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SCMP Reporter

In Hong Kong

1966: Two Americans arrived in Trinidad on board a sailing boat after a 22,400 kilometre voyage from Hong Kong. The pair had left the colony on May 1, 1965.

1969: A reception was held at the Hongkong Club for French soprano Ettel Sussman. She was here for a concert at City Hall.

1971: Hong Kong Land Investment and Agency Co Ltd announced the company's shares were to be dealt on the London Stock Exchange.

1976: Turnover on the colony's four stock exchanges rose to $223.4 million, the highest total since June 1974.

Around the world

1531: An earthquake in Portugal killed tens of thousands of people and flattened much of Lisbon and other cities.

1658: Sweden gained what is now the southern part of the country from Denmark under the Peace of Roskilde agreement.

1832: The Polish Constitution was abolished by Russia's tsar Nicholas I.

1901: The leaders of the Boxer Rebellion in China, Chi-hsui and Hsu Cheng-yu, were beheaded in public.

1916: The Germans sank the French transport ship Provence II during World War I, killing 930 people.

1918: German planes bombed Venice, Italy, during World War I.

1935: Scottish inventor Robert Watson-Watt demonstrated the first practical version of radar.

1936: Adolf Hitler opened the first factory to produce the 'People's Car' - the Volkswagen - in Saxony.

1968: Israel's foreign minister, Abba Eban, announced that Israel had agreed to what he described as 'a form of negotiation' with Arabs.

1969: Levi Eshkol, Israeli prime minister since 1963, died in office.

1974: Ethiopian army units seized Asmara, the second largest city in Ethiopia, and demanded a better standard of living and pay increases.

1980: Egypt and Israel established diplomatic relations.

1986: Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos and his entourage fled the country after a popular uprising.

1991: Kuwaiti resistance leaders declared they were in control of the capital, Kuwait City, following nearly seven months of Iraqi occupation. Nine British soldiers were killed when two US warplanes mistakenly fired on their armoured personnel carriers in southern Iraq.

1993: A bomb at New York's World Trade Centre killed six people and injured more than 1,000. Militant Muslims were later convicted on charges related to the bombing.

1995: The British merchant bank Barings collapsed after losses run up in Singapore by trader Nick Leeson.

1997: The Swiss government formally established a humanitarian fund for the benefit of Holocaust survivors.

2001: In a ceremony in Kuwait City, American Secretary of State Colin Powell pledged that 'freedom will live and prosper in this part of the world' in spite of the efforts of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.



Today in history