December 29

2008-12-29 06:47

Today is Monday, December 29, the 364th day of 2008. There are 2 days left in the year. Highlights in history on this date:

- 1170 - Archbishop Thomas Becket is slain at the altar in Cathedral of Canterbury, England.

- 1721 - French occupy Mauritius and rename it Ile de France.

- 1789 - Tippoo of Mysore attacks Rajah of Travancore, India.

- 1797 - French capture Mayence, France, from Holy Roman Empire forces.

- 1857 - British and French forces take Canton in China.

- 1890 - US troops massacre 200 Sioux men, women, and children at Wounded Knee, South Dakota.

- 1895 - L Starr Jameson stages raid into Transvaal from Bechuanaland in South Africa.

- 1901 - Commonwealth of Australia is inaugurated after being constituted by an Act of the Imperial Parliament the previous year.

- 1921 - United States, Britain, France, Italy and Japan sign Washington treaty to limit naval armaments.

- 1933 - Romanian Premier Ion Duca is slain by Iron Guard, and George Tartarescu succeeds him.

- 1934 - Japan renounces Washington naval treaty limiting naval armaments.

- 1940 - German bombers inflict greatest damage on London since Great Fire of 1666.

- 1962 - United Nations troops occupy Elizabethville, Katanga.

- 1965 - Independence is announced for Bechuanaland, which becomes Botswana.

- 1973 - Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos ends his elected term and begins to rule on basis of a takeover decree.

- 1989 - Czechoslovak parliament elects dissident playwright Vaclav Havel as its president without opposition.

- 1990 - Johan Kraag is sworn in as president of Suriname after bloodless military coup on December 24 ousts former president.

- 1992 - Premier Milan Panic, the Serb-born American who pushed for peace in fragmented Yugoslavia, is ousted by Parliament in a vote that strengthens Serbia's hard-line President Slobodan Milosevic.

- 1993 - A dozen packed buses ride across rural Bosnian battlegrounds, taking about 900 Sarajevans to a new life as refugees in Croatia.

- 1994 - A Turkish Airlines jet crashes in Turkey with 76 people aboard. Twenty-three people survive.

- 1995 - Russian President Boris Yeltsin returns to the Kremlin after a hospital stay.

- 1996 - Guatemalan government and guerrilla leaders sign an accord ending 36 years of civil conflict, bringing Central America's last and longest civil war to an official close.

- 1998 - In Yemen, troops surround and fire on a band of Islamic extremists holding 16 tourists hostage, ending a kidnapping that leaves six of the hostages dead.

- 1999 - The charismatic leader of the Aum Shinrikyo cult is freed from prison and vows to resume his place in the doomsday-preaching group that five years ago released nerve gas on Tokyo's subways.

- 2000 - Russia's defence minister to Iran, Igor Sergeyev, signs a deal permitting the training of Iranian army officers in Russia.

- 2001 - A series of fireworks explosions spark a massive fire in downtown Lima, the capital of Peru, killing 291 people. The blaze, fuelled by dozens of sidewalk stands selling illegal fireworks, quickly spreads throughout the crowded commercial district.

- 2002 - Election commission officials in Serbia, say the five-year term of Serbian President Milan Milutinovic expires at midnight, opening the possibility of his extradition to the UN International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in The Hague, Netherlands.

- 2003 - International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Mohammed ElBaradei says that Libya's attempts to build a nuclear weapon are in very early stages, and that many components of the nuclear program are in storage.

- 2004 - Paramedics spray Indian beaches with bleach and vaccinate tsunami survivors, as Indonesian authorities bulldoze mass graves for thousands of corpses lining the streets and lawns of Banda Aceh.

- 2005 - Two suspected Taliban die when explosives they are strapping to their bodies explode prematurely, days after a top rebel commander says hundreds of insurgents are willing to kill themselves in attacks on US forces and their allies.

- 2006 - Turkish Cypriots begin dismantling a bridge that blocked plans to relink war-divided Nicosia's commercial centre and was seen as the strongest symbol of the island's partition. The bridge is gone 11 days later, but no breakthrough in reunification talks is evident.

- 2007 - Thousands of Kenyans enraged over delays in announcing the country's next president after December 27 elections burn down homes and attack political rivals with sticks and machetes.

Today's Birthdays:
Jeanne d'Etoiles, Marquise de Pompadour, mistress of France's King Louis XV (1721-1764); Pablo Casals, Spanish cellist (1876-1973); Viveca Lindfors, Swedish-born actress (1920-1995); Mary Tyler Moore, US actress (1937--); Gelsey Kirkland, US ballet dancer (1953--); Ted Danson, US actor (1947--); Jude Law, British actor (1972--).

Thought For Today:
The time will come when Winter will ask us: What were you doing all the Summer? - Bohemian proverb.

Sapa-AP

- SAPA