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SCMP Reporter

In Hong Kong

1962: All 40 dairy farms in the Diamond Hill area were demolished to make way for a 30-acre resettlement estate to house 110,000 people in the next three years.

1964: Arnold Palmer shot a two-under-par 68 during an exhibition on the new course at the Royal Hong Kong Golf Club in Fanling. The American great played the course sight unseen and with a borrowed sets of clubs.

1966: Japanese scientists broke the 'scent barrier', a discovery that would revolutionise Hong Kong's plastic flower industry. The experimental chemists had created nearly 100 varieties of aromatic chemicals that would not lose their scent for a year.

1968: Danny Diaz and the Checkmates, The Wot's Happening and The Menace advanced to the grand final of the 'Levi's Battle of the Sounds' at City Hall. The groups would meet Teddy Robin and the Playboys, the Mystics and the G Clef Five for the title of Hong Kong's top group.

Around the world

1700: Charles II of Spain died and was succeeded by Philip V, marking the start of the War of the Spanish Succession.

1856: Britain declared war on Persia following Persia's invasion of Afghanistan to occupy Herat.

1894: Tsar Alexander III of Russia died; he was succeeded by Nicholas II.

1914: Five German cruisers sank the British ships Good Hope and Monmouth at the Battle of Coronel off Chile during World War I, with the loss of 1,600 lives.

1936: Italian dictator Benito Mussolini proclaimed the Rome-Berlin Axis after a visit to Berlin by Italian Foreign Secretary Galeazzo Ciano.

1950: Two members of a Puerto Rican nationalist movement tried unsuccessfully to assassinate US President Harry Truman.

1963: South Vietnam's President Ngo Dinh Diem and his brother Ngo Dinh Nhu were killed in a military coup.

1972: Ezra Pound, American poet and critic, died in Venice.

1984: Rajiv Gandhi was sworn in as Indian Prime Minister amid anti-Sikh riots following the assassination of his mother, Indira Gandhi.

1985: Phil Silvers, American comic actor noted for his Sergeant Bilko character, died.

1995: South Africans voted in their first all-race local government elections.

2001: The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was admitted to the United Nations, eight years after Belgrade was expelled following the break-up of the old Yugoslav federation.



Today in history