Today in History - August 16
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1290 Aug 16,
Charles of Valois married Margaret of Anjou.
(MC, 8/16/02)
1397 Aug 16, Albrecht II von
Habsburg, king of Bohemia, Hungary and Germany, was born.
(MC, 8/16/02)
1419 Aug 16, Wenceslas
(b.1361), son of Charles IV and King of Germany, died. He served as
King Wenceslas IV of Bohemia (1363) and King of the Romans
(1378-1400).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wenceslaus%2C_Holy_Roman_Emperor)
1419 Aug 16, Sigismund, Holy
Roman Emperor, became king of Bohemia following the death of
Wenceslaus IV, but was ejected by the Hussites due to the execution
of Jan Huss.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigismund%2C_Holy_Roman_Emperor)
1498 Aug 16, Christopher
Columbus reached the island of Margarita (Venezuela).
(http://www1.minn.net/~keithp/v3.htm)
1513 Aug 16, Henry VIII of
England and Emperor Maximilian defeated the French at Guinegatte,
France, in the Battle of the Spurs.
(HN, 8/16/98)
1645 Aug 16, Jean de la
Bruyere, French writer and moralist famous for his work "Characters
of Theophratus," was born.
(HN, 8/16/98)
1678 Aug 16, Andrew Marvell
(b.1621), English poet (Definition of Love), died.
(MC, 8/16/02)
1691 Aug 16, Yorktown, Va., was
founded.
(MC, 8/16/02)
1745 Aug 16, Skirmish at
Laggan: Glengarry beat the Royal Scots.
(MC, 8/16/02)
1777 Aug 16, American forces
won the Revolutionary War Battle of Bennington, Vt.
(AP, 8/16/97)
1777 Aug 16, France declared a
state of bankruptcy.
(HN, 8/16/98)
1799 Aug 16, Vincenzo
Manfredini (b.1737), Italian composer, died.
(MC, 8/16/02)
1780 Aug 16, American troops
under Gen. Horatio Gates were badly defeated by the British at the
Battle of Camden, South Carolina.
(HFA, '96, p.36)(HN, 8/16/98)(ON, 12/01, p.9)
1812 Aug 16, American General
William Hull surrendered Detroit without resistance to a smaller
British and Indian forces under General Isaac Brock.
(AP, 8/16/97)(HN, 8/16/98)
1819 Aug 16, English police
charged unemployed demonstrators at St. Peter's Field in the
Manchester Massacre. 11 people were killed in the Peterloo massacre.
The press responded with a volley of attacks that included “The
Political House that Jack Built” by William Hone and illustrator
George Cruikshank.
(www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1819peterloo.html)(Econ, 12/23/06,
p.104)
1829 Aug 16, The original
Siamese twins, Chang and Eng Bunker, arrived in Boston aboard the
ship Sachem to be exhibited to the Western world.
(AP, 8/16/97)
1846 Aug 16, Gioacchino Rossini
married Olympe Pelissier in Paris and stopped composing operas.
(MC, 8/16/02)
1854 Aug 16, Duncan Phyfe (86),
NYC furniture maker, died.
(MC, 8/16/02)
1858 Aug 16, A telegraphed
message from Britain’s Queen Victoria to President Buchanan was
transmitted over the recently laid trans-Atlantic cable. The cable
linked Ireland and Canada and failed after a few weeks.
(AP,
8/16/97)(www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/cable/peopleevents/e_inquiry.html)
1861 Aug 16, President Lincoln
prohibited the states of the Union from trading with the seceding
states of the Confederacy.
(AP, 8/16/97)
1861 Aug 16, Union and
Confederate forces clashed near Fredericktown and Kirkville,
Missouri.
(HN, 8/16/98)
1862 Aug 16, Amos Alonzo Stagg,
football pioneer, inventor of the tackling dummy, was born in West
Orange, New Jersey.
(MC, 8/16/02)
1863 Aug 16, Chickamauga
campaign took place in GA. Union General William S. Rosecrans moved
his army south from Tullahoma, Tennessee to attack Confederate
forces in Chattanooga.
(HN, 8/16/99)(MC, 8/16/02)
1864 Aug 16, Battle of Front
Royal, VA. (Guard Hill).
(MC, 8/16/02)
1868 Aug 16, Bernard McFadden,
publisher responsible for the magazine True Story, was born.
(HN, 8/16/98)
1868 Aug 16, Charles Sanford
Skilton (d.1941), composer, was born.
(MC, 8/16/02)
1875 Aug 16, Charles Grandison
Finney (b.1792), American revivalist preacher, died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Grandison_Finney)
1876 Aug 16, Opera "Siegfried"
premiered at Bayreuth. [See Aug 13]
(MC, 8/16/02)
1884 Aug 16, Hugo Gernsback
(d.1967), sci-fi writer, publisher (1960 Hugo), was born in
Luxembourg.
(www.nndb.com/people/381/000045246/)
1894 Aug 16, George Meany, the
first president of the AFL-CIO, was born in New York City.
(AP, 8/16/97)
1894 Aug 16, Indian chiefs from
the Sioux & Onondaga tribes met to urge their people to renounce
Christianity and return to their old Indian faith.
(MC, 8/16/02)
1896 Aug, 16, A white man from
California named George Carmack, a fellow not employed at anything
in particular, was hiking around northwest Canada’s Yukon River area
with his two Indian brothers-in-law "Skookum Jim" Mason and "Tagish
Charley." The three found gold on Rabbit Creek, a stream that feeds
the Yukon River near Dawson, Alaska.
(CFA, '96, p.88)(HN,
8/19/01)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klondike_Gold_Rush)
1897 Aug 16, Robert Ringling,
circus master, was born.
(MC, 8/16/02)
1898 Aug 16, Edwin Prescott
patented a roller coaster.
(MC, 8/16/02)
1904 Aug 16, NYC began building
the Grand Central Station.
(MC, 8/16/02)
1906 Aug 16, An magnitude 8.6
earthquake in Valparaiso, Chile, left an estimated 20,000 people
dead.
(SFEC, 6/13/99, Z1 p.5)(AP, 6/22/02)
1912 Aug 16, Virginia executed
Virginia Christian (b.1895) in the electric chair. Christian, an
African-American maid, was convicted for the murder of her white
employer Mrs. Ida Virginia Belote (72), a white woman, in her home
at Hampton on March 18.
(AFP,
9/21/10)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Christian)
1913 Aug 16, Menachem Begin,
Israeli statesman (1977-83) and Nobel Peace Prize (1978) recipient,
was born.
(HN, 8/16/98)(MC, 8/16/02)
1914 Aug 16, Liege, Belgium,
fell to the German army.
(HN, 8/16/98)
1914 Aug 16, Zapata and Pancho
Villa over ran Mexico.
(MC, 8/16/02)
1915 Aug 16, A hurricane hit
Galveston, Texas. It caused 12 deaths and an estimated $5-8 million
in property damage in the city.
(http://www.gthcenter.org/exhibits/storms/1915/)
1918 Aug 16, US troops
overthrew Archangel (Russia).
(MC, 8/16/02)
1920 Aug 16, Charles Bukowski,
poet and novelist, was born.
(HN, 8/16/00)
1924 Aug 16, Conference about
German recovery payments opened in London.
(MC, 8/16/02)
1929 Aug 16, Bill Evans, jazz
pianist, was born. [see Aug 28]
(HN, 8/16/00)
1930 Aug 16, Ted Hughes,
English poet laureate, was born.
(HN, 8/16/00)
1930 Aug 16, Rafael Leonidas
Trujillo (b.1891), an American-trained National Guard general, began
ruling as dictator of the Dominican Republic and continued to 1961,
when he was assassinated.
(SFC, 5/17/96,
p.A-14)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rafael_Trujillo)
1934 Aug 16, US ended its
occupation of Haiti (begun in 1915).
(MC, 8/16/02)
1934 Aug 16, US explorer
William Beebe descended 3,028' (923 m) in Bathysphere.
(MC, 8/16/02)
1936 Aug 16, The 11th Olympic
games closed in Berlin.
(MC, 8/16/02)
1936 Aug 16, Spanish poet
Garcia Lorca was arrested in Granada. He disappeared shortly
thereafter. The 1997 film "The Disappearance of Garcia Lorca" was an
attempt to depict the circumstances of his disappearance. Lorca was
the author of "Gypsy Ballads," "Blood Wedding" and "The Poet."
Spanish poet Fredico Garcia Lorca was shot by Franco's troops after
being forced to dig his own grave.
(LVRJ, 11/1/97, p.12B)(HN, 8/19/98)(MT, Spg. ‘99,
p.2)
1940 Aug 16, Bruce Beresford,
Australian film director, was born. His films include "Breaker
Morant" and "Driving Miss Daisy."
(HN, 8/16/00)
1940 Aug 16, 45 German
aircrafts were shot down over England.
(MC, 8/16/02)
1942 Aug 16, The US Navy L-8
patrol blimp crash-landed at 419 Bellevue St., Daly City, Ca., after
drifting in from the ocean. The ship’s crew, Lt. Ernest Dewitt Cody
(27) and Ensign Charles E. Adams (38), were missing and no trace of
them was ever found.
