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Luisa Tam

A Sicilian woman giving birth to twins in different cities and a Japanese teenager killing his father over homework made the headlines four decades ago this week.
July 15, 1979
● A factory worker who threatened his son with a knife to force him to study harder died after the youth stabbed him. Police in Hiroshima said the man slapped his 17-year-old son several times before the boy retaliated by grappling with him, snatching the weapon and stabbing him in the chest.
July 16, 1979
● Israeli police were trying to work out how US$40,000 went up in smoke. A police spokesman said the money was in an envelope that accidentally found its way to a safe containing counterfeit banknotes. The real money, mixed with the fake bills, was put to the torch in a routine government operation to destroy counterfeit money.
July 17, 1979
● A 26-year-old Sicilian woman gave birth to twin girls on different days in different cities. The first baby was born at the woman’s home in central Sicily shortly before midnight on July 14, while the second girl was delivered two days later in a nearby city.
● A Hong Kong biochemist and authority on traditional Chinese herbal medicine was appointed to a top consultancy post at the World Health Organisation. Dr Y.C. Kong, a reader in biochemistry at Chinese University, would serve as a member of the WHO’s Expert Advisory Panel on Traditional Medicine in an honorary capacity for a five-year term.

July 18, 1979
● Former Nicaraguan president Anastasio Somoza was relaxing on his estate in the Miami sun after resigning and fleeing to the United States. He flew in on his private jet with an entourage of 45 former officials, ending 42 years of his family’s dictatorial rule in the Central American country. Sacks of potatoes, cases of soft drinks and crates of food were seen being carried into the estate on the exclusive Sunset Islands.
July 19, 1979
● Hong Kong was expected to become the home for parts of Skylab, the first space station operated by the United States, which had crashed into the Australian outback a week earlier. The Space Museum in Tsim Sha Tsui was prepared to revamp its exhibition halls before its scheduled opening in April 1980 to facilitate the display of two pieces of the wrecked US spacecraft, weighing half a tonne.
Most wanted manhunt ends and toddler trapped in bath: past headlines
July 20, 1979
● The governor of Tokyo cut his own pay by about 40 per cent for a year until July 1980 in response to the city’s poor economic performance. Shunichi Suzuki slashed his monthly salary to 550,000 yen (about HK$12,850 at the time). The governor was heavily criticised the year before when the Metropolitan Assembly raised his pay to 900,000 yen.

● US president Jimmy Carter appointed Hamilton Jordan, author of the strategy that won him the presidency in 1976, to revamp his public image. The appointment was made a few days after Carter admitted in a televised speech that he was managing rather than leading the country. Jordan became the key figure in the president’s battle to prove he was not the indecisive amateur depicted in opinion polls.
July 21, 1979
● The British foreign secretary, Lord Carrington, appealed to the world to do more to help Hong Kong deal with the worsening refugee crisis at an international refugee conference in Geneva. In a graphic illustration of the human misery behind the humanitarian issue, Carrington said tens of thousands of men, women and children from Vietnam had died in the South China Sea because they could not, or would not, continue living in the oppressed country.

● Zimbabwe Rhodesian forces raided a guerilla camp in Zambia – eight days before Queen Elizabeth was due to visit the country for the Commonwealth Conference. A military communique said all ground and air forces returned safely from the raid on “a terrorist resupply base”.
Remember A Day looks at significant news and events reported by the Post during this week in history


Macau gastronomy fest unites 39 Unesco cities, from Chengdu to Lucknow

King Harold’s 200-mile UK march to Battle of Hastings in 1066 is a ‘myth’, says research

‘Most beautiful’ cloister in Rome hides a dramatic and dark past

How the Hakka spread in China and beyond, their cuisine reflecting hard lives

History

Twins born in different cities and space museum coup: headlines from 40 years ago

The Hong Kong Space Museum under construction in 1979. Photo: Yau Tin-kwai

Dr Y. C. Kong of the Biochemistry Department of the Chinese University of Hong Kong explains the therapeutic power of a local herb. He is a member of the institution's Research Group for the Investigation of Chinese Medicinal Material. 03MAR78

Hamilton Jordan consults with Jimmy Carter in the Oval Office, August 24, 1977. Photo: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration

FILE - In this April 23, 1975 photo provided by the Department of Defense, Vietnamese refugees crowd aboard the Military Sealift Command ship Pioneer Contender to be evacuated to areas further south. (Department of Defense via AP, File)

News

Hong Kong

Society

Opinion

A journey back through time to look at significant news and events reported by the South China Morning Post from this week in history


Old Hong Kong

Chinese history

Expresses the views, ideas and conclusions of the author. (Eg. Enough of Crazy Rich Asians, think of crazy poor Hongkongers.)


Column

Remember A Day

.css-1mniedq{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;}A journey back through time to look at significant news and events reported by the South China Morning Post from this week in history

A journey back through time to look at significant news and events reported by the South China Morning Post from this week in history