This Day in History— Dec 16
Today is the 350th day of 2015. There are 15 days left in the year
TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT
2013: US Secretary of State John Kerry offers harsh words for China and new maritime security assistance for south-east Asia to bolster countries facing growing Chinese assertiveness in a region where the two world powers are jockeying for influence.
OTHER EVENTS
1773: American colonists, dressed as Indians, dump 342 chests of tea overboard from a British ship in Boston Harbor, staging a protest against British taxation. The event becomes known as “The Boston Tea Party”.
1838: Boers defeat Zulus on Blood River, Natal.
1916: Gregory Rasputin, a monk who wielded powerful influence over the Russian Czar Nicholas II, is murdered by a group of noblemen in St Petersburg.
1944: German forces begin “Battle of the Bulge” in the Ardennes area of Belgium in World War II.
1950: US President Harry Truman proclaims a national state of emergency in order to fight “Communist imperialism”.
1966: UN Security Council votes 11-0 to invoke economic sanctions against white minority government in Rhodesia.
1971: Pakistani troops surrender East Pakistan after a war with its rebels and their Indian allies. The territory soon becomes the independent nation of Bangladesh.
1972: US Apollo 17
spacecraft heads for Earth after the last US- manned exploration of the Moon.
1988: A new UN peacekeeping force is announced to monitor the withdrawal of 50,000 Cuban troops from Angola.
1990: Haitians elect populist priest Jean-Bertrand Aristide in the country’s first fully democratic election.
1991: The UN General Assembly rescinds its 1975 resolution equating Zionism with racism by a 111-25 vote.
2006: About 3,000 ethnic Tamils cross into government-held areas to escape violence that is pushing the country closer to an all-out war between separatist Tamil rebels and the Sri Lankan Government.
2007: British forces give Iraq responsibility for security in Basra province, the last remaining region under Britain’s control.
2009: Iran test-fires an upgraded version of an advanced missile capable of hitting Israel and parts of Europe, an apparent show of strength aimed at discouraging attacks on its nuclear facilities.
2012: Japan’s conservative Liberal Democratic Party returns to power in a landslide election victory after three years in opposition.
2014: In the deadliest slaughter of innocents in Pakistan in years, Taliban gunmen attack a military-run school and kill 141 people — almost all of them students — before government troops end the siege.