(GDCH, 1986, p.17)(Ind, 5/3/03, p.5A)
1943 Aug 16, Bulgarian czar
Boris III visited Adolf Hitler.
(MC, 8/16/02)
1944 Aug 16, Chartres, France,
was freed.
(MC, 8/16/02)
1945 Aug 16, Suzanne Farrel,
ballerina, was born.
(HN, 8/16/00)
1945 Aug 16, Lieutenant General
Jonathan Wainwright, who was taken prisoner by the Japanese on
Corregidor on May 6, 1942, was released from a POW camp in Manchuria
by U.S. troops.
(HN, 8/16/98)
1945 Aug 16, Takijiro Ohnishi,
leader of Japanese kamikaze pilots, died.
(MC, 8/16/02)
1945 Aug 16, The communist
dominated Polish government signed a treaty with the USSR to
formally cede eastern territories, including Galicia.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_areas_annexed_by_the_Soviet_Union)(Econ,
7/7/07, p.51)
1946 Aug 16, A riot in Calcutta
left some 3-4,000 Moslems and Hindus dead.
(MC, 8/16/02)
1948 Aug 16, Famed home-run
slugger George Herman "Babe" Ruth died at age 53 in New York City.
He is credited with turning baseball from a game of speed and skill
to one of power. During a flamboyant major league career that began
as a pitcher with the Boston Red Sox in 1914 and ended with his
retirement from the Boston Braves in 1935, the Babe hit an
astonishing total of 714 homers, a feat that was not surpassed until
Henry Aaron of the Atlanta Braves broke Ruth’s record in 1974. The
fans loved the warm-hearted Babe Ruth, who had a reputation as a
hard drinker, carouser and womanizer. In 1931, at the height of his
career with the Yankees, Ruth earned $80,000, which made him the
highest-paid ballplayer in history. At a special "Babe Ruth Day"
just two months before his death, the cancer-stricken Babe donned
his uniform for the last time and appeared before a cheering crowd
at Yankee Stadium. In 2006 Leigh Montville authored “The Big Bam,” a
biography of Babe Ruth.
(SFC, 10/15/96, p.A19)(AP, 8/16/97)(HNPD,
8/16/98)(WSJ, 5/9/06, p.D6)
1948 Aug 16, Harry Dexter
White, former assistant US Treasury Secretary, died of a heart
attack. White had helped write the UN Charter. A few days
earlier he had testified before the House-Un-American Activities
Committee and denied leaking secrets to Soviet intelligence. Later
evidence confirmed that he had worked for Soviet intelligence. In
2004 R. Bruce Craig authored "Treasonable Doubt," a study of White.
(WSJ, 4/16/04, p.W8)
1949 Aug 16, Margaret Mitchell
(48), US writer (Gone With the Wind), died.
(MC, 8/16/02)
1953 Aug 16, Shah Pahlavi of
Persia and princess Soraya fled to Baghdad and then Rome.
(MC, 8/16/02)
1954 Aug 16, Sports Illustrated
was first published by Time Inc.
(AP, 8/16/97)
1955 Aug 16, Fiat Motors
ordered the 1st private atomic reactor.
(MC, 8/16/02)
1956 Aug 16, Adlai E. Stevenson
was nominated for president at the Democratic National Convention in
Chicago. John F. Kennedy made his convention debut at the Democratic
convention in Chicago. Tennessee Senator Estes Kefauver withdrew his
name from the balloting and asked his 200 delegates to support Adlai
E. Stevenson for the presidential nomination. Stevenson won the
nomination on the first ballot with 905 votes to New York Governor
Averell Harriman's 200 votes. Kefauver then went on to narrowly
defeat Senator John F. Kennedy for the party's
vice-presidential nomination.
(WSJ, 8/26/96, p.A12)(HNQ, 8/10/99)(AP, 8/16/97)
1956 Aug 16, Bela Lugosi
(b.1882), actor (Dracula), died of heart attack in Hollywood. He was
born in Hungary as Bela Blasko.
(Internet)
1958 Aug 16, Madonna [Ciccone],
entertainer and singer whose biggest record was "Like a Virgin," was
born.
(HN, 8/16/98)
1959 Aug 16, William F. Halsey
(Bull Halsey), US vice-admiral (WW II Pacific), died.
(MC, 8/16/02)
1960 Aug 16, Timothy Hutton
(actor: Taps, Made in Heaven, Ordinary People, The Dark Half,
The Temp, Q&A), was born.
(MC, 8/16/02)
1960 Aug 16, American test
pilot Joe Kittinger’s history-making parachute jump was from an
altitude of 102,800 feet, or 19.3 miles. In a gondola lifted by a
360-foot helium balloon, Kittinger reached the highest altitude ever
reached by man in nonpowered flight. His free fall lasted four
minutes and 36 seconds and he became the first man to exceed the
speed of sound without an aircraft or space vehicle. In 1984
Kittinger became the first to fly across the Atlantic Ocean in a
helium balloon alone.
(HNQ, 5/21/99)(WSJ, 2/27/06, p.A1)
1960 Aug 16, Britain granted
independence to the crown colony of Cyprus. Archbishop Makarios
became the 1st post independence president and chose Spyros
Kyprianou (28) as foreign minister.
(AP, 8/16/97)(SFC, 3/13/02, p.A26)
1961 Aug 16, Martin Luther King
protested for black voting rights in Miami.
(MC, 8/16/02)
1961 Aug 16, Some 250,000 West
Berliners demonstrated against East Berlin.
(MC, 8/16/02)
1962 Aug 16, The Beatles
dropped Pete Best as their drummer. They took on Ringo Starr on Aug
17. Best later authored the autobiography "Beatle! The Pete Best
Story."
(SFC, 7/5/02, p.G5)(MC, 8/16/02)
1965 Aug 16, The Watts riots
ended in south-central LA after six days with the help of 20,000
National Guardsmen; the riots left 34 dead, 857 injured, over 2,200
arrested, and property valued at $200 million destroyed. The riots
started when police on August 11th brutally beat a black motorist
suspected of drunken driving in Watts area of LA.
(HN, 8/16/00)(MC, 8/16/02)
1969 Aug 16, Canned Heat
performed "Let's Work Together" live Woodstock.
(www.chromeoxide.com/canned.htm)
1970 Aug 16, Benny Bufano
(b.1898), California-based Italian-American sculptor, died. He was
known for his late-career bullet-shaped public sculptures.
(SFC, 12/8/00,
p.C1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benny_Bufano)
1972 Aug 16, The Moroccan Air
Force attempted to shoot down a Boeing 727 carrying King Hassan II.
The attempt failed and the coup leaders were arrested. Gen. Mohammad
Oufkir was shot to death for the attack. In 2000 a letter was
produced that implicated Abderrahmane Youssoufi, the prime minister,
in conspiracy with Oufkir.
(SFC, 7/24/99, p.A9)(SFC, 12/15/00,
p.D2)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hassan_II_of_Morocco)
1974 Aug 16, The Ramones 1st
performed at the CBGB in NYC. Dee Dee Ramone (d.2002) had formed the
Ramones punk rock band in the Forest Hills neighborhood of Queens
along with Jeffrey Hyman, John Cummings (aka Johnny Ramone, d.2004)
and Tom Erdelyi.
(SFC, 6/8/02, p.D4)(Econ, 9/25/04, p.100)
1977 Aug 16, Elvis Presley
(b.1935), The "King" of rock-n-roll, died in the upstairs bedroom
suite at Graceland Mansion in Memphis, Tenn. of a drug overdose at
42. Elvis died of heart failure after years of substance abuse. In
1994 Peter Guralnick published "Last Train to Memphis," the first of
a 2-part biography on Elvis. In 1998 Guralnick published "Careless
Love." More than 150 books were in print on Elvis in 1997. In 1998
Ernest Jorgensen published "Elvis Presley: A Life in Music. The
Complete Recording sessions."
(SFEC, 2/9/97, Par p.7)(SFEC, 8/3/97, DB
p.33)(AP, 8/16/97)(SFEC, 8/16/98, p.D7)(WSJ, 1/7/98, p.W1)
1978 Aug 16, James Earl Ray,
convicted assassin of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., told a Capitol
Hill hearing he did not commit the crime, saying he'd been set up by
a mysterious man called "Raoul."
(AP, 8/16/03)
1978 Aug 16, Antonio Guzman
assumed office as president of the Dominican Rep. Mindful of the
fate of Juan Bosch sixteen years before, Guzman determined to move
slowly in the area of social and economic reforms and to deal as
directly as possible with the threat of political pressure from the
armed forces.
(http://tinyurl.com/39ht3e)
1978 Aug 16, The World Bank
under Robert McNamara issued its first World Development Report
(WDR). the 68-page document provided a comprehensive assessment of
global development issues.
