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SCMP Reporter

In Hong Kong

1959: A Cuban 'goodwill' mission led by Major Ernesto 'Che' Guevara, deputy chief of the country's Revolutionary Army, stopped over at Kai Tak en route to Indonesia.

1966: For sale: Minerva House, 30 Lyttleton Road, 4F, Hong Kong Island. Quiet location, three bedrooms, living room, bath room, kitchen and servants' quarter. $45,000.

1967: HK-TVB Television Broadcasts Limited prepared to launch, the first time in the world a new station had begun its initial telecast in colour.

1969: World-famous Chinese pianist Fou Ts'ong, 35, arrived at Kai Tak and denied he was having a romance with 22-year-old actress Siu Fong-fong, when pressed by reporters. He was then separated from his wife Zamira, daughter of violinist Yehudi Menuhin.

Around the world

1586: The first potatoes arrived in England from Colombia, brought by Sir Thomas Harriot.

1655: Cyrano de Bergerac, French poet, novelist and soldier whose works combined political satire and scientific fantasy, died. Among his best known works is A Voyage To The Moon.

1741: Italian composer Antonio Vivaldi died; best known for his concerti for violin and orchestra The Four Seasons.

1794: Maximilien Robespierre was guillotined. Known as 'The Incorruptible', he played a leading role in the French Revolution and launched the 'Reign of Terror'.

1858: The first use of fingerprints as a means of identification was made by William Herschel of the Indian Civil Service at Jungipur in India.

1866: Beatrix Potter, the English author of children's books and creator of Peter Rabbit, was born.

1868: The 14th amendment to the United States constitution was ratified, granting citizenship to US blacks.

1914: Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia after the June 28 assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand at Sarajevo. Further declarations of war precipitated World War I.

1922: Jacques Piccard, French deep sea explorer, was born. In January 1960, he and US Navy Lieutenant Donald Walsh set the record for the greatest ocean descent when their bathyscaphe Trieste reached a depth of 10,911 metres in the Marianas Trench, southwest of Guam in the Pacific Ocean.

1928: Alberto Fujimori, president of Peru since 1990, was born. On this day in 1990 he was sworn in as Peru's first president of Japanese origin.

1945: A B-25 bomber lost in clouds and fog slammed into the side of America's Empire State building, killing 14 people.

1968: Otto Hahn, German nuclear physicist and Nobel Prize winner, died. He signed the Goettingen Declaration (1957), refusing to co-operate in possible West German construction of nuclear devices.

1976: An earthquake measuring 7.9 on the Richter scale levelled the city of Tangshan in China; it caused the highest quake death toll in modern times - at least 242,000 dead and 164,000 injured.

1997: Seni Pramoj, who served as Thailand's prime minister three times after World War II, died at 92.



This day in history