Today is the 241st day of 2013. There are 124 days left in the year.
TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT2005: Hurricane Katrina plows into the below-sea-level US city of New Orleans with 145-mph (233-kph) winds and rain that submerges neighbourhoods up to the rooflines as it moves into the state of Mississippi.OTHER EVENTS1526: Turks defeat Hungarians at Battle of Mohacs, ending the Hungarian monarchy and giving way to 150 years of Turkish occupation.1756: Frederick II of Prussia invades Saxony, marking the start of Seven Years’ War.1782: Almost 1,100 people drown when English Man-of-War sinks while being repaired at Portsmouth, England.1793: The French commissioner Leger-Felicite Sonthonax, facing a slave army and a British invasion, declares all slaves free in Haiti.1935: Queen Astrid of Belgium is killed in car accident in Switzerland.1952: Pyongyang, capital of North Korea, undergoes the heaviest air raid of the Korean war. US, South African, Australian and South Korean air forces strike the city with about 600 tons of bombs, 4,000 gallons of firebombs and 52,000 rounds of machine-gun ammunition.1957: US Senator Strom Thurmond from South Carolina, then a Democrat, ends a filibuster against a civil rights Bill by talking for more than 24 hours.1965: US astronauts L Gordon Cooper and Charles Conrad make safe landing after a record eight days of orbiting around Earth in Gemini 5.1970: The Soviet Union delivers arms to Egypt to replace the heavy losses suffered during three months of intensive Israeli air strikes.1972: North and South Korean Red Cross officials meet in North Korea openly for first time to discuss reuniting divided families.1980: A crowd of 400 Cuban refugees swarm onto a runway at Lima’s International Airport. Some 168 of them force their way onto a jet and demand to go to Miami. They surrender the next day.1991: Soviet lawmakers suspend Communist Party activities nationwide and freeze its bank accounts because of party’s role in failed coup attempt.1992: The last Russian diplomats pull out of Kabul, ending a decade of involvement in Afghanistan.1994: Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organisation sign an early empowerment accord under which Israel agrees to transfer administrative powers throughout the West Bank to the Palestinian National Authority.1996: A Russian plane carrying coal miners to work at a remote arctic island smashes into a mountain top, killing all 41 people aboard in the worst air disaster on Norwegian soil.1997: Hooded men kill more than 300 people in an Algerian farm village in the worst carnage since an Islamic insurgency began.1998: A Cuban airplane bursts into flames and crashes during takeoff from Quito, Ecuador, killing 79 people.1999: East Timorese vote in a historic referendum on independence from Indonesia.2002: Michael Skakel, a member of America’s politically prominent Kennedy family, is sentenced to 20 years to life in prison for the 1975 murder of neighbour Martha Moxley.2011: Moammar Gadhafi’s wife and three of his children flee Libya to neighbouring Algeria, firm evidence that the long-time leader has lost his grip on the country.TODAY’S BIRTHDAYSJean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, French painter (1780-1867); John Locke, English philosopher (1632-1704); Maurice Maeterlinck, Belgian author (1862-1949); Ingrid Bergman, Swedish actress (1917-1982); Charlie Parker, US jazz musician (1920-1955); Slobodan Milosevic, Yugoslav president and war crimes suspect (1941-2006); Michael Jackson, American pop star (1958-2009); Richard Attenborough, British actor, director (1923-); Rebecca DeMornay, US actress (1962-).American King of pop star Michael Jackson would have celebrated is 55th birthday today. He died in 2009.
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This Day in History - August 29