(Econ, 1/24/09, p.65)(http://tinyurl.com/d3xzs6)
1984 Aug 16, A federal jury in
Los Angeles acquitted auto maker John Z. DeLorean of trafficking in
cocaine due to entrapment.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_De_Lorean)
1985 Aug 16, The Mary Gioia
(22) of New York and Gregory Kniffin (18) of Connecticut shot and
killed. Their bodies were soon found in the SF Bay with gunshot
wounds to the head. They had been staying at a homeless encampment
in the Berkeley Marina while waiting for the next Grateful Dead
concert. Ralph International Thomas was convicted of the murders. In
2009 the 2 convictions against Thomas (55) were overturned.
(http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4176/is_20060307/ai_n16166652/)(SFC,
9/16/09, p.D3)
1986 Aug 16, Flozelle Woodmore
(18), shot and killed her abusive boyfriend, Clifton Morrow, with a
.357 magnum in the presence of their 2-year-old son in Los Angeles.
In 2007 Gov. Schwarzenegger, said he no longer oppose her parole.
(SFC, 8/3/07, p.B12)(http://tinyurl.com/2mvdzg)
1987 Aug 16, Thousands of
people worldwide began a two-day celebration of the "harmonic
convergence," which heralded what believers called the start of a
new, purer age of humankind. Nearly 5,000 people gathered at Mount
Shasta, Ca., for the Harmonic Convergence aimed at bringing about
world peace.
(AP, 8/16/97)(SSFC, 10/12/02, p.C5)
1987 Aug 16, 156 people were
killed when Northwest Airlines Flight 255 crashed while trying to
take off from a Detroit airport; the sole survivor was 4-year-old
Cecelia Cichan. The plane hit a freeway overpass following takeoff.
(AP, 8/16/97)(SFC, 11/13/01, p.A12)
1987 Aug 16, Iraqi warplanes
bombarded the northern Kurdish village of Balisan, dropping bombs
that spread a smoke smelling "like rotten apples.” Helicopters then
came and bombed the mountains to prevent the villagers from taking
refuge anywhere.
(AP, 8/23/06)
1988 Aug 16, VP George Bush
tapped Indiana Sen. Dan Quayle to be his running mate.
(AP, 8/16/98)
1989 Aug 16, A rare "prime
time" lunar eclipse occurred over most of the United States,
although clouds spoiled the view for many.
(AP, 8/16/99)
1990 Aug 16, President Bush met
with Jordan’s King Hussein in Kennebunkport, Maine, where he urged
the monarch to close Iraq’s access to the sea through the port of
Aqaba.
(AP, 8/16/00)
1990 Aug 16, In Iraq, President
Saddam Hussein issued a statement in which he repeatedly called Bush
a "liar" and said the outbreak of war could result in "thousands of
Americans wrapped in sad coffins."
(AP, 8/16/00)
1991 Aug 16, Pope John Paul the
Second began the first-ever papal visit to Hungary.
(AP, 8/16/01)
1991 Aug 16, In Moscow,
Alexander Yakovlev, a top adviser to Soviet President Mikhail S.
Gorbachev, resigned from the Communist Party, warning that
hard-liners were plotting "a party and state coup."
(AP, 8/16/01)
1992 Aug 16, On the eve of the
Republican National Convention in Houston, President Bush and party
officials heatedly denied a report in The New York Times that a
confrontation with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was motivated by
political concerns.
(AP, 8/16/97)
1993 Aug 16, President Clinton
opened his campaign for health care reform with a speech to the
nation's governors in Tulsa, Okla.
(AP, 8/16/98)
1993 Aug 16, New York police
rescued business executive Harvey Weinstein from a covered
14-foot-deep pit, where he'd been held for ransom for nearly two
weeks.
(AP, 8/16/98)
1993 Aug 16, Actor Stewart
Granger (80) died in Santa Monica, Calif.
(AP, 8/16/98)
1994 Aug 16, President Clinton
and other top Democrats were scouring the House of Representatives
for converts in hopes of reviving a stalled anti-crime bill.
(AP, 8/16/99)
1994 Aug 16, In Sri Lanka the
People’s Alliance government came to power and promised to end the
civil war.
(SFC, 7/24/96, p.A9)
1995 Aug 16, The US government
more than doubled its estimate of rapes or attempted rapes in the US
each year, to 310,000, a finding praised by leaders of women’s
groups.
(AP, 8/16/00)
1995 Aug 16, Rebel soldiers in
Sao Tome overthrew Pres. Miguel Trovoada. This is a two-island
nation off the west coast of Africa.
(WSJ, 8/16/95, p. A-1)
1996 Aug 16, A jubilant Bob
Dole set out from the Republican convention, promoting his tax-cut
plan as a boon to working families.
(AP, 8/16/97)
1996 Aug 16, The brokerage firm
E*Trade Group went public and saw its shares rise 7.1% on its first
day of trading.
(WSJ, 11/13/07, p.A21)
1996 Aug 16, In Brookfield,
Ill., a 3-year-old boy fell 15-feet into a concrete area of a zoo’s
gorilla exhibit and was rescued by Binti-jua, a 7-year-old gorilla
with her own 2-year-old on her back.
(SFC, 8/17/96, p.A3)(MC, 8/16/02)
1996 Aug 16, Eric Nesbitt (21),
an airman at Langley AFB, was shot and killed after he was abducted
and forced to withdraw money from an ATM machine by Daryl R. Atkins
and another man. Atkins scored 59 on an IQ test in 1998, below the
Virginia cut-off of 70 for retardation. In 2002 the US Supreme Court
ruled that it was unconstitutional to execute the mentally retarded.
In 2004 Atkins scored 74 and faced another trial. In 2005 a jury
found Atkins to be mentally competent.
(SSFC, 2/6/05, p.A9)(SFC, 8/6/05,
p.A4)(www.vuac.org/capital/row.html)
1996 Aug 16, Dominican Rep.
Pres. Balaguer left office. Leonel Antonio Fernández Reyna
(b. 1953), a 42-year-old lawyer who grew up in New York City, was
the 100th president of the Dominican Republic. He replaced
Joaquín Amparo Balaguer Ricardo (1906-2002), President of the
Dominican Republic from 1960 to 1962, from 1966 to 1978, and again
from 1986-1996.
(SFC, 11/25/96,
p.A9)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joaquin_Balaguer)
1996 Aug 16, In Mexico Attorney
General Antonio Lozano fired 734 members of the judicial police in
an attempt to reform the drug-fighting force.
(SFC, 8/17/96, p.A14)
1997 Aug 16, Thousands of Elvis
Presley fans thronged Graceland on the 20th anniversary of his
death.
(AP, 8/16/98)
1997 Aug 16, It was reported
that the US led the world in arms sales last year with 35.5% of all
orders. Britain ranked 2nd with 15.1% and Russia 3rd with 14.5%.
(SFC, 8/16/97, p.A10)
1997 Aug 16, In Mexico
Alejandro Ortiz Martinez, brother of the finance minister Guillermo
Ortiz, was shot and killed by three gunmen in Mexico City.
(SFEC, 8/17/97, p.A21)
1997 Aug 16, Nusrat Fateh Ali
Khan, the most popular singer in Pakistan, died in a London
hospital. He was considered one of the world’s greatest singers of
Sufi devotional music in a style called qawwali, where long
performances built up emotion and complexity to the backdrop of
stringed instruments and the harmonium.
(SFEC, 8/17/97, p.D8)
1997 Aug 16, Scientists
reported that an underground seismic event occurred in Russia.
Inquiries were being made about nuclear testing. Russian scientists
claimed a magnitude-2 earthquake near the Novaya Zemlya test range
triggered the event.
(SFC, 8/29/97, p.A18)(WSJ, 9/3/97, p.A1)
1997 Aug 16, Two cosmonauts
just returned from Mir (Vasily Tsibliyev and Alexander Lazutkin)
rejected criticism that they were to blame for troubles aboard the
aging, problem-plagued space station.
(AP, 8/16/98)
1998 Aug 16, A day before
President Clinton was to face a criminal grand jury about his
relationship with Monica Lewinsky, his lawyer said, "The truth is
the truth, and that's how the president will testify."
(AP, 8/16/99)
1998 Aug 16, An int’l. crew
broke the 1995 Steve Fossett record for sailing across the Pacific
Ocean. The Explorer twin-hulled catamaran set sail from Yokohama on
Aug 2 and arrived in SF after 14 days, 17 hours and 22 minutes.
(SFC, 8/17/98, p.A5)
1998 Aug 16, Steve Fossett ran
into heavy storms and plunged with his balloon into the Coral Sea,
500 miles from Queensland, Australia.
(SFC, 8/17/98, p.A1)
1998 Aug 16, It was reported
that about 80% of breeding-age swordfish had been eliminated by
overfishing.
(SFEC, 8/16/98, p.T9)
1998 Aug 16, Congo Pres. Kabila
flew to Angola to meet with Pres. dos Santos and request direct
support against rebels. Air cargo support was being provided as well
as several thousand Congolese exiles known as the Katangese
Gendarmes.
(SFC, 8/17/98, p.A10)
1998 Aug 16, Protestants and
Catholics in Northern Ireland united in uncomprehending grief over
the car bomb slaughter of 29 people in Omagh a day earlier.
(AP, 8/16/03)
1999 Aug 16, The TV quiz show
"Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" began a limited two-week run on ABC.
