Today is the 225th day of 2013. There are 140 days left in the year.
TODAYS HIGHLIGHT2006: On his 80th birthday, Fidel Castro cautions Cubans that he faces a long recovery from surgery. His younger brother, Raul, makes a first public appearance as Cuba’s interim president.OTHER EVENTS1521: Spaniard Hernando Cortes captures Tenochtitlan, completing the defeat of the Aztec Empire.1704: Forces of the English Duke of Marlborough and Eugene of Savoy defeat the French at Blenheim, Bavaria, driving about 18,000 soldiers to drown in the Danube and saving Vienna from the French.1792: French revolutionaries imprison France’s royal family.1945: World Zionist Congress demands admission of 1 million Jews to Palestine.1961: East Germany seals off border between East and West Berlin, closing Brandenburg Gate to halt people fleeing the country.1990: President Mikhail S Gorbachev issues a decree absolving of wrongdoing the millions of victims of Soviet leader Josef Stalin who had not been formally rehabilitated.1999: A gunman in Bogota shoots and kills Jaime Garzon, Colombia’s most popular political satirist and an irreverent peace activist; right-wing paramilitaries are blamed.2002: Iranian President Mohammed Khatami criticises the US campaign against terrorism, saying Washington “misused” worldwide outrage over the September 11 attacks in order to “use the fight against terrorism to impose its power on other countries.”2003: Libya and families of victims of the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, sign an agreement to pay as much as $2.7 billion in reparations. The agreement also called for Libya to acknowledge responsibility for the bombing.2005: Suspected guerrillas in Colombia kill four police officers with grenades and gunfire in an ambush on a rural highway.2007: Two South Korean women kidnapped by Taliban militants in mid-July are handed over to the International Red Cross.2008: Mexico announces it will build a US$1.27 billion tunnel that will be almost 39 miles (62 kilometres) long and 7 yards (metres) in diameter, to help solve the centuries-old drainage problem of the nation’s capital.2009: Helicopter gunships pummel a key Taliban commander’s bases in Pakistan’s northwest, killing at least 12 insurgents as government forces ratchet up pressure on the militants following their top leader’s reported death.2010: Russia announces it will begin the startup the following week of Iran’s only atomic power plant, giving Tehran a boost as it struggles with international sanctions and highlighting differences between Moscow and Washington over pressuring the Islamic Republic to give up activities that could be used to make nuclear arms.2011: Libyan rebels fight their way into the strategic city of Zawiya west of Tripoli in their most significant advance in months, battling snipers on rooftops and heavy shelling from Moammar Gadhafi’s forces holding the city.2012: Russia’s Foreign Ministry harshly criticises new US sanctions on Iran, calling them “‘undisguised blackmail” and warning that relations between Moscow and Washington would suffer if Russian companies are affected.TODAY’S BIRTHDAYSAndes Angstroem, Swedish physicist (1814-1874); Albert Sorel, French historian (1824-1906); John Logie Baird, British inventor of television (1888-1946); Alfred Hitchcock, British film director (1899-1980); Makarios III, first president of Cyprus (1913-1977); Fidel Castro, Cuban leader (1926-); Kathleen Battle, US soprano (1948-); Paul Greengrass, film director (1955-).– APFormer Cuban President Fidel Castro celebrates his 87th birthday today. He handed power over to his younger brother Raul in June 2006.
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This Day in History - August 13
