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SCMP Reporter

In Hong Kong

1963: Stirling Moss, the British former world motor racing champion, arrived in Hong Kong on his way to Sydney, Australia.

1968: Diamond imports to Hong Kong were worth $329.31 million in the first six months of the year, $69.1 million more than in the same period in 1967.

1977: The Church of England in Hong Kong was criticised by the Reverend Hugh Stevenson, the chaplain at St John's Cathedral, for its 'blindness' in not recognising divorce and refusing to allow divorcees to remarry.

Around the world

1609: Henry Hudson, English navigator and explorer, entered the river later named the Hudson in what is now New York State.

1848: Switzerland adopted a constitution under which it became a federal republic.

1890: White settlers and troops reached the site of Salisbury (now Harare), which became the capital of Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). It was named after the British premier, Lord Salisbury.

1919: A volunteer Italian army under poet Gabriele d'Annunzio seized the Yugoslav port of Fiume.

1940: Four teenagers followed their dog when it disappeared down a hole near Lascaux in southwest France, and discovered 17,000-year-old drawings now known as the Lascaux Cave Paintings.

1953: Nikita Khrushchev was elected first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the USSR.

1970: Arab guerillas blew up three airliners at Dawson's Field in Jordan after hijacking them six days earlier. All the passengers were released in exchange for Palestinian prisoners, including hijacker Leila Khaled.

1972: An Icelandic gunboat sank two British trawlers in the North Sea in the first hostilities of the 'Cod War'.

1974: Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia was deposed in an army coup. He had ruled since 1930.

1977: South African black civil rights leader Steve Biko died in police detention.

1980: Turkish armed forces led by General Kenan Evren, chief of the general staff, overthrew the government of Suleyman Demirel in a bloodless coup.

1986: American Joseph Cicippio was kidnapped in Lebanon. He was released in December 1991 after 1,906 days in captivity.

1989: Poland's parliament approved the Solidarity-led government of Prime Minister Tadeuz Mazowiecki in a vote formally ending communist rule.

1990: East and West Germany and the World War II allies signed a treaty to restore sovereignty to a united Germany and define its international status.

1992: The US space shuttle Endeavour took off with a crew that included Mark Lee and Jan Davis, the first married couple in space.

1997: Communist Party chief Jiang Zemin redefined Chinese socialism at the opening of the five-yearly party congress.

1998: Senior Albanian opposition leader, Azem Hajdari, was assassinated in Tirana.

1999: Indonesia agreed to allow an international peacekeeping force into East Timor to bring an end to violence there.



Today in history