Imported from London, the show was hosted by Meredith Vieira and it
was still on the air in 2008. This became the most popular TV show
of the 1999-2000 season pulling in 28.5m viewers every Tuesday
night.
(AP,
8/16/00)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Wants_To_Be_A_Millionaire%3F)(Econ,
5/1/10, SR p.10)
1999 Aug 16, Republican Lamar
Alexander folded his presidential campaign.
(AP, 8/16/00)
1999 Aug 16, Four months after
two gunmen sent them fleeing in horror, students reclaimed Columbine
High School in Colorado for the start of the school year.
(AP, 8/16/00)
1999 Aug 16, In Lebanon Abu
Hassan, a Hezbollah commander, was killed by a roadside bomb in
Sidon. Guerrillas blamed the attack on Israel.
(SFC, 8/17/99, p.A8)
1999 Aug 16, In Russia Vladimir
Putin was confirmed as prime minister, the fifth since early 1998.
(SFC, 8/17/99, p.A8)(AP, 8/16/00)
1999 Aug 16, In Kosovo 2 Serbs
were killed in a mortar attack from an ethnic Albanian village.
(WSJ, 8/18/99, p.A1)
1999 Aug 16, In South Africa
thousands of state workers stayed home from work and some 10,000
Telkom and post office workers demonstrated in Pretoria and other
cities.
(SFC, 8/17/99, p.A10)
2000 Aug 16, Delegates to the
Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles formally nominated Al
Gore for president.
(AP, 8/16/01)
2000 Aug 16, Senator John
McCain (Republican, Arizona) was diagnosed with a second bout of
melanoma. The cancer was later surgically removed, with no sign that
it had spread.
(AP, 8/16/01)
2000 Aug 16, Montana Gov. Marc
Racicot declared the whole state a disaster area due to the raging
fires.
(SFC, 8/17/00, p.A3)
2000 Aug 16, In Afghanistan the
Taliban shut down 25 bakeries run by widows saying that Islam
forbids women to work.
(SFC, 8/17/00, p.A16)
2000 Aug 16, In Brazil armed
hijacked an airliner and forced it to land in southern Parana state.
They escaped with an estimated $3.3 million in stolen money.
(SFC, 8/17/00, p.A15)
2000 Aug 16, In Chechnya 2
civilians were killed when rebels blew up a police car in Grozny.
(SFC, 8/18/00, p.D6)
2000 Aug 16, Hipolito Mejia
(59) assumed the presidency of the Dominican Republic succeeding
Leonel Fernandez. He proceeded to use foreign borrowing to finance
public spending.
(SFC, 8/17/00, p.A16)(Econ, 12/13/03, p.35)
2000 Aug 16, It was reported
that Libya had paid millions to free 9 Westerners held hostage by
Muslim rebels in the Philippines.
(SFC, 8/16/00, p.A17)
2000 Aug 16, In Uganda at least
18 people died after a fire ignited while they scooped oil from an
overturned tanker.
(SFC, 8/17/00, p.A16)
2001 Aug 16, Zacarias Moussaoui
(33), a French citizen of Moroccan descent, was arrested in Eagan,
Minnesota, on immigration charges. He was taking lessons on flying
Boeing jets with no interest in taking off or landing. He was later
suspected as a 5th member of one of the Sep 11 WTC attack teams. In
Nov the FBI reported that Moussaoui wanted to learn how to take off
and land but not to fly. Mueller also said Ramzi Omar of Yemen, aka
Ramsi Binalshibh, may have been the 20th hijacker. The local FBI
contacted the CIA for action on Moussaoui when FBI managers failed
to take action. Agent Coleen Rowley later charged that senior
officials fumbled an opportunity to possibly prevent the Sep 11
terrorist attacks.
(SFC, 11/8/01, p.A7)(SFC, 11/15/01, p.A12)(WSJ,
2/4/02, p.A1)(WSJ, 5/24/02, p.A1)(SFC, 5/25/02, p.A1)(SFC, 6/6/02,
p.A14)
2001 Aug 16, Wild fires in the
10 Western US states covered over 50,000 acres, half in Oregon.
20,000 fighters fought 42 major blazes.
(SFC, 8/17/01, p.A8)
2001 Aug 16, Paul
Burrell, trusted butler of Princess Diana for many years, was
charged with the theft of hundreds of royal family items, a charge
he denied. He was tried for theft in 2002 but the trial collapsed
after evidence was given that Queen Elizabeth II had spoken with him
regarding the disputed events. In 2003 he released his book, “A
Royal Duty,” which talks about his time as butler to Diana.
(AP,
8/16/02)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Burrell)
2001 Aug 16, In Colombia Pres.
Pastrana signed legislation giving the military broad new powers to
wage war with less scrutiny from human rights monitors. Gunmen in
Santo Tomas killed 12 people for being members in the ELN.
(SFC, 8/17/01, p.A12)(SSFC, 8/19/01, p.A16)
2001 Aug 16, In Indonesia Pres.
Sukarnoputri, in her 1st state of the nation speech, apologized for
atrocities in rebellious provinces, urged the military to reform
itself and ruled out independence for Aceh and Irian Jaya.
(SFC, 8/17/01, p.A12)
2001 Aug 16, A Jamaica
government commission recommended that marijuana, aka ganja, be
legalized for personal use by adults.
(SFC, 8/18/01, p.E1)
2001 Aug 16, In Nepal the
government outlawed discrimination against members of the lowest
caste, the Dalits, who would be free to enter any temple or
religious structure.
(SFC, 8/17/01, p.A12)
2001 Aug 16, Col. Vidoje
Blagojevic, former commander of Bratunac, pleaded innocent at the
Hague war crimes tribunal for 1995 war crimes in Srebrenica. On
January 17, 2005, Col. Vidoje Blagojevic became the second indictee
to be convicted on Srebrenica Genocide charges and other human
rights violations. He was sentenced to 18 years in prison. On May 9,
2007, the Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for
the former Yugoslavia ruled that Col Blagojevic had not been
complicit in the genocide at Srebrenica because he had not known his
troops intended to commit it. Blagojevic’s sentence was reduced to
15 years.
(SFC, 8/17/01,
p.A14)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srebrenica_massacre)
2002 Aug 16, Major League
Baseball players set a strike deadline of Aug. 30. The two sides
finally reached an agreement with just six hours to spare.
(AP, 8/16/03)
2002 Aug 16, Jeff Corey (88),
blacklisted actor, died in Santa Monica. Corey developed a post
blacklist career teaching and then appeared in over 70 films or TV
shows.
(SFC, 8/22/02, p.A19)
2002 Aug 16, Stephen P. Yokich
(66), former United Auto Workers president died in Detroit.
(SFC, 8/19/02, p.B6)(AP, 8/16/03)
2002 Aug 16, In Algeria Islamic
insurgents reportedly killed 26 people, including women and
children, in a rural western hamlet.
(AP, 8/16/02)
2002 Aug 16, In Soham,
Cambridgeshire, England, police arrested two people on suspicion of
murdering a pair of 10-year-old girls, Holly Wells (b. 10-4-1991)
and Jessica Chapman (b. 9-1-1991), who vanished from a rural village
on August 4th. On December 17, 2003 Ian Huntley (28), a caretaker at
the local secondary school, was convicted by two eleven-to-one
majority jury verdicts, and on that day began serving two concurrent
life sentences. On September 29, 2005, the High Court announced that
Huntley must remain in prison until he has served at least 40 years,
a minimum term which will not allow him to be released until at
least 2042, by which time he will be 68 years old. His girlfriend
Maxine Carr (25), a classroom assistant, was charged with attempting
to pervert the course of justice. She was given three-and-a-half
years for conspiring to pervert the course of justice but cleared of
two counts of assisting an offender. She was freed and
electronically tagged within 30 days, because she had already spent
16 months in jail.
(AP,
8/17/02)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soham_murders)
2002 Aug 16, In Germany
authorities evacuated thousands of people near Dresden's historic
center as floodwaters in the Elbe River rose to a record high and
spilled into a square close to some of the city's cultural
landmarks.
(AP, 8/16/02)
2002 Aug 16, Sabri al-Banna,
aka Abu Nidal (65), Palestinian guerrilla commander and head of the
Fatah-Revolutionary Council, died from gunshot wounds in his Baghdad
home. Iraqi officials said he killed himself.
(Reuters, 8/19/02)(WSJ, 8/20/02, p.A18)(AP,
8/21/02)
2002 Aug 16, In central Nigeria
gunmen killed Ahmad Ahman Pategi, Kwara state chairman of the
Peoples Democratic Party and a senior official of President Olusegun
Obasanjo's ruling party, along with his police bodyguard.
(AP, 8/17/02)
2002 Aug 16, Russia and Iraqi
officials planned to sign a 5-year $40 billion economic cooperation
agreement.
(SFC, 8/17/02, p.A1)
2002 Aug 16, Pope John Paul II
returned to Poland for a 3-day visit.
(SFC, 8/17/02, p.A10)
2002 Aug 16, President Hugo
Chavez railed against a Supreme Court decision to absolve four
military officers accused of leading an April coup but urged
Venezuelans to accept it.
