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SCMP Reporter

In Hong Kong

1958: Lau Wah-san, 36, a professional letter writer who wrote a threatening letter to a female pen pal after she stopped writing to him, was fined $30 by the magistrate at Kowloon Court. He was charged with writing letters threatening murder after his two-year correspondence with Yiu Shu-yee ended.

1964: Preventative Services officers seized 65 blocks of morphine found in two leather suitcases aboard the Italian liner, Asia. The blocks, weighing 60 pounds, had an estimated street value of $500,000.

1969: The Government announced that more than $26 million - $24 million from public funds and $2.5 million from the Royal Hong Kong Jockey Club - would be spent on building secondary and technical schools for children in Kwun Tong, Sau Mau Ping and Lam Tin.

Around the world

138: The Roman emperor Hadrian, who built a wall across Britain to keep out the marauding Scots, died.

1099: El Cid, the Spanish warrior hero who besieged and captured Valencia, died.

1851: Louis Daguerre, French photographic pioneer who

patented his 'daguerrotype' method of making pictures, died.

1940: The Battle of Britain began in World War II when at least 70 German bombers attacked docks in south Wales.

1962: Telstar, the first television telecommunications satellite, was launched from Cape Canaveral, making it possible to relay television programmes across the Atlantic.

1985: One Greenpeace crew member died when the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior was blown up and sunk by French secret agents in Auckland harbour in New Zealand.

1991: Boris Yeltsin was sworn in as the first elected president of Russia.

1992: Former Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega was sentenced to 40 years in jail in the United States for allowing his country to be used for drug smuggling.

1999: Six African governments signed a ceasefire accord aimed at ending the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Rebel groups did not sign.

2000: At least 202 people were killed in the Philippines when a mountain of garbage collapsed on a Manila shantytown called Promised Land.



Today in history