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SCMP Reporter

In Hong Kong

1962: Lady Baden-Powell, the world Chief Guide, visited Hong Kong and said she was amazed by the rapid growth of the Guide and Scout movement in the territory. The Colony had about 8,000 Scouts and 2,500 Guides.

1964: Five Americans who were imprisoned in Macau for six months after an alleged casino fraud, arrived in Hong Kong. The group was accused of cheating the Estoril Hotel Casino of more than $200,000 with loaded dice. Djurgarden, a visiting Swedish first division league champions, hammered Hong Kong 6-2 in a friendly match at the Hong Kong Stadium.

1983: Coleco Industries had to step up its production at its plants in Hong Kong and other Asian cities as American consumers went mad for the company's Cabbage Patch Kid dolls in the run-up to Christmas.

1995: Twenty six people on board a Cathay flight from Bali were taken to hospital after strong air currents battered their Airbus 303.

Around the world

1314: King Philip IV, the Fair, of France, died. In 1306 he expelled all Jews from France and seized their property.

1516: Italian painter Giovanni Bellini died; he made Venice an artistic centre to rival Florence.

1530: Thomas Wolsey, English cardinal and Lord Chancellor in Henry VIII's government, died while being brought from York to London on a charge of high treason.

1864: At Sand Creek, Colorado, a US Army force led by Colonel John Chivington attacked and massacred at least 400 Cheyenne and Arapahoe Indians who had surrendered and been given permission to camp.

1890: The first Imperial Diet (parliament) was opened in Japan. It consisted of a House of Peers and a House of Representatives.

1924: Italian opera composer Giacomo Puccini, who wrote La Boheme and Tosca, died; his last work, Turandot, was unfinished.

1947: The UN General Assembly voted to partition Palestine into Jewish and Arab land, leading to the setting up of a Jewish state the following year.

1974: A bill to outlaw the Irish Republican Army became law in Britain.

1975: British racing driver Graham Hill died in an air crash outside London; he had been world champion twice, in 1962 and in 1968.

1981: American film actress Natalie Wood drowned at sea; she was best known for her role in the film Miracle On 34th Street as a child star. Among her adult roles was that of Maria in West Side Story.

1989: Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi resigned after his Congress party lost its parliamentary majority in a humiliating election setback.

1996: A UN war crimes tribunal sentenced Croat Drazen Erdemovic, 25, to 10 years in jail after he confessed to taking part in the Bosnian Serb Army massacre of over 1,200 unarmed Muslims at Srebrenica. He was the first person to be sentenced by an international war crimes tribunal since the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials after World War II.



Today in history