(AP, 8/16/02)
2002 Aug 16, The Zambian
government has rejected donations of genetically modified corn from
the United States, even though a massive food shortage threatens
nearly 2.3 million of its people with starvation.
(AP, 8/17/02)
2002 Aug 16, The Zimbabwean
government appeared to be cracking down on white farmers who defied
orders to leave their land, charging seven in court and detaining at
least 27 others across the country.
(AP, 8/16/02)
2003 Aug 16, The Midwest and
Northeast were almost fully recovered from the worst power outage in
U.S. history.
(AP, 8/16/04)
2003 Aug 16, Bill Janklow (64),
US Congressional Representative and former South Dakota governor,
ran a stop sign and killed motorcyclist Randolph E. Scott (55) near
Flandreau, SD. On Aug 29 Janklow was charged with manslaughter.
Janklow was found guilty of felony manslaughter on Dec 8 and
announced his resignation effective Jan 20. Janklow was sentenced to
serve 100 days in a county jail.
(SFC, 8/30/03, p.A3)(SFC, 12/9/03, p.A5)(SFC,
1/23/04, p.A3)
2003 Aug 16, Haroldo de Campos
(73), Brazilian poet, died in Sao Paulo. He was the best know of the
Brazilian Concrete poets.
(SFC, 8/26/03, p.A19)
2003 Aug 16, In Nigeria's
southern oil port city of Warri, authorities imposed a nighttime
curfew following gunbattles between rival tribal militias that have
killed at least 20 people.
(AP, 8/16/03)
2003 Aug 16, In southern
Pakistan unidentified gunmen shot to death Ibn-e-Hasan (45), a
Shiite Muslim doctor, sparking rowdy protests by hundreds of youths.
(AP, 8/16/03)
2003 Aug 16, In north central
Uganda rebels from the shadowy Lord's Resistance Army slashed up to
15 people to death with machetes during an attack on the village of
Bata. They also made off with 40 children. All the people killed
were formerly abductees who had been rescued. The army said the next
day it had killed 20 rebel fighters and rescued 127 abducted
children.
(AP, 8/17/03)
2003 Aug 16, Former Ugandan
dictator Idi Amin, blamed for the murder of tens of thousands of his
people in the 1970s, died in a Saudi hospital where he had been
critically ill for weeks. In 2006 the film “The Last King of
Scotland,” was adopted from a novel by Giles Foden that focused on
Idi Amin. The film, directed by Kevin McDonald, featured
Forest Whitaker as Amin.
(AP,
8/16/03)(www.moreorless.au.com/killers/amin.html)(WSJ, 9/29/06,
p.W1)
2003 Aug 16, It was reported
that African swine fever (ASF) had killed half of the pigs in Uganda
this year.
(SFC, 8/16/03, p.A24)
2004 Aug 16, Pres. Bush
announced plans to pull 70-100 thousand US troops from Europe and
Asia and redeploy them to meet the demands of the global war on
terrorism.
(AP, 8/16/04)
2004 Aug 16, Colorado certified
a ballot question that would make it the 1st state to award
electoral votes by popular-vote percentages, not as winner take all.
(WSJ, 8/17/04, p.A1)
2004 Aug 16, The FDA approved
the 1st surgical device to clear clots from the brains of stroke
victims.
(WSJ, 8/17/04, p.A1)
2004 Aug 16, The children’s TV
show “Lazytown” made its US premier. Magnus Scheving spent over a
decade building the brand in Iceland before moving overseas.
(Econ, 3/31/07,
p.76)(www.tv.com/lazytown/show/29257/episode_listings.html)
2004 Aug 16, General Motors
said it will start making Cadillacs in China this year, joining a
race by foreign luxury car brands to sell to the country's newly
rich elite.
(AP, 8/16/04)
2004 Aug 16, Costco began
piloting the sale of discounted coffins.
(Econ, 8/21/04, p.50)
2004 Aug 16, Kamala Markandaya
(79), Indian novelist, died. Her books focused on rural life,
interracial relationships and conflicting Eastern and Western
values.
(SFC, 12/28/04, p.D12)
2004 Aug 16, In China villagers
in an eastern province dug with farm tools to search for 24 people
missing in massive landslides unleashed by Typhoon Rananim.
(AP, 8/16/04)
2004 Aug 16, In Nigeria an oil
tanker truck went out of control and plowed into a bustling Nigerian
market in Kano, killing 17.
(AP, 8/16/04)
2004 Aug 16, In Russia the Novy
Ochevidets (New Eyewitness) magazine was introduced in Moscow. It
resembled the New Yorker.
(SFC, 8/21/04, p.A9)
2004 Aug 16, Election officials
in Venezuela announced that voters had overwhelmingly chosen to keep
President Hugo Chavez in office.
(AP, 8/16/05)
2005 Aug 16, Pres. Bush
selected Donald Winter of Northrup Grumman to be Navy secretary and
Michael Wynne, Pentagon aide, as Air Force head.
(WSJ, 8/17/05, p.A1)
2005 Aug 16, The Bush
administration reduced the estimated value of recreation in national
forests from $111 billion to $11 billion. Environmentalists warned
the new Forest Service assessment could be used to justify increased
logging.
(SFC, 8/17/05, p.A4)
2005 Aug 16, Nebraska Gov. Dave
Heineman secured a deal for his state to export $17 million in
agricultural goods to communist Cuba. The first US shipment of great
northern beans to the island since Fidel Castro came to power in
1959.
(AP, 8/16/05)
2005 Aug 16, Several new
computer worms hit systems running MS Windows 2000. On Aug 25
authorities in Morocco arrested Farid Essebar (18) for writing the
Zotob worm. Atilla Ekici (21) was arrested in Turkey for paying
Essebar to write the worm. In 2006 Morocco sentenced Farid Essebar
(19) to 2 years in prison and Achraf Bahlouo (21) to one year for
their role in unleashing the Zotob worm. Ekici’s trial continued in
Turkey.
(SFC, 8/27/05, p.A2)(WSJ, 9/14/06, p.B3)(WSJ,
11/21/06, p.A1)
2005 Aug 16, J.P. Morgan Chase
agreed to pay $350 million to settle claims over the role it played
in the fraud that led to the collapse of Enron in 2001.
(SFC, 8/17/05, p.C3)
2005 Aug 16, Francy Boland
(75), jazz pianist, died in Geneva, Sw.
(SFC, 8/17/05, p.B7)
2005 Aug 16, Vassar Clements
(77), fiddle virtuoso, died in Nashville, Ten. He recorded on more
than 2,000 albums in various styles from bluegrass to classical.
(SFC, 8/17/05, p.B7)
2005 Aug 16, Two helicopters
carrying NATO-led forces to prepare for next month's elections
crashed in the desert in western Afghanistan, killing at least 17
Spanish troops.
(AP, 8/16/05)
2005 Aug 16, It was reported
that scientists in Australia's tropical north are collecting blood
from crocodiles in the hope of developing a powerful antimicrobial
drugs for humans, after tests showed that the reptile's immune
system kills HIV.
(Reuters, 8/16/05)
2005 Aug 16, In Britain an
official investigation contradicted the police account of the July
21 killing of Jean Charles de Menezes, an electrician from Brazil.
(SFC, 8/17/05, p.A12)
2005 Aug 16, Bulgaria's
Parliament overwhelmingly approved historian Sergei Stanishev (39),
the leader of the Socialist Party, as the country's new prime
minister bringing to power his socialist-liberal coalition
government.
(AP, 8/16/05)
2005 Aug 16, A university
professor in Shanghai said is he is offering China's first class on
homosexuality and gay culture and that several hundred students have
applied for the 100 openings.
(AP, 8/17/05)
2005 Aug 16, In Taize, France,
Brother Roger, the 90-year-old founder of an ecumenical religious
community dedicated to peace and reconciliation, was knifed to death
by an apparently deranged Romanian woman at an evening prayer
service attended by 2,500 people. Brother Roger founded the Taize
religious community in 1940 emphasizing the need for all Christians
to come together in peace, love and reconciliation.
(AP, 8/17/05)(WSJ, 8/18/05, p.A1)
2005 Aug 16, A top Indian
official said Indian and Chinese oil firms will sign agreements
aimed at bidding jointly for foreign oil and gas projects and
reducing cut-throat competition.
(AP, 8/16/05)
2005 Aug 16, Iraqi leaders, a
day after failing to meet their deadline, expressed confidence they
would overcome differences over key issues like the role of Islam
and the power of regional governments and finish the new
constitution by next week.
(AP, 8/16/05)
2005 Aug 16, Israeli security
forces clashed with hundreds of opponents of Israel's withdrawal
from the Gaza Strip, arresting dozens of people in the roughest
confrontation between troops and settlers since the start of the
operation.
(AP, 8/16/05)
2005 Aug 16, A 7.2 earthquake
shook northeastern Japan, triggering landslides, sending a shower of
ceiling debris into a crowded indoor swimming pool and shaking
skyscrapers as far away as Tokyo. At least 59 people were reportedly
injured.
(AP, 8/16/05)(WSJ, 8/17/05, p.A1)
2005 Aug 16, North Korean
officials visited South Korea's parliament for the first time in a
symbolic gesture of reconciliation with their democratic rivals.
