Today is Friday, July 12, the 193rd day of 2013. There are 172 days left in the year.
HIGHLIGHTS2005 – Prince Albert II of Monaco accedes to the throne of a 700-year-old dynasty, a bachelor prince coming into his own as a retiring but modern ruler.OTHER EVENTS1856 – American adventurer William Walker declares himself president of Nicaragua, a position he holds for about a year before being forced out by neighbouring states.1869 – Parliamentary system is adopted by Napoleon III of France.1902 – Australia’s Parliament passes Immigration Restriction Act to stop non-European immigration, and gives women right to vote.1941 – British-Soviet mutual aid pact of World War II is signed.1957 – Prince Karim, 20-year-old student at Harvard University, becomes Aga Khan and leader of 20 million Ismaili Muslims following the death of his grandfather.1960 – France agrees to independence of Dahomey, Niger, Upper Volta, Ivory Coast, Chad, Central Africa and the Congo.1967 – Chinese Communist mobs in Hong Kong wreck government building and attack police in most violent of four days of anti-British rioting.1971 – Orangemen in Northern Ireland march in city streets to celebrate half century of Protestant rule.1973 – US pilots fly heavy air strikes against Cambodian insurgents as fighting is reported south and west of Phnom Penh.1977 – US President Jimmy Carter says he favors development of neutron bomb because of its less destructive effect.1983 – Britain and China begin formal yearlong negotiations in Beijing on the return of Hong Kong to Chinese sovereignty.1990 – Boris Yeltsin resigns from the Soviet Union’s Communist Party during the 28th meeting of the Party Congress.1991 – The five permanent members of UN Security Council tell Iraq’s ambassador his country must swiftly disclose extent of its nuclear programme or face serious consequences.1994 – Germany’s highest court clears the way for German forces to take part in military operations beyond the country’s borders, reversing a post-World War II strategy intended to keep the country from becoming a threat.1997 – Basque separatists in Spain shoot hostage Miguel Angel Blanco in the head and dump his body. The murder sets off days of protests, some of more than a million people, against separatist violence.1998 – Three young Catholic boys burn to death in a sectarian attack in Northern Ireland.1999 – The 52-member Organization of African Unity begins a conference in Algeria to address African problems ranging from a dlrs 220 billion debt to civil conflicts.2000 – The long-delayed International Space Station’s service module is lifted off into orbit.2002 – UN Security Council approves a resolution that grants US peacekeepers serving in UN missions immunity from prosecution by the International Criminal Court, for at least a year.2004 – Israel’s Prime Minister Ariel Sharon asks the opposition Labour Party to join his coalition — an alliance that would strongly boost chances for an Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.2006 – Dozens of attacks against police and civilians leave five people dead in Sao Paulo. Authorities suspect they were ordered by one of Brazil’s most notorious organized crime groups.2008 – North Korea agrees to disable its main reactor by the end of October and allow international inspections to verify its nuclear disarmament.2009 – President Barack Obama gets a rapturous reception in Ghana from Africans overjoyed at the visit of America’s first black president to a country south of the Sahara.2010 – In a stunning ruling, film director Roman Polanski is declared a free man, no longer confined to house arrest in his Alpine villa after Swiss authorities reject a US, request for his extradition because of a 32-year-old sex conviction.Today’s Birthdays:Hipolito Yrigoyen, first democratically elected president of Argentina (1852-1933); Elijah Wedgewood, British pottery maker (1730-1795); Henry David Thoreau, US author-naturalist (1817-1862); George Eastman, US inventor (1854-1932); Amedeo Modigliani, Italian artist (1884-1920); Pablo Neruda, Chilean poet and Nobel laureate (1904-1973); Van Cliburn, US pianist (1934–2013); Bill Cosby, US actor-comedian (1937–); Cheryl Ladd, US actress (1951–).View the original article here
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