This Day in History – September 16
Today is the 259th day of 2013. There are 106 days left in the year.
TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT
2010: Pope Benedict XVI wades into the hostile atmosphere of highly secular Britain, admitting the Roman Catholic Church did not act decisively or quickly enough to remove priests who molested children in his strongest comments yet on the worldwide sex abuse crisis shaking his church.
OTHER EVENTS
1810: Mexicans begin their revolt against Spanish rule.
1913: Japan sends flotilla to Yangtze River on China’s failure to honour reparation agreement.
1955: Argentine President Juan Peron is ousted by a military coup during his second term in office and begins an 18-year exile.
1957: Coup in Thailand places Pote Sarasin, new secretary-general of Southeast Asian Treaty Organisation, as premier.
1963: Malaya, North Borneo, Sarawak and Singapore form Federation of Malaysia.
1967: UN Secretary-General U Thant calls on United States to halt bombing of North Vietnam.
1970: Weeklong “Black September” civil war starts in Jordan, with King Hussein declaring martial law and calling up troops to fight Palestinians.
1974: US President Gerald Ford announces a conditional amnesty programme for Vietnam War deserters and draft-evaders.
1975: Papua New Guinea, previously under Australian administration, becomes an independent nation.
1978: More than 11,000 people are feared dead after an earthquake measuring 7.7 on the Richter scale hit the southeast region of Iran.
1987: Two dozen countries sign the Montreal protocol, designed to reduce emission of gases that deplete the ozone layer by the year 2000.
1992: Russian and Cuban officials announce they reached an agreement on the withdrawal from Cuba of a 1,500-troop brigade stationed there by the former Soviet Union.
1994: A federal court jury in Anchorage, Alaska, orders Exxon Corp to pay $5 billion in punitive damages to Alaskan fishermen and natives for the March 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill.
1997: Typhoon Oliwa hits southwestern Japan, killing six and forcing 80,000 people from their homes.
1998: Serb security forces shell an ethnic Albanian rebel stronghold in northern Kosovo, spreading fighting to a peaceful area of the province and sending thousands of people fleeing.
2001: Typhoon Nari lashes northern Taiwan with fierce winds and torrential rain, shutting down schools, closing railway lines and triggering landslides and flash flooding that kills nine people.
2002: Peace talks at a naval base in Sattahip, Thailand, open between the Sri Lankan Government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamileelam rebel army in an attempt to end Sri Lanka’s 19-year-old civil war.
2004: The Mexican Government promises to give free homes to 47 mothers of women killed in a string of sexually motivated slayings in Ciudad Juarez, angering some who say that the gifts gloss over the lack of results in the criminal investigations.
2006: The Vatican announces that Pope Benedict XVI “sincerely regrets” offending Muslims with his reference to an obscure medieval text that characterises some of the teachings of Islam’s founder as “evil and inhuman”.
2007: The budget One-Two-Go Airlines domestic flight OG269, carrying 123 passengers and seven crew members, crashes as it tries to land in pouring rain on Thailand’s resort island of Phuket. At least 90 people are killed, including 54 foreign tourists.
2009: Afghan officials issue full preliminary results showing President Hamid Karzai got 54.6 per cent of the vote in last month’s election.
2011: Ghanaian-born trader Kweku Adoboli is charged with fraud and false accounting while working for Swiss bank UBS in London’s financial district and is believed to have run up losses of $2 billion.
TODAY’S BIRTHDAY
France’s King Louis XIV (1638-1715); John Gay, English poet (1685-1732); J C Penney, US entrepreneur (1875-1971); Lauren Bacall, US actress (1924-); B B King, US blues musician (1925-); Peter Falk, US actor (1927-2011); Molly Shannon, US actress/comedian (1964-); Amy Poehler, US actress/comedian (1971-); Marc Anthony, Latin/pop singer (1969-).