(AP, 8/17/05)
2005 Aug 16, Peru’s President
Alejandro Toledo swore in a new Cabinet with Pedro Pablo Kuczynski,
the former finance minister, as prime minister and cabinet chief.
(AP, 8/16/05)(WSJ, 8/17/05, p.A9)
2005 Aug 16, Russia's Supreme
Court overturned a lower court decision banning the National
Bolshevik Party, handing a rare victory to the radical youth
organization known for flamboyant acts of political protest.
(AP, 8/16/05)
2005 Aug 16, Russia said an
outbreak of bird flu in Chelyabinsk was dangerous to humans, as
teams of sanitary workers destroyed birds in Siberia in an attempt
to prevent the westward spread of the deadly virus.
(AP, 8/16/05)
2005 Aug 16, A chartered jet
filled with tourists returning home from Panama to the French
Caribbean island of Martinique crashed in western Venezuela, killing
all 160 people on board. The pilot had been attempting an emergency
landing after both engines failed.
(AP, 8/16/05)(WSJ, 8/17/05, p.A1)
2006 Aug 16, New York City
officials released new tapes of hundreds of heart-wrenching phone
calls from the World Trade Center on 9-11, along with other
emergency transcripts.
(AP, 8/16/07)
2006 Aug 16, Google launched a
free wireless network for its hometown of Mountainview, Ca.
(SFC, 8/16/06, p.C1)
2006 Aug 16, John Mark Karr
(41), a former American school teacher, was arrested in Thailand for
the December, 1996, murder JonBenet Ramsey in Boulder, Colo. He said
he tried to kidnap JonBenet for a $118,000 ransom but that his plan
went awry and he strangled her. Karr's confession that he had killed
JonBenet was later discredited.
(AP, 8/17/07)
2006 Aug 16, Over 80 immigrant
workers in New Orleans filed suit against Decatur Hotels LLC saying
they were being exploited. The workers from Peru, Bolivia and the
Dominican Rep. had not been reimbursed for travel and were not
getting the promised work hours.
(SFC, 8/17/06, p.A16)
2006 Aug 16, In southeastern
Afghanistan US and Afghan forces raided compounds suspected of being
al-Qaida sanctuaries, seizing weapons and explosives and arresting 8
people. US-led forces killed eight suspected militants after coming
under attack in Kunar province. A US soldier was killed when his
vehicle struck a Soviet-era mine in Paktika province. Western
officials said opium cultivation in Afghanistan has hit record
levels, up by more than 40% from 2005, despite hundreds of millions
in counternarcotics money.
(AP, 8/16/06)(AP, 8/17/06)
2006 Aug 16, Alfredo Stroessner
(93), anti-communist dictator of Paraguay (1954-1989), died in exile
in Brazil. He used the right-wing Colorado Party to rule with a
blend of force, guile and patronage for 35 years before his ouster
in 1989. During his rule membership in the Colorado Party was
compulsory for all teachers, doctors, engineers, officers or those
who hoped for government service. Party dues was docked from
salaries.
(AP, 8/16/06)(Econ, 8/26/06, p.71)
2006 Aug 16, Colombian police
arrested 14 top paramilitary leaders for violating the terms of a
peace accord that has led to the demobilization of 30,000 right-wing
fighters. Anti-narcotics police said they chemically fumigated the
Sierra Macarena national park last week, clearing its entire 11,370
acres of coca. The spraying destroyed coca capable of producing 17.5
tons of high-grade cocaine and was likely a major blow to the
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.
(AP, 8/16/06)(AP, 8/17/06)(Econ, 8/26/06, p.28)
2006 Aug 16, In northeast India
a grenade exploded in a Hindu temple, killing at least four people
and leaving 40 others injured, mainly in a stampede that followed
the blast.
(AP, 8/17/06)
2006 Aug 16, Bombings in
Baghdad, killed 21 people and wounded 59. One American soldier was
also killed as he was distributing candy to the children. British
troops drove off gunmen who attacked the Basra governor's office,
apparently to avenge a tribal leader killed the day before. In Mosul
armed clashes between police and assailants in three predominantly
Sunni Arab neighborhoods killed least five gunmen with six arrested.
A roadside bomb exploded near an Iraqi army patrol north of Hillah,
killing three soldiers and wounding four. In Karbala 10 militia
fighters were killed and 281 arrested. A US soldier died of wounds
suffered in Anbar province.
(AP, 8/16/06)(SFC, 8/17/06, p.A14)(AP, 8/17/06)
2006 Aug 16, In Kashmir 5
Islamic rebels were shot dead by Indian troops after they sneaked
across the de facto border from the Pakistani zone. The army
suffered one casualty.
(AP, 8/16/06)
2006 Aug 16, Top foreign
diplomats planned the dispatch of a 15,000-strong international
force to enforce a cease-fire in southern Lebanon, but the
government was divided over whether Hezbollah should lay down its
arms or even withdraw them from the border with Israel.
(AP, 8/16/06)
2006 Aug 16, Palestinian gunmen
from the rival Hamas and Fatah militias clashed in southern Gaza,
killing a 14-year old boy in the crossfire and injuring four others.
(AP, 8/17/06)
2006 Aug 16, A Russian patrol
boat opened fire on a Japanese vessel in disputed waters, killing a
fisherman and prompting a strong protest from Tokyo. Moscow urged
Japanese boats to stay out of its waters. 3 fishermen were detained.
(AP, 8/16/06)(AP, 8/17/06)
2006 Aug 16, In Mogadishu,
Somalia, Islamic leaders gave seven men 40 lashes each for using or
selling marijuana, meting out the punishment in public in a dramatic
example of the region's new fundamentalist rule.
(AP, 8/16/06)
2006 Aug 16, The presidents of
South Africa, Mozambique and Zimbabwe gathered for the official
opening the new Giriyondo border post linking South Africa and
Mozambique. This was another step in the creation of the 14,000
square mile Greater Limpopo Transfrontier Park, which would span the
3 countries.
(SFC, 8/17/06, p.A2)
2006 Aug 16, A South Korean aid
group claimed that massive floods in North Korea last month left
about 54,700 people dead or missing and some 2.5 million homeless.
(AP, 8/16/06)
2006 Aug 16, Sri Lankan war
planes bombed Tamil Tiger positions as troops hunted rebel
infiltrators in northern Jaffna peninsula after resisting a
guerrilla advance.
(AFP, 8/16/06)
2007 Aug 16, The US offered
Israel an unprecedented $30 billion military aid package.
(AP, 8/16/07)
2007 Aug 16, Jose Padilla, a US
citizen held for 3 1/2 years as an enemy combatant, was convicted of
helping Islamic extremists and plotting overseas attacks. Padilla,
once accused of plotting with al-Qaida to detonate a radioactive
"dirty bomb," was later sentenced to 17 years and four months in
prison on the unrelated terror support charges.
(AP, 8/17/08)
2007 Aug 16, US authorities
indicted Igor Klopow (24), a Russian national, for his role in an ID
theft gang that targeted wealthy individuals. Klopow was lured to
the US and arrested under the Brooklyn Bridge.
(WSJ, 8/17/07, p.B2)
2007 Aug 16, A new Jefferson
one dollar coin went into circulation nationwide. It followed the
Washington coin, which was introduced in February, and the John
Adams coin, introduced in May. The coin honoring James Madison was
scheduled to go into circulation in November.
(AP, 8/15/07)
2007 Aug 16, US officials said
C&D Distributors in Lexington, South Carolina, collected about
$20.5 million over six years from the Pentagon for fraudulent
shipping costs, including $998,798 for sending two 19-cent washers
to a Texas base. The firm was run by sisters Charlene Corley and
Darlene Wooten (d.2006). The owners had exploited a flaw in an
automated Defense Department purchasing system: bills for shipping
to combat areas or US bases that were labeled “priority” were
usually paid automatically.
(www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601070&sid=ardg6DwCCMFI&refer=home)(Reuters,
8/16/07)(Econ, 8/25/07, p.31)
2007 Aug 16, Kathleen Culhane
(40), former private investigator in California, was sentenced
to 5 years in state prison for forging documents to save the
lives of Death Row inmates.
(SFC, 8/16/07, p.B5)
2007 Aug 16, CARE spokeswoman
Alina Labrada said the donation of wheat and other crops does not
help in regions where people consistently go hungry because local
farming has been weakened by international competition. The
Atlanta-based group turned down $46 million worth of US food aid,
arguing that the way the American government distributes its help
hurts poor farmers.
(AP, 8/16/07)
2007 Aug 16, In Utah the search
for six miners missing deep underground was abruptly halted after a
second cave-in killed three rescue workers and injured at least six
others who were trying to tunnel through rubble to reach them. The
search for six trapped miners at the Crandall Canyon Mine was later
abandoned.
(AP, 8/17/07)(AP, 8/16/08)
2007 Aug 16, In Afghanistan 6
civilians, including 3 children, were killed by the mortar and
machine-gun attack on the village of Nangarkhel, Paktika province.
