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SCMP Reporter

In Hong Kong

1961: Hong Kong was knocked out of the Merdeka Soccer Tournament in Kuala Lumpur when its team lost 4-3 to Singapore.

1963: The colony's 1,388-bed, $70.3 million Queen Elizabeth Hospital was nearing completion for its September 6 opening. The 13-storey building was the largest general hospital in the Commonwealth.

1966: Julie Tang, 16, who was crowned 'Miss Smile 1966', gave up her title because her parents would not allow her to go to Hawaii as part of her prize.

1980: The Urban Council announced it would spend $8 million on a hockey pitch in King's Park, Kowloon, which would be the venue for the Junior World Cup Hockey Qualifying Competition the next year.

Around the world

1557: In the Spanish-French Wars, the French army lost more than 14,000 men trying to block a Spanish advance at the Battle of Saint Quentin. The Spaniards lost just 50 men.

1675: The foundation stone of the Royal Observatory was laid by order of King Charles II at Greenwich in south London. John Flamsteed became the first royal astronomer.

1759: King Ferdinand VI of Spain, who had ruled since 1746, died. He was succeeded by Charles III.

1792: In the French Revolution, more than 1,000 people were killed when a mob stormed the Tuileries Palace in Paris. King Louis XVI was arrested and the monarchy suspended. A commune was set up.

1885: The first commercially operated electrical streetcar began operation in Baltimore, Maryland.

1895: The first Promenade or Prom concert took place at the Queen's Hall in London.

1896: The first recorded hang-gliding fatality occurred near Berlin when aviation pioneer Otto Lilienthal died after crashing.

1904: In the Russian-Japanese War, the Russian fleet took

heavy losses when the Japanese blocked its escape from Port Arthur in the Battle of the Yellow Sea.

1920: After World War I, Turkey and the Allied powers signed the Treaty of Sevres, relieving Turkey of much of the land ruled by the Ottoman Empire.

1944: In World War II, US forces overran Pati Point after three weeks of fighting and recaptured Guam from the Japanese.

1966: US space authorities launched Orbiter 1 from Cape Kennedy. The first craft to transmit lunar photographs of possible landing sights, it crashed into the far side of the moon on October 29.

1994: Bangladeshi feminist author Taslima Nasrin, facing death threats at home from extremist Muslims, arrived in Sweden.

1995: Former army friends Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols were indicted for the Oklahoma City bombing on April 19 that killed 168 people.

1999: Islamic guerillas declared Russia's Dagestan province an independent state and called for a holy war of liberation.

2000: A Polish court ruled that President Aleksander Kwasniewski had not been an informant of the communist-era security service.



Today in history