Melbourne Herald Sun, Australia
Sunday Times, Australia
Advertiser, Australia
The Mercury, Australia
Aug 31 2004
On this day
31 aug 04
1990 – About 250 militant Armenian nationalists give up their weapons
after the republic’s parliament declares a state of emergency.
1290 – Jews are exiled from England by proclamation of King Edward I.
1422 – King Henry V of England dies of dysentery in France and is
succeeded by his nine-month-old son, Henry VI.
1688 – Death in London of John Bunyan, English author of The
Pilgrim’s Progress.
1704 – Forces of Russia’s Tsar Peter the Great take Narva in Russia.
1823 – French forces storm the Trocadero and enter Cadiz in Spain.
1846 – Committee is established in Sydney to organise appeal for
Irish famine.
1871 – Basutoland is united with Cape Colony, South Africa.
1876 – Turkey’s Sultan Murad V is deposed on plea of insanity and is
succeeded by Abdul Hamid II.
1887 – US inventor Thomas A Edison receives a patent for his
Kinetoscope, a device which produces moving pictures.
1888 – Body of Mary Ann “Polly” Nichols, first victim of murderer
“Jack the Ripper”, is found in London.
1900 – British forces under Frederick Roberts occupy Johannesburg.
1907 – Anglo-Russian Convention is signed in St Petersburg, settling
differences between the two over Persia, Afghanistan and Tibet.
1918 – Bolshevik troops attack British embassy in Petrograd, Russia.
1920 – First ever news program is broadcast by the radio station 8MK
in Detroit, Michigan.
1922 – Czech-Serb-Croat Alliance is signed at Marienbad.
1923 – Italy occupies Corfu in Greece.
1939 – Attempts by French Premier Daladier and British Prime Minister
Chamberlain to negotiate with Adolf Hitler of Germany fail.
1942 – German General Irwin Rommel renews offensive against British
at Alam Halfa in North Africa in World War II but is driven back to
original lines.
1950 – Contingent of 80 men from First Battalion, Royal Australian
Regiment, leaves for the Korean War.
1957 – Malaya becomes an independent member of the British
Commonwealth.
1962 – Trinidad and Tobago becomes independent nation within the
British Commonwealth.
1967 – Diplomatic relations between Indonesia and Malaysia are
re-established, following Indonesia’s opposition to the formation of
the Malaya federation.
1968 – West Indian Garfield Sobers becomes the first cricketer to
score six sixes off one over in first-class cricket, in England.
1969 – Rocky Marciano, former world heavyweight boxing champion, is
killed in an air crash in Iowa.
1973 – Death of John Ford, US film director.
1977 – Ian Smith wins the Rhodesian general election with 80 per cent
of the overwhelmingly white electorate’s vote.
1980 – Polish labour leaders sign agreements with Communist
government, establishing for first time in a Soviet-bloc nation the
rights to strike and to establish free trade unions.
1983 – Murdered opposition leader Benigno Aquino is buried in Manila,
with over a million mourners being addressed by his widow Cory.
1986 – Soviet passenger ship Admiral Nakhimov collides with a
merchant vessel in the Black Sea, causing both vessels to sink; 448
die.
1986 – Moscow’s secret police hold US correspondent Nicholas Daniloff
on spying allegations.
1987 – Government and opposition officials in South Korea agree on
revising Constitution to clear way for direct presidential elections
and other reforms.
1989 – Princess Anne and her husband Captain Mark Phillips separate
after 16 years of marriage.
1990 – East and West Germany sign a treaty to harmonise their legal
and political systems after merging on October 3.
1990 – About 250 militant Armenian nationalists give up their weapons
after the republic’s parliament declares a state of emergency.
1991 – Uzbekistan and Kirgyzstan become ninth and tenth Soviet
republics to declare independence.
1992 – Palestinian Arabs dismiss Israel’s self-rule proposals as
unacceptable and say peace negotiations are at an impasse.
1994 – IRA declares an open-ended ceasefire in its 24-year campaign
against British rule of Northern Ireland.
1995 – Bomb-laden car explodes in a crowded square outside Algeria’s
national police headquarters, killing 10 and injuring 15.
1996 – Iraq captures Irbil in northern Iraq, a key city inside the
Kurdish “safe haven” protected by US-led forces, in Saddam Hussein’s
largest military action since the end of the Gulf War in 1991.
1997 – Princess Diana and her millionaire companion Dodi Al Fayed are
killed in a Paris car crash.
1998 – North Korea launches a new, more powerful long-range ballistic
missile that crosses over Japan’s main island and crashes into the
Pacific Ocean.
1999 – Opposition lawmakers in Venezuela pledge to defy a decision by
supporters of President Hugo Chavez to shut down the legislature,
worsening the country’s constitutional crisis.
2000 – The United States decides to boycott several meetings in Japan
dealing with science and the environment in a protest of the
expansion of Japanese whaling.
2001 – Delegates from more than 160 countries attend the weeklong
United Nations-sponsored World Conference Against Racism in Durban,
South Africa.
2002 – A Russian Mi-24 assault helicopter is shot down by a missile
in Chechnya. Both of the gunship’s pilots are killed. Chechen rebels
claim responsibility.
2002 – Lionel Hampton, one of America’s jazz legends, dies. He was
94.
2003 – Kenya lifts a ban on the Mau Mau movement, which spearheaded
an uprising against British colonialists in the 1950s.