
during World War I.
1922 - The first radio commercial in United States airs on WEAF in
New York City. The 10-minute advertisement was for the Queensboro Realty Co, which paid a fee of US$100.
1928 - All-Party Congress at Lucknow, India, votes for dominion
status within British Empire.
1943 - Japanese resistance ends on island of New Georgia in the
Solomons during World War II.
1947 - Legendary bullfighter Manolete is mortally wounded by a bull
during a fight in Linares, Spain. He dies the following day at age 30.
1963 - 200 000 people participate in a civil rights rally in
Washington, DC, where Dr Martin Luther King Jr delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech in front of the Lincoln Memorial.
1966 - About 50 000 persons die from a drought-caused famine on the island of Lombok, east of Bali. The investigating team finds the bodies of 28,467 people.
1973 - Earthquake hits area southwest of Mexico City, killing 500
people and injuring 1 000 others.
1975 - France flies troops and police to Corsica to quell
demonstrations for autonomy.
1981 - John W Hinckley Jr pleads innocent to charges of attempting
to kill US President Ronald Reagan. He is later acquitted by reason
of insanity.
1986 - Bolivian government imposes nationwide state of siege in
response to march to La Paz by about 7 000 miners opposed to closing of
mines.
1988 - Seventy people are killed when three Italian stunt planes
collide during an air show at the US Air Base in Ramstein, West
Germany, sending flaming debris into a crowd of spectators.
1989 - Police say masked Sikh gunmen raid passenger train in India's
Punjab State and massacre at least 22 Hindu passengers.
1990 - Iraq declares Kuwait to be its 19th province.
1991 - In an international tour, British Prime Minister John Major
becomes the first Western leader to visit Moscow since the coup against
President Mikhail Gorbachev and to visit China since the 1989
pro-democracy crackdown in Tiananmen Square.
1992 - The first four planes carrying US food aid reach Balet
Huen, Somalia, as hundreds cheer.
1993 - Workers in Nigeria's key oil industry, air traffic
controllers and others launch a strike in a bid to force out the
military-backed government.
1996 - The United States denies black nationalist leader Louis
Farrakhan permission to accept a promised $1bn gift from Libya
to help American blacks economically and politically.
1997 - Rival factions clash inside Venezuela's notorious El Dorado
prison, leaving 29 prisoners dead and thirteen inmates seriously
injured.
1998 - General Huseyin Kivrikoglu takes control of Turkey's armed
forces, vowing to intensify the military's fight against radical Islam.
2000 - More than four years after hooded military judges convict
American Lori Berenson of planning a rebel attack, Peru's military
overturns her life sentence and clears the way for a new, civilian
trial.
2001 - Women's rights groups protest the approval of a new law in
Chihuahua, Mexico, which provides for reduced sentences for rapes that
were "provoked" by the victim.
2003 - The University of Michigan unveils a new admissions policy
for undergraduate students. The Supreme Court in June had struck down
the university's previous policy, which used a points-based system that
favored minority applicants.
2004 - Hicham El Guerrouj becomes the first man in 80 years to win
the 1 500 and the 5 000 races at one Olympics, joining Finnish great
Paavo Nurmi in the history books.
2005 - A suicide bomber blows himself up outside a bus station in
the Israeli city of Beersheba, critically wounding two security guards
in the first attack since Israel began its withdrawal from the Gaza
Strip.
2006 - An explosion at a tourist resort in Turkey kills three people
and injures at least 20 others, less than a day after bomb attacks
strike another tourist centre and an Istanbul neighbourhood.
2007 - A devout Muslim, Abdullah Gull, 56, wins Turkey's presidency
after months of confrontation with the secular establishment, promising
to be impartial and praising the idea that Islam and the state should
be separate.
Today's Birthdays:
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, German poet and philosopher (1749-1832);
Leo Tolstoy, Russian writer (1828-1910); Charles Boyer, French-born
actor (1899-1978); Robertson Davies, Canadian novelist (1913-1995);
Janet Frame, New Zealand author (1924-2004); Shania Twain, US country
singer (1965--); LeAnn Rimes, US country singer (1982--); Jack Black,
actor (1969--).
Thought for Today:
The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of
art is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not
heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it's
indifference - Elie Wiesel, Romanian-born author.
Sapa-AP
- SAPA
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