Two other civilians died of their wounds in a hospital. 7 Polish
soldiers were later charged with war crimes. On Jun 1, 2011, a
military court in Poland acquitted the soldiers saying there was not
enough evidence to support war crime charges.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nangar_Khel_incident)(AP, 6/1/11)
2007 Aug 16, Australia’s PM
John Howard said he would lift a ban on selling uranium to India,
subject to strict conditions.
(Econ, 8/25/07, p.40)
2007 Aug 16, It was reported
that a highly infectious swine virus, blue pork disease, had spread
to 25 of China’s 33 provinces, prompting pork shortages and an 85%
increase in pork prices over the last year.
(SFC, 8/16/07, p.A15)
2007 Aug 16, In Greece a huge
forest fire burned two dozen homes, animals and cars in the northern
outskirts of Athens before firefighters extinguished most of it.
(AP, 8/17/07)
2007 Aug 16, A conservation
group said mercury used by gold miners has seeped into rivers and
streams and sickened scores of Indian villagers in rural Guyana.
(AP, 8/16/07)
2007 Aug 16, The Iraqi prime
minister and president announced a new alliance of moderate Shiites
and Kurds in a push to save the crumbing government, saying a key
Sunni bloc refused to join but the door remained open to them. In
Baghdad, a car bomb struck a parking garage in a central commercial
district during the morning rush hour, killing at least nine people
and wounding 17. US troops clashed with suspected Sunni insurgents
holed up in a mosque north of Baghdad and launched an air-to-ground
Hellfire missile into the structure. One American soldier was killed
in the fighting.
(AP, 8/16/07)(AP, 8/17/07)
2007 Aug 16, Japan sizzled
through its hottest day on record as a heat wave claimed at least
nine lives and threatened power supplies strained by a recent
earthquake. The mercury hit 105.6 degrees in the western city of
Tajimi in the afternoon, breaking a previous national record of
105.4 degrees set in 1933.
(AP, 8/16/07)
2007 Aug 16, Uganda announced
plans to send 250 extra soldiers to a peacekeeping mission in
Mogadishu, but Somalia's government warned they were not enough and
urged other African nations to commit troops.
(Reuters, 8/16/07)
2007 Aug 16, Opponents of
President Hugo Chavez vowed to block his plans to radically overhaul
the constitution, warning the changes would give him unlimited power
and cripple democracy in Venezuela.
(AP, 8/16/07)
2007 Aug 16, The 14-member
Southern African Development Community (SADC) met in Lusaka, Zambia
for its 27th summit. The 2-day summit provided scant hope for the
people of Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe rejected the need for political reform
at the summit of regional leaders that is meant to find ways to ease
the country's political and economic crisis.
(AP, 8/16/07)(Econ, 8/25/07,
p.43)(www.dfa.gov.za/docs/2007/sadc0820.htm)
2008 Aug 16, Afghan and foreign
troops clashed with militants in a mountainous area of Zabul
province, killing 7 militants. In Kandahar province a roadside blast
killed 10 police officers on patrol. In eastern Paktika province
police clashed with militants in the Shwak district, killing 4
insurgents. In Helmand province British troops accidentally killed 4
civilians during an operation against Taliban insurgents.
(AP, 8/17/08)(WSJ, 8/18/08, p.A9)(Reuters,
8/18/08)
2008 Aug 16, Jailed Belarusian
opposition leader Alexander Kozulin, considered in the West to be
the ex-Soviet state's most prominent political prisoner, was
released. Kozulin was one of two opposition candidates to run
against Lukashenko in a 2006 election and was jailed for 5 1/2 years
for helping stage mass protests against the official result
declaring the president the winner by a landslide.
(Reuters, 8/16/08)
2008 Aug 16, Dorival Caymmi
(b.1914), Brazilian composer, died. He had composed over 100 songs
and catapulted to fame when Carmen Miranda performed one of his
songs in 1938.
(AP, 8/17/08)
2008 Aug 16, A monthlong
standoff between Thailand and Cambodia appeared to be ending as both
sides pulled back their troops from disputed territory around a
temple near their shared border.
(AP, 8/16/08)
2008 Aug 16, Carol Huynh, whose
parents fled communist Vietnam in the 1970s, won Canada's first gold
of the Olympics in the women's 48 kg freestyle wrestling. Usain Bolt
of Jamaica was crowned the world's fastest man when he raced to
victory in the Olympic men's 100 meters final in a world record time
of 9.69 sec.
(AP, 8/16/08)(AFP, 8/16/08)
2008 Aug 16, Authorities in the
Central African Republic gave the green light for a leading rebel
group headed by a former defense minister to form a political party.
Both the rebel group and the new NAP party are headed by former
defense minister Jean-Jacques Demafouth, currently in exile in
France.
(AFP, 8/16/08)
2008 Aug 16, Dominican Republic
President Leonel Fernandez promised to boost agricultural production
and warned of dire economic times as he was sworn in for a third
term.
(AP, 8/16/08)
2008 Aug 16, Tropical Storm Fay
lashed Haiti and the Dominican Republic with torrential rains and
floods that killed at least 18 people including at least 14 people
in Haiti, feared to have died aboard a bus that tried to cross a
flooded river.
(AP, 8/17/08)(AP, 8/18/08)
2008 Aug 16, In India police
arrested the alleged leader of the July Ahmadabad bombings. Mufti
Abu Bashir was arrested in the northern Indian city of Lucknow.
(AP, 8/16/08)
2008 Aug 16, Tens of thousands
of Muslims marched in India's portion of Kashmir in honor of a
prominent separatist leader killed in a recent wave of violence that
has rocked the volatile Himalayan region.
(AP, 8/16/08)
2008 Aug 16, On Indonesia's
Sumatra island at least nine people have died and dozens were
injured when a slow-moving passenger train hit a parked freight
locomotive.
(AP, 8/16/08)
2008 Aug 16, Russian forces
pulled back from the center of a town not far from Georgia's capital
after Russia's president signed a cease-fire deal. Russia’s Foreign
Minister Sergey Lavrov later suggested there would be no immediate
broader withdrawal. Georgia's Foreign Ministry said Saturday that
Russian-backed separatists from the province of Abkhazia had taken
over 13 villages in Georgia and a power plant. Russian troops blew
up a key railroad bridge linking the Caucasus to the Black Sea
coast.
(AP, 8/16/08)(SSFC, 8/17/08, p.A4)
2008 Aug 16, In Iraq a car bomb
exploded as Shiite pilgrims were boarding minibuses in Baghdad,
killing at least 3 people, in a third straight day of attacks on
travelers heading to a religious ceremony in Karbala. Iraqi police
and hospital employees said six people were killed and 11 injured.
The US military put the toll at three dead and eight injured.
(AP, 8/16/08)
2008 Aug 16, In Mexico gunmen
killed 13 people at a family party in the border state of Chihuahua.
(AP, 8/17/08)
2008 Aug 16, A man used Semtex
in a rocket-propelled grenade attack against Northern Ireland police
officers, the first attack using the deadly explosive since
paramilitary groups agreed to hand in their weapons.
(AP, 8/19/08)
2008 Aug 16, A top ruling party
official gave Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf a two-day
deadline to quit or face impeachment proceedings.
(AP, 8/16/08)
2008 Aug 16, In Rwanda Jozefina
Zaninka (75), a woman who lost nearly all her family in the 1994
genocide, was murdered, in the latest of several killings of
survivors of the slaughter. Some 167 survivors of the genocide have
been murdered between 1995 and mid-May 2008.
(AP, 8/18/08)
2008 Aug 16, In South Africa a
regional summit of southern African leaders opened with Zimbabwe's
crisis high on the agenda, and with the country's main political
rivals in attendance.
(AP, 8/16/08)
2008 Aug 16, In Sri Lanka a
series of raging battles across the northern war zone killed 27
Tamil Tiger fighters and seven government troops. Soldiers took
control of a rebel training base in Andankulam in the Welioya region
after Tamil Tiger fighters fled the area.
(AP, 8/17/08)
2009 Aug 16, Y.E. Yang (37) of
South Korea won the PGA Championship at Chaska, Minnesota, with a
2-under par 70 beating Tiger Woods who shot a 5 over par 75.
(AP, 8/17/09)
2009 Aug 16, In San Francisco
BART management and union leaders reached a tentative contract
agreement less that 6 hours before a planned strike to shut down the
regional rail system.
(SFC, 8/17/09, p.A1)
2009 Aug 16, Afghan President
Hamid Karzai took part in a live television debate with two of his
main rivals running in this week's election, a first for an
incumbent head of state in the war-scarred country. The Afghan
defense ministry said that more than 30 rebels, including
foreigners, were killed in an operation pounding Taliban centers in
a bid to secure a northeast troublespot for key elections. Two US
troops and a US civilian died in gun and bomb attacks in eastern
Afghanistan. 3 British soldiers were killed in an explosion in the
volatile south.
(AFP, 8/16/09)(AFP, 8/17/09)
2009 Aug 16, Chinese
authorities in central Henan province called off the takeover of
Linzhou Iron and Steel Co. Ltd., a state-owned steel plant, after
workers protested and trapped an official in the factory office for
four days, the second time in a month that the country's
steelworkers have rallied to successfully avoid privatization.
