Melbourne Herald Sun, Australia
The Mercury, Australia
Dec 14 2004

On this day

14dec04

1988 – Sixty more survivors are pulled from rubble of earthquake that
rocked Armenia.

1417 – Sir John Oldcastle, a leader of the Lollards religious sect,
is hanged and burned in Britain; he was considered to be the model
for Shakespeare’s character Falstaff.
1542 – Following the battle of Solway Moss, James V of Scotland has a
mental breakdown and dies; his daughter Mary Stuart acceded to the
throne at the age of one week.
1799 – Death of George Washington, first president of the United
States (1789-1797).
1822 – Congress of Verona ends, ignoring Greek war of independence.
1861 – Prince Albert, consort and husband of Queen Victoria, dies of
typhoid at Windsor Castle.
1900 – Max Planck first publishes his Quantum Theory: that radiant
energy comes in small indivisible packets and was not continuous as
previously thought.
1911 – Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen becomes first man to reach
South Pole.
1912 – Louis Botha resigns as South Africa’s Prime Minister.
1913 – Greece formally annexes Crete.
1916 – People of Denmark vote to sell Danish West Indies to United
States for $US25 million.
1918 – Women in Britain vote for the first time in a general election
and are allowed to stand as candidates; first to be elected was Irish
nationalist Countess Markievicz of Sinn Fein, who could not take her
seat as she was in prison; Sidonio Paes, president of Portugal, is
assassinated.
1920 – First fatalities on a scheduled passenger flight occur when an
aircraft crashes into a house killing the two-person crew and two
passengers at Cricklewood, London.
1927 – Britain recognises Iraq’s independence; China and Soviet Union
break relations.
1937 – Japan establishes puppet Chinese government at Peking.
1939 – The Soviet Union is dropped from the League of Nations.
1941 – US Marines make stand in battle for Wake Island in Pacific
during World War II.
1945 – Josef Kramer, known as “the beast of Belsen”, and ten others
are hanged in Hameln for crimes committed at the Belsen and Auschwitz
Nazi concentration camps.
1946 – United Nations General Assembly votes to establish UN
headquarters in New York City.
1947 – Death of three-times British prime minister Stanley Baldwin;
he headed the government during the General Strike of 1926 and the
abdication crisis of 1936.
1959 – Archbishop Makarios becomes the first president of the
Republic of Cyprus.
1960 – Paris convention is signed creating the Organisation for
Economic Co-operation and Development, to come into force in
September 1961.
1962 – North Rhodesia’s first African-dominated government is formed
under Kenneth Kaunda; Mariner II space probe begins sending back to
Earth man’s first information from another planet, Venus.
1968 – Referendum in Tasmania gives go-ahead for Wrest Point casino.
1972 – US Apollo 17 astronauts blast off from Moon after three days
of exploration on lunar surface.
1978 – UN General Assembly calls for an oil embargo against South
Africa.
1981 – Israel annexes Golan Heights captured from Syria in 1967.
1986 – Fifty people are reported killed and 125 injured in ethnic
riots in Pakistan.
1987 – Allan Border becomes highest run-scorer in Australian cricket
with double-century against New Zealand in Adelaide.
1988 – Sixty more survivors are pulled from rubble of earthquake that
rocked Armenia.
1989 – Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov dies; Opposition leader
Patricio Aylwin is elected president in Chile’s first free election
since 1970.
1990 – In Hong Kong, 10 Vietnamese boat people set fire to themselves
to protest against a screening policy that could prevent them from
settling in the West.
1991 – Former East German leader Erich Honecker, facing extraditiion
to Germany and trial on manslaughter charges, is offered asylum in
North Korea.
1992 – Left-wing member of Parliament in Britain introduces
legislation to eliminate the Queen’s job.
1993 – US and European Community set aside a bitter fight over films,
unlocking the door to the world’s biggest-ever trade reform package;
European Union establishes diplomatic relations with South Africa,
putting the final touch to a new policy of cooperation after years of
isolation.
1994 – Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic asks former US President
Jimmy Carter to mediate a lasting peace in Bosnia.
1995 – Australia announces a wide-ranging defence and security treaty
with Indonesia; Heavy fighting erupts in Gudermes, in the breakaway
Russian republic of Chechnya, when rebel guerrillas disrupt
Kremlin-imposed elections; Leaders from former Yugoslavia sign a
Bosnian peace treaty in Paris, formally ending Europe’s worst
conflict since World War II.
1996 – Balancing bundles of food and clothing on their heads, Rwandan
refugees who previously refused to return home begin re-entering
Rwanda after 2-1/2 years in Tanzania; Liberal government wins WA
election, gaining three seats.
1997 – Reform-minded Iranian President Mohammed Khatami says that he
is ready to re-establish dialogue with the United States, the first
such statement since the 1979 revolution in Iran; US comic actor
Stubby Kaye, who endeared himself to movie and theatre audiences as
the gambler Nicely-Nicely in the stage and film versions of Guys and
Dolls, dies aged 79.
1998 – In the presence of US President Bill Clinton, the Palestinian
Council votes to revoke a paragraph in its charter that demanded the
destruction of Israel.
1999 – US and German negotiators agree to establish a fund of $US5.2
billion for Nazi-era slave and forced labourers; Japan says it will
lift all sanctions against North Korea, setting the stage for an
improvement in ties.
2000 – Vladimir Putin, the first Russian president to visit Cuba
since the collapse of the Soviet Union, holds talks with Fidel Castro
in Havana as he starts a trip aimed at warming up ties between the
former Cold War allies.
2001 – Hundreds of US Marines occupy the Kandahar Airport, carefully
picking through unexploded weaponry and debris left by the Taliban as
the US military relocates its main base in southern Afghanistan,
arresting dozens of suspected militants.
2002 – The wooden ferry Papa Friends 2000 pitches its nearly 200
passengers into Lake Piso in Liberia, near the coastal town of
Robertsport, killing all but 15.
2003 – Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf escapes an
assassination attempt when a powerful bomb explodes on a bridge in
Rawalpindi less than a minute after his motorcade crosses it.