This Day in History – August 16
Today is the 228th day of 2013. There are 137 days left in the year.
TODAY’S HIGHLIGHTS
1977: Elvis Presley, known as the King of rock ‘n’ roll, is found dead at his home in Memphis, Tennessee.
OTHER EVENTS
1570: John Sigismund Zapolya of Transylvania signs secret treaty with Holy Roman Empire to achieve independence from Turkey, but renounces control over much of Hungary.
1777: American forces win Revolutionary War Battle of Bennington, Vermont.
1812: Detroit falls to British and Indian forces in the War of 1812.
1858: A telegraphed message from Britain’s Queen Victoria to US President James Buchanan is transmitted over the new trans-Atlantic cable.
1896: British protectorate in Ashanti, West Africa, is proclaimed.
1944: More than 1,000 US bombers from Britain attack aircraft bases and factories in Germany. Thirty-two German planes are shot down and 23 bombers go missing.
1956: Egypt’s President Gamal Abdel Nasser boycotts first London conference to discuss Suez Canal.
1960: Britain grants independence to Crown Colony of Cyprus, with Archbishop Makarios as president.
1964: Major General Nguyen Khan takes over presidency of South Vietnam, ousting Major General Duong van Minh.
1972: Morocco’s King Hassan II escapes assassination attempt by Moroccan Air Force jets in a military coup attempt.
1974: Turkish invaders of Cyprus complete division of island into two areas.
1987: An American Northwest Airlines flight crashes while trying to take off from a Detroit airport, killing 156 people. Four-year-old Cecelia Cichan is the only survivor.
1989: Palestinian activists in Gaza Strip call for two-week boycott of jobs in Israel to protest computerised identity cards for day labourers.
1990: Men hack their way through a train station in Soweto, South Africa, with spears and axes, killing at least nine people; Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev restores citizenship of exiled writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn.
1991: United Nations and South African government agree on amnesty terms for political exiles, clearing the way for an estimated 40,000 refugees to return to South Africa.
1996: France takes a tough position on African immigrants, saying those who arrive illegally — including 10 on the 43rd day of a hunger strike — will not be allowed to stay.
1999: Russia’s lower house of parliament approves Vladimir Putin as the country’s new president.
2001: NATO allows British servicemen and women to head to Macedonia for a mission to collect and destroy rebel arms.
2002: Monsoon floods in South Asia kill more than 900 people and displace or maroon some 25 million more over the next two months.
2003: Ugandan military ruler Idi Amin, 78, who presided over an eight-year reign of terror from 1971-1979, where an estimated 300,000 people were killed and tortured to death; dies of multiple organ failure.
2004: Venezuelans vote to keep President Hugo Chavez in office in a popular referendum, following a long and bitter campaign by his opposition to oust him.
2007: A powerful 7.9-magnitude earthquake shakes Peru’s coast near the capital, toppling buildings, setting off landslides, killing at least 500 and injuring at least 827.
2009: Prime Minister Gordon Brown affirms Britain’s commitment to Afghanistan on a weekend in which roadside bombs kill five more soldiers, pushing the UK death toll past 200.
2010: A Boeing 737 jetliner filled with vacationers crashes in a thunderstorm and breaks apart as it slides onto the runway on a Caribbean island near Colombia. Only one of the 131 people on board dies, and the island’s governor calls it a miracle.
2012: WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange wins asylum in Ecuador but legal experts say the decision by the South American nation to identify him as a refugee and let him reside in its London embassy does little to help him avoid extradition to Sweden on sexual assault allegations.TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS
Jean de la Bruyere, French essayist-novelist (1645-1696); Menachem Begin, Israeli prime minister (1913-1992); Eydie Gorme, U.S. singer (1932–); Bruce Beresford, Australian film director (1940–); Suzanne Farrell, U.S. ballerina (1945–); Madonna, US pop singer (1958–); Steve Carell, actor (1962–).