Today is the 180th day of 2013. There are 185 days left in the year.
TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT1949: South Africa begins implementing apartheid, its racial segregation rules.OTHER EVENTS1529: Religious civil war in Switzerland ends with Peace of Kappel, where the Catholic cantons grant freedom of religion to the Protestants.1880: France takes control of South Pacific island of Tahiti.1888: Professor Frederick Treves performs the first appendectomy in England.1939: The first commercial plane flight from US to Europe is completed as Dixie Clipper lands at Lisbon, Portugal.1946: British arrest more than 2,700 Jews in Palestine in attempt to stamp out terrorism.1966: Hanoi, North Vietnam’s capital, and Haiphong, its principal port, are bombed by US for first time in Vietnam War.1967: Israel defies international protests and unites divided city of Jerusalem for first time in two decades, following victory in Six-Day War.1990: Lithuanian parliament agrees to a 100-day moratorium on declaration of independence in exchange for an end to the economic blockade ordered by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.1991: Yugoslav federal army threatens to take “decisive military action” against Slovenia unless the republic stops fighting government troops.1993: Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif imposes emergency rule in Punjab province, where more than half of the country’s 120 million people live.2001: UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan is unanimously re-elected to a second term by 189-member General Assembly. He pledges to redouble efforts to strengthen human rights and start carrying out a global plan to lift millions out of abject poverty.2002: A North Korean navy vessel sinks a South Korean naval patrol boat in an exchange of fire in the Yellow Sea. Four South Korean sailors are killed in the battle and 19 were injured.2004: The US military announces the formation of a five-member military tribunal to preside over the first trials of terror suspects held at its naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.2006: Female voters in Kuwait, who won the right to vote and run for office last year, cast ballots in parliamentary elections for the first time.2008: Zimbabwe’s longtime ruler Robert Mugabe is sworn in as president for a sixth term.2009: Iraqi forces assume formal control of Baghdad and other cities after American troops hand over security in urban areas in a defining step toward ending the US combat role in the country.2010: Drug cartels, which fund a tenth of Mexico’s economy, insert themselves into politics, killing the leading candidate for governor of a northern state only days before elections in 12 states.2011: Greece fends off a bankruptcy that threatened to roil global financial markets, approving severe spending cuts and tax increases in the face of violent protests by Greeks who say they have suffered enough.2012: German lawmakers approve Europe’s new budget discipline pact as the eurozone’s permanent eruo 500 billion ($623 billion) rescue fund hours after Chancellor Angela Merkel defends concessions she made to financially troubled European nations at a summit.TODAY’S BIRTHDAYSGiacomo Leopardi, Italian author/philosopher (1798-1837); Pietro Angelo Secchi, Italian Jesuit/astrophysicist (1818-1878); George Washington Goethals, US builder of Panama Canal (1858-1928); Antoine de Saint-Exupery, French aviator and writer (1900-1944); Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands (1911-2004); Robert Evans, producer/former actor (1930-); Gary Busey, actor (1944-).— AP
View the original article here
This Day in History - June 29
