On this day - June 12
2009-06-12 08:23
Today is Friday, June 12, the 163rd day of 2009. There are 202 days left in the year.
Highlights in history on this date:
1667 - A 15-year-old boy becomes the first to receive a blood transfusion when Jean-Baptiste Denys, physician of French King Louis XIV, treats his fever with lamb's blood.
1691 - Ahmed II succeeds Suleiman III as sultan of Turkey.
1798 - French forces capture island of Malta.
1882 - Anti-foreign riots break out in Alexandria, Egypt.
1900 - Second German Naval Act is passed, calling for fleet of 38 battleships by 1920.
1901 - Cuban Convention makes that nation virtually a protectorate of United States.
1917 - King Constantine of Greece abdicates, making way for son Alexander.
1935 - Paraguay and Bolivia sign a truce ending bloody three-year Chaco War. Paraguay gets most of the disputed Chaco region, while Bolivia gets a river port.
1937 - Stalin's purge of Russian generals begins.
1940 - Japanese planes bomb Chungking, China, capital of the Nationalist movement.
1952 - Nordic nationals are for the first time able to cross the borders between their countries without passports.
1964 - Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu and other anti-apartheid leaders sentenced to life in prison in South Africa.
1967 - Israel declares it will keep some of ground won from Egypt, Jordan and Syria in Six-Day War.
1976 - A military coup in Uruguay overthrows civilian president Juan Bordaberry, beginning a nine-year dictatorship.
1987 - Central African Republic's former Emperor Jean-Bedel Bokassa is sentenced to death for murder, arbitrary arrest and embezzlement of public funds.
1988 - Demonstrations erupt over controversial constitutional amendment making Islam the state religion in Bangladesh.
1991 - Boris Yeltsin is elected president of Russia; Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines erupts for the first time in centuries, causing widespread damage and 700 deaths.
1993 - UN forces launch offensive against Somali warlord Mohammed Farah Aidid.
1994 - The ex-wife of US football star OJ Simpson and one of her friends are found murdered. The trial consumes American media for months.
1997 - The United States announces it will try to limit Nato expansion to Hungary, the Czech Republic and Poland, snubbing Slovenia and Romania.
1999 - Nato troops flood into Kosovo and come face-to-face with Russian troops who seize the airport in Pristina in an unexpected move. The Russian foreign minister calls the Russian deployment a mistake.
2000 - Municipal elections in Montenegro leave Serbia's small partner divided between backers of the pro-Western government and supporters of Slobodan Milosevic.
2002 - A three-judge panel in the New Jersey State Superior Court rules the US government may keep secret the names of immigrants detained in the wake of September 11 2001 attacks.
2003 - The United Nations Security Council passes a US-led resolution that grants immunity from prosecution by the International Criminal Court (ICC) to US and other citizens on UN missions from countries that had not ratified the court's founding treaty.
2004 - Seven Turkish contractors taken hostage in Iraq are released by their kidnappers, while elsewhere in the country a deputy foreign minister is gunned down on his way to work in the first assassination of a senior official since the new interim government was announced this month.
2005 - Palestinian authorities carry out their first executions since 2002, killing four convicted murders by firing squad in a campaign meant to halt a growing wave of lawlessness.
2006 - Hundreds of Palestinian security men loyal to President Mahmoud Abbas go on a rampage against the Hamas-led government, riddling the parliament building and Cabinet offices with bullets and setting them ablaze in retaliation for an attack by Hamas gunmen in the Gaza Strip.
2007 - Yugoslav war crimes tribunal convicts former Croatian Serb leader Milan Martic of mass murders, torture and persecution of non-Serbs from 1991-95.
2008 - Nepalese officials take control of the main royal palace in Katmandu, a day after deposed King Gyanendra left to begin life as a civilian. The Narayanhiti palace will soon be turned into a museum.
Today's Birthdays:
Charles Kingsley, English author-social reformer (1819-1875); Sir Anthony Eden, British prime minister (1897-1977); Anne Frank, German author (1929-1945); George HW Bush, former US president (1924--); Richard Sherman, composer (1928--); Chick Corea, jazz keyboardist (1941--); Jenilee Harrison, US actress (1958--); Grandmaster Dee, US rapper (1962--); Paula Marshall, US actress (1964--).
Thought For Today:
Don't use the conduct of a fool as a precedent - The Jewish Talmud.
Sapa-AP