This Day in History – June 18
Today is the 169th day of 2013. There are 196 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight
2007 – A team of international investigators infiltrates an Internet chat room used by paedophiles and breaks a global paedophile ring, rescuing 31 children and identifying more than 700 suspects worldwide.
Other Events
1757: Holy Roman Empire forces defeat Prussia’s King Frederick II in Seven Years War battle of Kollin, now Czech Republic, and he loses 13,000 of 33,000 troops.
1779: French forces take St Vincent in West Indies from British.
1815: British under Duke of Wellington and Prussians under Gerhard von Blucher defeat France’s Napoleon Bonaparte at Waterloo.
1900: With the anti-foreign Boxer Rebellion already under way, the dowager empress of China orders all foreigners killed.
1940: General Charles de Gaulle makes his famous BBC broadcast from London, in which he declares himself leader of the “Free French” and urges compatriots to resist Nazi occupation.
1953: South Korea releases 26,000 North Korean prisoners.
1985: US space shuttle Discovery, with Saudi Arabian prince aboard as passenger, launches a satellite for Arab world.
1995: Bosnian Serbs free the last of the several hundred peacekeepers seized the previous month after NATO airstrikes.
1997: One of the most reviled figures of the century, the fugitive Cambodian Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot, surrenders to his former comrades.
2004: European Union leaders agree on a first-ever constitution for their newly reunited continent, overcoming disputes about power-sharing, national sovereignty and even whether God deserves a mention.
2005: Hundreds of thousands of people in Spain led by 20 Roman Catholic bishops and conservative opposition leaders clog downtown Madrid in a demonstration against the Socialist government’s bill to legalize gay marriage and permit gay couples to adopt children.
2006: Kazakhstan launches its first satellite into orbit, the first step in the ex-Soviet republic’s plan to join the exclusive club of spacefaring nations.
2008 – Zhang Xiaoyan, a woman who was trapped under rubble for 50 hours in last month’s earthquake in China, delivers a healthy baby girl in a touching coda to the massive tragedy that killed almost 70,000 people.
2009: Tens of thousands of protesters wearing black and carrying candles fill the streets of Tehran again, joining opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi to mourn demonstrators killed in clashes over Iran’s disputed election.
2010: BP removes chief executive Tony Hayward from day-to-day oversight of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill crisis a day after he was pummelled by US lawmakers at a hearing.
Today’s Birthdays:
Edward Scripps, U.S. newspaper publisher (1854-1926); Anastasia, daughter of Russian czar Nicholas II (1901-1918); Paul McCartney, British singer (1942–); Thabo Mbeki, South African president (1942–); Robert Ebert, film critic (1942–2013); Isabella Rosselini, Italian-born model-actress (1952–); Tom Bailey, British singer (1957–).