This Day in History – June 26
Today is the 177th day of 2010. There are 188 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight
2000: Scientists announce that the human genetic code has essentially been deciphered, a monumental achievement that opens a dramatic new frontier in medicine.
Other Notable Events
1549: The 17 provinces of the Netherlands are declared independent of the Holy Roman Empire.
1858: Treaty of Tientsin ends war between Britain and China, whereby China opens additional ports to British commerce and legalises opium trade.
1945: Charter establishing UN is signed in San Francisco,
California, by 50 nations.
1948: The Berlin airlift begins after the Soviets blockade West Berlin. The lift feeds two million Berliners for eleven months.
1960: Madagascar proclaims its independence as the Malagasy Republic; British Somaliland becomes independent.
1989: Hungary’s new Communist Party chief says his country is “breaking away from Stalinism”.
1990: Nelson Mandela speaks before US Congress, thanking it for
imposing sanctions against South Africa and asking that those sanctions be maintained until “irreversible” reforms are enacted.
1991: Martial law is lifted in Kuwait and death sentences for 29 people convicted of collaborating with the Iraqis during their invasion of Kuwait are commuted to life imprisonment.
1999: Nobel Peace Prize winner Jose Ramos Horta returns to East Timor (now Timor Leste), his place of birth, following 24 years in self-exile during which the country was occupied by Indonesia.
2001: Seven North Koreans take refuge in a UN office in Beijing and request asylum, highlighting the plight of North Korean famine victims whom China refuses to regard as refugees.
2003: The US Supreme Court rules, 6-3, that a Texas law banning sodomy between consenting same-sex adults is unconstitutional.
2007: Pope Benedict XVI changes the rules for electing popes, requiring that two-thirds of the cardinals in a conclave agree on the new pontiff. The move was a return to Vatican tradition and reversed a 1996 decision by Pope John Paul II.
Today’s Birthdays
Bartolome Mitre, Argentine president (1821-1906); Baron William Homson Kelvin, English physicist (1824-1907); Pearl Buck, US author (1892-1973); Peter Lorre, Hungarian actor (1904-1964); Chris Isaak, US singer (1956-); Chris O’Donnell, actor (1970-); Patty Smyth, singer (1957-); Sean Hayes, US actor (1970-).