Today In History
Friday, February 5
Today is Friday, Feb. 5, the 36th day of 2016. There are 330 days left
in the year. Highlights in history on this date: 1679 - Peace of
Nijmegen is declared between Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I and France's
King Louis XIV. 1782 - Spanish forces capture Minorca Island, off
Spain, from British. 1792 - Tippoo of Mysore, India, who is defeated in
war with British and Hyderabad, cedes half of Mysore to British. 1811 -
British Regency Act is passed, whereby the Prince of Wales becomes
Prince Regent during King George III's temporary insanity. 1885 - Congo
state is established as a personal possession of Belgium's King Leopold
II. 1887 - Verdi's opera "Otello" premieres at La Scala, in Milan,
Italy. 1917 - Mexico becomes a federated republic of 28 states. 1958 -
Gamel Abdel Nasser is formally nominated to become the first president
of the new United Arab Republic, the union of Egypt and Syria. 1962 -
France's President Charles de Gaulle calls for independence for Algeria
on basis of friendly cooperation with France. 1971 - U.S. Apollo 14
astronauts land on Moon. 1976 - Earthquake in Guatemala takes almost
23,000 lives. 1989 - Algeria's president proposes new national
constitution, dropping references to socialism and opening door to
multiparty system. 1990 - Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev,
addressing the party plenum, says the Communist Party must abandon its
monopoly on power. 1991 - Iraq, under attack by the U.S. and its
allies, suspends fuel sales to its citizens. 1994 - A single mortar
shell kills 68 people in a Sarajevo marketplace. 1997 - Three Swiss
banking giants announce they will contribute US$71 million to open a
humanitarian fund for Holocaust victims. 1999 - The 80-year-old
President Nelson Mandela of South Africa delivers his last major
address to Parliament. 2001 - Four men go on trial in New York in the
1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa, which killed 224 people.
2002 - Belgian Foreign Minister Louis Michel apologizes for his
country's role in the 1961 assassination of then-Congolese leader
Patrice Lumumba. He offers a US$3.25 million fund in Lumumba's name to
promote democracy in Congo. 2006 - A bomb explosion rips through a
passenger bus, killing at least 13 people and wounding 20 others in a
province of southwestern Pakistan wracked by growing tribal unrest.
2008 - At least seven civilians, including four children, are killed
during a military operation against al-Qaida-linked militants on a
southern Philippine island. 2009 - As U.S. Navy ships look on, Somali
pirates speed away with $3.2 million in ransom after releasing an
arms-laden Ukrainian freighter ending a four-month standoff that
focused world attention on piracy off Somalia's lawless coast. 2010 -
Toyota's president emerges from seclusion to apologize and address
criticism that the automaker mishandled a crisis over sticking gas
pedals. Yet he stops short of ordering a recall for the company's Prius
hybrid for braking problems. 2013 - Investigators say Hezbollah was
behind a bus attack that killed five Israeli tourists in Bulgaria last
year, describing a sophisticated bombing carried out by a terrorist
cell that included Canadian and Australian citizens. 2014 Pope Francis
comes under new pressure to punish bishops who covered up for pedophile
priests when a U.N. human rights panel accuses the Vatican of
systemically protecting its reputation instead of looking after the
welfare of children. 2015 A North Korean defector whose memoir
describes his meeting with Kim Jong Il says the world's intense focus
on the regime's human rights record fails to see the full scope of its
inhumanity to its people. Today's Birthdays: Sir Robert Peel, English
statesman after whom British police are called "Bobbies" (1788-1850);
Johan Ludvig Runeberg, Finnish national poet (1804-1877); John Lindley,
English botanist (1799-1865); William S. Burroughs, U.S. writer
(1914-1997); Andreas Papandreou, Greek prime minister (1919-1996);
Jennifer Jason Leigh, U.S. actress (1962--); Bobby Brown, U.S. singer
(1969--); Laura Linney, U.S. actress (1964--). Thought For Today: Many
excellent words are ruined by too definite a knowledge of their
meaning. Aline Kilmer, American poet (1888-1941).
