On this day - October 1
2009-10-01 08:04
Today is Friday, October 1, the 274th day of 2010. There are 91 days left in the year.
Highlights in history on this date:
1273 - Count Rudolf IV of Habsburg is crowned German King Rudolf and establishes the house of Habsburg in Austrian provinces.
1596 - Duke of Norfolk is imprisoned by Britain's Queen Elizabeth for attempting to marry Mary Queen of Scots.
1800 - Spain cedes Louisiana to France in a secret treaty.
1838 - The first Anglo-Afghan War begins with the British heading for Kabul to prevent increasing Russian influence from threatening British position in India.
1887 - Baluchistan is united with India.
1918 - The Lost Battalion, a famous American World War I fighting unit, is trapped in the Argonne Forest of France, thus earning its name. The unit members hold out against incredible odds until they are rescued October 8.
1927 - Russian-Persian non-aggression pact is signed.
1928 - Soviet Union inaugurates first five-year plan to increase farm and industrial production.
1936 - General Francisco Franco is named head of state in the part of Spain under Nationalist control.
1949 - The People's Republic of China is proclaimed in Beijing under Mao Zedong, with Zhou Enlai as premier and foreign minister.
1953 - United States agrees to give France $385m in aid to train and equip more Vietnamese, Cambodian and Laotian troops and increase temporary French forces in Indo-China.
1964 - The US Free Speech Movement is launched at the University of California at Berkeley.
1970 - Egypt's Vice President Anwar Sadat succeeds the late Gamal Abdel Nasser as president.
1971 - Walt Disney World opens in Orlando, Florida.
1978 - South Pacific archipelago of Tuvalu, formerly the Ellice Islands, becomes independent from Britain.
1980 - Warsaw court gives legal approval to Poland's first six independent trade unions.
1986 - Former US President Jimmy Carter's presidential library and museum is dedicated in Atlanta.
1989 - Denmark becomes the first nation in the world to allow homosexuals to marry; Communist East Berlin permits exodus of about 7 000 East Germans to the west.
1990 - Minority Serbs in Croatia proclaim autonomy.
1991 - US President George HW Bush condemns the military coup in Haiti, suspending economic and military aid and demanding that President Jean-Bertrand Aristide be returned to power.
1992 - Vice President Itamar Franco takes over from Brazil's impeached President Fernando Collor de Mello.
1993 - At a conference in Washington, 43 countries pledge nearly $2bn to bankroll Palestinians as they prepare for home rule.
1994 - The US National Hockey League team owners begin a 103-day lockout of their players.
1996 - The UN Security Council lifts sanctions against Yugoslavia in recognition of Serbia's role in helping bring peace to Bosnia.
1997 - The founder of the militant Hamas movement, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, is freed from Israel's Ayalon prison and flown to Amman, Jordan.
1998 - Indonesia offers East Timor wide-ranging autonomy, bringing a possible conclusion to 20 years of civil war on the island.
2001 - A Pakistan-based militant group attacks the state legislature in Indian-ruled Kashmir, killing 40 people.
2003 - President Paul Kagame's Rwandan Patriotic Front party wins a majority in the parliamentary elections. It is the nation's first multiparty legislative elections since independence from Belgium in 1962.
2004 - A suicide attacker carrying a bomb in a briefcase strikes at a Shi'ite mosque crammed with worshippers in eastern Pakistan, killing at least 25 people and wounding more than 50 during prayer service.
2005 - Twin bombings rip through restaurants crowded with foreign tourists on the Indonesian resort island of Bali, killing at least 22 people and wounding more than 50.
2006 - Families in northwest Nigeria are swept away in a torrent of water and up to 40 people are feared dead after a dam collapses.
2007 - A volcano erupts on Jabal al-Tair, a tiny Yemeni island in the Red Sea, collapsing part of the island, covering the rest with lava, and forcing the evacuation of a small military base.
2008 - The last czar and his family were victims of political repression, Russia's Supreme Court rules, formally restoring the Romanov name and furthering a Kremlin effort to encourage patriotism by celebrating the country's czarist past.
Today's Birthdays:
Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI (1685-1740); Paul Dukas, French composer (1865-1935); Vladimir Horowitz, Russian-born pianist (1904-1989); Jimmy Carter, US president (1924--); Julie Andrews, English-born actress (1935--); Youssou N'Dour, Senegalese singer (1959--).
Thought For Today:
Anything one man can imagine, other men can make real - Jules Verne, French author (1828-1905).
Sapa-AP