In Hong Kong 1964: Turin Motors spray-painted a Fiat limousine gold for use by Italian actress Gina Lollobrigida during a visit to Hong Kong for a cocktail party in her honour. 1965: A venomous mountain pit viper, related to the rattle snake, was found in Hong Kong for the first time, near the summit of Tai Mo Shan. 1968: American newsman Walter Cronkite arrived from Saigon where he had been covering the Vietnam War and told the press the Viet Cong might launch another wave of attacks on Saigon. 1970: Leading Australian jockey John Miller passed through Hong Kong on his way to Ireland. The champion rider had won the coveted Melbourne Cup-Caulfield Cup double on Galilee in 1966. 1975: Taiwan's Hsieh Yung-yo won the Hong Kong Open for the fourth time. Around the world 1792: Sir Joshua Reynolds, English portrait painter and first president of the Royal Academy, died. 1821: John Keats, English poet, died in Rome. 1836: General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, with thousands of Mexican troops, began the siege of the Alamo mission, held by a force of 145 Texans led by Colonel Willian Travis, Jim Bowie and Davy Crockett. 1866: King Alexander Cuza of Romania abdicated, succeeded by Charles, Hohenzollern Prince. 1934: Sir Edward Elgar, English composer, died. 1942: In World War II, a mutual aid agreement was signed between the United States, Britain, Australia and New Zealand. 1965: Stan Laurel, British-born half of the Laurel and Hardy comedy duo, died. 1966: Syria's military seized power in a coup and Dr Nureddin el-Atassi was named head of state. 1970: Guyana, formerly British Guiana, became an independent republic within the Commonwealth. 1981: Lieutenant-Colonel Antonio Tejero and a group of civil guards burst into the Spanish parliament, firing shots in a failed coup attempt. 1991: Thailand's armed forces seized power in a bloodless coup and arrested Prime Minister Chatichai Choonhaven. 1994: Bosnia's government and separatist Bosnian Croat forces agreed to a comprehensive ceasefire under UN auspices. 1994: The Russian parliament voted to pardon participants in an armed rebellion against former president Boris Yeltsin in October 1993 and a coup attempt against former president Mikhail Gorbachev in 1991. 1998: European Union foreign ministers lifted the ban on high-level diplomatic contacts with Iran. 2000: An Australian-led multinational force left East Timor and handed over to UN peacekeepers, five months after going in to end a wave of mass killings between pro-Indonesian and pro-independence factions after a vote for independence. 2000: The space shuttle Endeavour returned to earth, after mapping the Earth's surface.
