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Tuesday, August 19, 2014

Tuesday, August 26

by  Associated Press Tuesday, August 26 by The Associated Press, Associated Press - 18 August 2014 18:42-04:00 Today is Tuesday, August 26, the 238th day of 2014. There are 127 days left in the year. Highlights in history on this date: 1071 - Turkish Seljuks beat the Byzantine forces at the Battle of Manzikert (now Malazgirt, Turkey), gaining entry into Anatolia and opening the road to Europe. 1346 - English archers defeat French knights at Battle of Crecy in northern France. 1541 - Suleiman I, Sultan of Turkey, annexes Hungary. 1847 - Liberia is proclaimed an independent republic. 1883 - The volcano Krakatoa erupts on the island Krakatau, near Indonesia, creating tsunami waves that killed more than 36,000 people. 1896 - Insurrection begins in the Philippines against the Spanish; Armenian revolutionaries attack Ottoman bank in Constantinople, provoking a three-day massacre. 1915 - German army captures Brest-Litovsk in Russia during World War I. 1920 - The 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, guaranteeing American women the right to vote, is declared in effect. 1934 - Adolf Hitler demands that France turn over the Saar region to Germany. 1936 - Treaty ends British occupation of Egypt, except Suez Canal zone, and Britain and Egypt form alliance for 20 years. 1937 - Japan blockades Chinese shipping. 1939 - The first televised Major League Baseball game is shown in the United States, a doubleheader between the Cincinnati Reds and the Brooklyn Dodgers at Ebbets Field. 1942 - German army reaches Stalingrad in Soviet Union during World War II. 1945 - Japanese envoys board U.S. battleship Missouri to receive surrender instructions at the end of World War II. 1947 - The U.N. Security Council passes a resolution for both the Dutch and Indonesians to adhere to a cease-fire order. 1952 - Floods caused by monsoon rains inundate 90 percent of Manila, causing at least eight deaths. It is Manila's third flood in a month. 1957 - The Soviet Union announces it successfully tested an intercontinental ballistic missile. 1959 - Chinese troops cross into India's northeastern territory after a border dispute. They withdraw two years later. 1964 - Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, bans two black nationalist movements; Student and Buddhist riots force resignation of government of Premier Nguyen Khanh in South Vietnam. 1970 - North Vietnam sends its chief negotiator back to Vietnam peace talks in Paris after 8 1/2 month boycott of negotiations. 1973 - The Cambodian military reports that Khmer Rouge rebel troops had severed Phnom Penh's two vital supply roads — one leading to the seaport and the other to rice fields. 1978 - Cardinal Albino Luciani of Venice is elected the 264th Pope of the Roman Catholic Church following the death of Paul VI. The new pontiff takes the name John Paul I. 1985 - A special French investigator issues a report clearing France's Socialist government and the intelligence service of involvement in the sinking of the Greenpeace protest vessel Rainbow Warrior in Auckland harbor on July 10. 1988 - Nationwide strike paralyzes government and transportation in Myanmar and anti-government rallies spread. 1989 - At least 19 people are killed, including 12 guerrillas, in battle in southern Mozambique town of Macio. 1990 - Number of U.S. soldiers, airmen and sailors in the Gulf reaches 60,000. 1991 - Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev promises new national elections after the signing of the Union Treaty, but there appears to be little support for the treaty in the wake of a failed coup attempt. 1992 - Serb militiamen pound Sarajevo with rockets and mortars, setting fire to medieval Turkish baths and the main library in the Bosnian capital. 1993 - Egyptian-born Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman and 14 others are charged in an attack on New York's World Trade Center earlier in the year. 1994 - U.S. officials acknowledge that the current session of Congress won't pass legislation for universal health insurance coverage, which U.S. President Bill Clinton made the centerpiece of his legislative agenda. 1995 - The Communist Party in Russia starts a campaign that calls for resurrection of the Soviet state that collapsed in 1991. 1996 - Former military strongman Chun Doo-hwan is sentenced to death after being convicted of mutiny and treason in South Korea. His successor, Roh Tae-woo, is also found guilty and sentenced to 22 1/2 years in prison. They are pardoned a year later. 