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SCMP Reporter

In Hong Kong

1960: Governor Sir Robert Black laid the foundation stone for Hong Kong's new $20-million City Hall on the Central reclamation site. The building was to be completed by late 1961.

1966: A Hong Kong-built 41-foot yawl won the title of 'Queen' of the Washington, DC, International Boat and Sport Show. Constructed by Cheoy Lee Shipyard, it was the first foreign craft to land the award.

1969: More than 120 homeless people were treated to a dinner by the Street Sleepers' Society. Each received a lai see packet and a parcel containing food, toothbrushes and towels.

1976: The Government announced it would spend $1.8 million to improve the floodlights at Hong Kong Stadium.

Around the world

1570: England's Queen Elizabeth I was excommunicated by Pope Pius V.

1601: England's Earl of Essex, a former favourite of Queen Elizabeth I, was executed for treason after a failed rebellion.

1713: Sweden's King Charles XII was taken prisoner by the Ottoman sultan.

1941: David Puttnam, the English film producer who was largely responsible for the artistic and commercial revival of the British film industry with works such as Chariots Of Fire, was born.

1943: Former Beatle George Harrison was born.

1956: In a speech to the Communist Party Congress, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev denounced his late predecessor Josef Stalin as a tyrant.

1964: Cassius Clay (Muhammad Ali), a 7-1 underdog, became world heavyweight boxing champion for the first time by knocking out Sonny Liston in the seventh round of their bout in Miami.

1976: The United States vetoed a United Nations resolution deploring Israel's annexation of Jerusalem.

1988: Thousands demonstrated in Soviet Armenia despite a directive to local authorities to restore order.

1991: An Iraqi Scud missile struck a US base at Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, killing 28 soldiers.

1993: Kim Young-sam was sworn in as South Korea's first civilian president for 32 years.

1994: Baruch Goldstein, a Jewish settler, shot and killed

29 Muslim worshippers at a mosque in Hebron. He was beaten to death at the scene.

1996: Haing Ngor, whose Academy Award-winning performance in the film The Killing Fields mirrored his own ordeal at the hands of Cambodia's Khmer Rouge, was murdered in Los Angeles.

1997: President Jiang Zemin delivered a final eulogy for late leader Deng Xiaoping, vowing that China's opening to the outside world would continue.

1998: Veteran pro-democracy campaigner Kim Dae-jung was inaugurated as president of South Korea.

2000: At least 45 people were killed when bombs exploded in a bus on an inter-island ferry on its way to Ozamis, a port in the southern Philippines.



Today in history