(AP, 8/16/09)
2009 Aug 16, Iran expanded its
mass trial of opposition supporters, adding 25 more defendants
including a Jewish teenager who are accused of involvement in unrest
over the disputed presidential election.
(AP, 8/16/09)
2009 Aug 16, The US Peace Corps
says it has pulled more than 100 American volunteers out of
Mauritania for security reasons. The volunteers left for neighboring
Senegal and will not return to Mauritania.
(AP, 8/17/09)
2009 Aug 16, North Korean
leader Kim Jong Il held talks with Hyun Jeong-eun, the head of South
Korea's Hyundai Group, in a rare meeting that could warm prospects
for a resumption of stalled cross-border projects.
(AP, 8/16/09)
2009 Aug 16, In Pakistan seven
suspected Taliban militants were killed during a gunfight with
soldiers in Kabal village, about 20 kilometers northwest of Mingora
in the Swat Valley. Police arrested militant commander Qari
Saifullah, a close Mehsud aide, as he was being treated in a private
hospital in Islamabad.
(AP, 8/17/09)(AP, 8/18/09)
2009 Aug 16, It was reported
that Peru has become the world’s largest “factory” of counterfeit US
dollars. Police were said to seize some $10 million in false dollars
each month in Lima alone. The Peruvian dollars were mostly found in
such countries as Italy, France, Germany and Ecuador. Gunmen robbed
12 foreigners on an ecological tourism trip to the Manu nature
reserve in the Tres Cruces area of the Cusco region.
(SSFC, 8/16/09, p.A4)(AP, 8/16/09)
2009 Aug 16, Two Russian air
force fighters rehearsing acrobatic maneuvers collided near Moscow,
killing one pilot and sending the jets crashing into nearby vacation
homes.
(AP, 8/16/09)
2009 Aug 16, An American cargo
plane arrived in Taiwan with supplies for victims of the recent
Typhoon Morakot disaster. It was the first American military
aircraft to land in Taiwan in the 30 years since the US severed its
diplomatic ties in favor of China.
(Econ, 8/22/09, p.36)
2009 Aug 16, In Uruguay some 20
dead Fraser's dolphins turned up this weekend on the Punta Negra
beach in Piriapolis outside Montevideo. Experts theorized the
tropical dolphins became disoriented or were carried there by
changing water currents.
(AP, 8/18/09)
2010 Aug 16, The US Justice
Dept. dropped its 6-year investigation of former US House majority
leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex) and his interactions with lobbyist Jack
Abramoff.
(SFC, 8/17/10, p.A4)
2010 Aug 16, The US Interior
Dept. announced new rules for offshore drilling.
(SFC, 8/17/10, p.A4)
2010 Aug 16, US-based Rapaport
Diamond Trading Network, one of the world's largest diamond trading
networks, said it will expel members who knowingly trade Zimbabwean
stones tainted by allegations of killings and human rights abuses.
(AP, 8/16/10)
2010 Aug 16, Shrimpers returned
to Louisiana waters for the first commercial season since the Gulf
oil disaster, uncertain what crude may still be in the water and
what price they'll get for the catch if consumers worry about
possible lingering effects from the massive BP spill.
(AP, 8/16/10)
2010 Aug 16, Mazda Motor Corp
announced a recall of 215,000 Mazda 3 and Mazda 5 vehicles sold in
the United States because of the risk that they could lose power
steering without warning.
(AP, 8/18/10)
2010 Aug 16, Dell Inc. said
it's buying 3Par Inc., a maker of enterprise data storage equipment,
for about $1.13 billion cash or $18 per share. Hewlett Packard soon
countered with a higher bid and a bidding war ensued raising the
value of 3Par $2 billion, or $30/share. HP ended an 18-day battle
with a $33 per share offer. On Sep 2 Dell refused to continue
bidding and said it was entitled to a $72 million termination fee.
(AP, 8/16/10)(SSFC, 8/29/10, p.A9)(SFC, 9/3/10,
p.D4)
2010 Aug 16, Celebrity plastic
surgeon Dr. Frank Ryan (50), who made headlines for performing
multiple surgeries on reality TV star Heidi Montag, died in a car
crash in southern California. He was texting while driving and
accidentally went over a cliff. Ryan opened his private practice in
1994, the same year he established his namesake charitable
foundation that provides free removal of gang-related tattoos and
hosts day and overnight camps for children at Malibu's Bony Pony
Ranch.
(http://tinyurl.com/2fv4r8f)
2010 Aug 16, In South Carolina
Shaquan Duley (29) suffocated her two boys (18 months and 2 years
old) and rolled her car into the North Edisto River in an attempt to
cover their murder. She confessed to their murder the next day.
(SFC, 8/18/10, p.A4)
2010 Aug 16, In Afghanistan 6
police officers in Kandahar province were poisoned by a cook who
defected to the Taliban.
(SSFC, 8/22/10, p.A6)
2010 Aug 16, Teams from
Australia, Germany and Switzerland have set off from Geneva in
electric vehicles for what they hope will be the first carbon
neutral race around the world. The race set up by Swiss inventor
Louis Palmer will pass through 150 cities including Berlin, Moscow,
Shanghai, Los Angeles and Cancun before returning to Geneva in
January after 18,642 miles (30,000 km) on the road.
(AP, 8/16/10)
2010 Aug 16, In Bolivia
protesters suspended road blockades and hunger strikes, saying
government officials agreed to address their grievances after 19
days of demonstrations that paralyzed Bolivia's southern Potosi
region. The government agreed to build a new airport and cement
factory in the area to end the 3-weeks of roadblocks.
(AP, 8/16/10)(SSFC, 8/22/10, p.A4)
2010 Aug 16, In northeast China
a massive explosion ripped through a fireworks factory, killing 19
workers, damaging nearby buildings and causing secondary blasts.
(AP, 8/16/10)
2010 Aug 16, In China at least
36 more people have died and 23 others were missing in fresh
flooding from torrential rains in Gansu province.
(AP, 8/17/10)
2010 Aug 16, A Boeing 737
jetliner with 131 passengers aboard crashed on landing and broke
into three pieces at Colombia’s at San Andres Island in the
Caribbean. The region's governor said it was a miracle that only one
person died. On Sep 1 a girl (11) died from her injuries raising the
death toll to two.
(AP, 8/16/10)(AP, 9/1/10)
2010 Aug 16, In Greece
Dimitrios Ioannidis (87), a feared security chief, died. He led the
1974 countercoup against Greece's military leaders and
provoked Turkey's invasion of Cyprus. He was jailed in 1975 for life
for his part in the 1967-74 dictatorship.
(AP, 8/16/10)
2010 Aug 16, Iran said it plans
to build 10 new uranium enrichment sites inside protected mountain
strongholds, with construction on the first starting in March, in
continuing defiance of international efforts to curb its nuclear
development.
(AP, 8/16/10)
2010 Aug 16, In Iraq a car bomb
killed four Iranian Shiite pilgrims and an Iraqi citizen travelling
on a bus northeast of Baghdad with women among nine others wounded.
(AFP, 8/16/10)
2010 Aug 16, Israeli troops
killed a Palestinian militant who the military said was planting a
bomb along the border.
(AP, 8/17/10)
2010 Aug 16, Mexico's Supreme
Court voted to uphold a Mexico City law allowing adoptions by
same-sex couples, drawing jubilant cheers from gay advocacy groups
and angry protests from Roman Catholic Church representatives.
(AP, 8/16/10)
2010 Aug 16, In Mexico 4
inmates were found dead with their throats slashed at a prison in
the Pacific coast state of Sinaloa.
(AP, 8/17/10)
2010 Aug 16, Nigerian officials
said a cholera outbreak has killed 87 people during the past month
while 1,315 others have been infected.
(AP, 8/16/10)
2010 Aug 16, In Pakistan angry
flood survivors blocked a highway to protest slow delivery of aid
and heavy rain lashed makeshift housing as a forecast of more
flooding increased the urgency of the massive international relief
effort.
(AP, 8/16/10)
2010 Aug 16, In Peru American
Lori Berenson apologized for aiding leftist rebels and asked a
Peruvian court to let her remain free on parole after serving 15
years of her 20-year sentence behind bars.
(AP, 8/16/10)
2010 Aug 16, In Romania a fire
at a Bucharest maternity hospital killed 3 babies. A 4th died the
next day and seven remained in critical condition. The accident
provoked a wave of public indignation, throwing light on Romania's
poorly funded and understaffed health system.
(AP, 8/17/10)
2010 Aug 16, Russia’s ruling
party said it would not re-nominate Georgy Boos, the unpopular
governor of Kaliningrad, for a new term.
(Reuters, 8/16/10)
2010 Aug 16, In Russia Gabriel
Grecu, first secretary in the political department of the Romanian
Embassy in Moscow, was detained while trying to obtain secret
military information from a Russian citizen. He was given 48 hours
to leave the country.
(AP, 8/16/10)
2010 Aug 16, In Sudan lightning
struck a religious school in the country's western Darfur region,
killing seven children.
(AP, 8/16/10)
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