1997 - Former South African President F.W. de Klerk resigns as the head of the National Party, which created the practice of apartheid and leaves politics. 1998 - A 3-week-old rebellion reaches the outskirts of Congo's capital, Kinshasa, and hundreds of soldiers are killed or wounded. 2000 - Somalis celebrate the election of Abdiqasim Salad Hassan, their first president in nearly a decade. 2001 - Ethnic Albanians rebels hand over machine guns, mortar tubes and other heavy weaponry on first day of a NATO mission to collect arms from Macedonia's militants. 2002 - A Spanish judge suspends the Batasuna political party for three years for its alleged ties to Euzkadi ta Askatasuna, known as ETA, an armed group of Basque separatists considered a terrorist group by the Spanish government. 2003 - Rwandan President Paul Kagame is the overwhelming winner of presidential elections. The election was the first since the 1994 genocide. 2004 - Iraq's top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, makes a dramatic return to Najaf and swiftly wins agreement from a rebel cleric and the government to end three weeks of fighting between his militia and U.S.-Iraqi forces. 2005 - A fire races through a crowded, rundown Paris apartment building housing African immigrants killing 17 people, mainly children trapped while they slept, and triggers angry calls for decent housing for the needy in the French capital. 2006 - The government of East Timor hails a U.N. Security Council decision to authorize 1,600 international police to help restore stability after clashes between rival security forces in the capital spill into gang warfare, looting and arson. 2007 - Massive fires consume large areas of southern Greece for a third day and race toward the site of the ancient Olympics. At least 57 people have been killed in the country's worst wildfires in decades. 2008 - Russia recognizes the independence claims of two Georgian breakaway regions, Abkhazia and South Ossetia. 2009 - Edward "Ted" Kennedy dies at 77. The brother of President John F. Kennedy and Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, he was the U.S. Senate's dominant liberal and most skillful dealmaker. 2010 - The Taliban hints they may launch attacks against foreigners helping Pakistan respond to the worst floods in the country's history, saying their presence was "unacceptable." The U.N. says it will not be deterred by violent threats. 2011 - A car loaded with explosives crashes into the main United Nations' building in Nigeria's capital of Abuja and explodes, killing at least 18 people in one of the deadliest assaults on the international body in a decade. A radical Muslim sect claims responsibility for the blast. 2012 - Dozens of bloodied bodies are buried in massage graves in a Damascus suburb where activists claim more than 300 people have been killed over the past week in a major government offensive to take back control of rebel-held areas in and around the capital. 2013 — Survivors say hundreds of Central Americans riding atop a cargo train in hopes of getting to the U.S. were being threatened and extorted by armed men before the train derailed and killed at least six. Today's Birthdays: Sir Robert Walpole, first prime minister of Britain (1676-1745); Antoine Laurent Lavoisier, French scientist (1743-1794); Guillame Apollinaire, French poet (1880-1918); Peggy Guggenheim, U.S. art collector (1898-1979); Albert Sabin, Polish microbiologist, developed oral polio vaccine (1906-1993); Julio Cortazar, Argentinian writer (1914-1984); Branford Marsalis, U.S. jazz musician (1960--); Macaulay Culkin, U.S. actor (1980--). Thought for Today: Nothing has really happened until it has been recorded — Virginia Woolf, English author and critic (1882-1941). News Topics: General news, Militant groups, War and unrest, Political resignations, World War II, Presidential elections, Government and politics, Accidents and disasters, Assassination of John F. Kennedy, National elections, Peace process, Voting rights, Crime, Events, Elections, Diplomacy, International relations, Human rights and civil liberties, Social issues, Social affairs, Assassinations People, Places and Companies: Mikhail Gorbachev, Omar Abdel-Rahman, Bill Clinton, Roh Tae-woo, Paul Kagame, Ali al-Sistani, Branford Marsalis, Macaulay Culkin, Virginia Woolf, United Kingdom, Egypt, Russia, France, Turkey, United States, Germany, Soviet Union, Philippines, Paris, Vietnam, Southeast Asia, Middle East, Manila, Western Europe, Europe, North Africa, Africa, Eastern Europe, North America, Asia Copyright 2014 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.


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