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SCMP Reporter

In Hong Kong

1961: Swimmers were warned to keep out of the water after three or four manta rays, estimated to be two metres wide, were spotted off Stanley.

1963: Residents on Lamma Island planned to build a mass grave for human bones found by workmen laying cables at Yung Shue Wan. The bones were believed to be the 100-year-old remains of pirates.

1966: Hong Kong Brewery introduced a new beer. Lighter and sweeter than San Miguel, Ching Sam (Castle Peak) was brewed for the Chinese palate and lower-income market.

1970: Hong Kong's run at the Merdeka Soccer Tournament ended in the wind and rain in Kuala Lumpur, when they were humiliated 5-0 by Burma.

Around the world

1521: Spanish conquistador Hernando Cortes captured and destroyed Tenochtitlan (Mexico City) after a three-month siege.

1704: French and Bavarian forces were routed by a combined British, Austrian and Dutch army at Blenheim, Germany, during the War of the Spanish Succession.

1792: French revolutionaries imprisoned the French royals.

1814: The Cape of Good Hope was formally ceded to the British by the Dutch.

1898: United States forces captured Manila during the Spanish-American War.

1910: Florence Nightingale, a British nurse during the Crimean War, died.

1914: France declared war on Austria-Hungary.

1961: The border between East and West Berlin was closed at the Brandenburg Gate, heralding the construction of the Berlin Wall.

1964: The last hangings in Britain took place when two men were executed for murder at Liverpool and Manchester.

1969: China and the Soviet Union accused each other of sending troops across the border in Xinjiang and inflicting heavy casualties.

1993: More than 120 people died in a hotel collapse in Thailand.

1994: Nato secretary-general Manfred Woerner, who led the 16-nation Western alliance through the end of the Cold War, died of cancer.

1994: Under an agreement with the US, North Korea agreed to freeze its graphite-moderated nuclear-power programme in favour of systems less capable of producing weapons-grade plutonium.

1996: Data sent back by the Galileo space probe indicated there may be water on one of Jupiter's moons, heightening the possibility it could support a primitive life form.

1998: Swiss banks and Jewish groups reached a US$1.25 billion (HK$9.75 billion) compensation agreement over unreturned Holocaust-era assets.

1999: Colombia's best-loved comic, Jaime Garzon, was assassinated by gunmen in Bogota.

1999: Ignatz Bubis, head of Germany's Jewish community and president of the European Jewish Congress, died aged 72.



Hong Kong customs seizes HK$118 million of cannabis in fishing boat bust

When Hong Kong built its first wind turbine, on Lamma Island

Year of the Snake fitness retreat in Hong Kong features snake-themed exercises and motifs

South China Sea: scientists see China collaboration as crucial to saving marine life

Lamma Island

Today in history