Today in history, August 31

HIGHLIGHTS IN HISTORY ON THIS DATE

1290 - Jews are exiled from England by proclamation of King Edward I.

1422 - King Henry V of England dies of dysentery in France and is succeeded by his nine-month-old son, Henry VI.

1688 - Death in London of John Bunyan, English author of The Pilgrim's Progress.

1704 - Forces of Russia's Tsar Peter the Great take Narva in Russia.

1823 - French forces storm the Trocadero and enter Cadiz in Spain.

1846 - Committee is established in Sydney to organise appeal for Irish famine.

1876 - Turkey's Sultan Murad V is deposed on plea of insanity and is succeeded by Abdul Hamid II.

1887 - US inventor Thomas A Edison receives a patent for his Kinetoscope, a device which produces moving pictures.

1888 - Body of Mary Ann "Polly" Nichols, first victim of murderer "Jack the Ripper", is found in London.

1907 - Anglo-Russian Convention is signed in St Petersburg, settling differences between the two over Persia, Afghanistan and Tibet.

1918 - The Battle of Mont St Quentin begins, later considered one of the Australian Imperial Force's greatest World War I victories; Bolshevik troops attack British embassy in Petrograd, Russia.

1920 - First ever news program is broadcast by the radio station 8MK in Detroit, Michigan.

1922 - Czech-Serb-Croat Alliance is signed at Marienbad.

1923 - Italy occupies Corfu in Greece.

1939 - Attempts by French Premier Daladier and British Prime Minister Chamberlain to negotiate with Adolf Hitler fail.

1942 - German General Irwin Rommel renews offensive against British at Alam Halfa in North Africa in World War II but is driven back to original lines.

1950 - Contingent of 80 men from First Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment, leaves for the Korean War.

1957 - Malaya becomes an independent member of the British Commonwealth.

1962 - Trinidad and Tobago become an independent nation within the British Commonwealth.

1967 - Diplomatic relations between Indonesia and Malaysia are re-established, following Indonesia's opposition to the formation of the Malaya federation.

1968 - West Indian Garfield Sobers becomes the first cricketer to score six sixes off one over in first-class cricket, in England.

1969 - Rocky Marciano, former world heavyweight boxing champion, is killed in an air crash in Iowa.

1973 - Death of John Ford, US film director.

1980 - Polish labour leaders sign agreements with the Communist government, establishing for first time in a Soviet-bloc nation the rights to strike and to establish free trade unions.

1986 - Soviet passenger ship Admiral Nakhimov collides with a merchant vessel in the Black Sea, causing both vessels to sink; 448 die.

1986 - Moscow's secret police hold US correspondent Nicholas Daniloff on spying allegations.

1987 - Government and opposition officials in South Korea agree on revising Constitution to clear way for direct presidential elections and other reforms.

1989 - Princess Anne and her husband Captain Mark Phillips separate after 16 years of marriage.

1990 - East and West Germany sign a treaty to harmonise their legal and political systems after merging on October 3.

1991 - Uzbekistan and Kirgyzstan become ninth and 10th Soviet republics to declare independence.

1994 - IRA declares an open-ended ceasefire in its 24-year campaign against British rule of Northern Ireland.

1997 - Princess Diana and her millionaire companion Dodi Al Fayed are killed in a Paris car crash.

2002 - Lionel Hampton, one of America's jazz legends, dies. He was 94.

2003 - Kenya lifts a ban on the Mau Mau movement, which spearheaded an uprising against British colonialists in the 1950s.

2004 - Militants in Iraq kill 12 Nepalese contract workers, in a gruesome video discovered on an Islamic web site, showing one of them beheaded and the 11 others shot in a methodical series of execution-style slayings; The US Republican Party nominates President George W Bush for a second four-year term in the White House.

2005 - Panicked by rumours of a suicide bomber, thousands of Shi'ite pilgrims break into a stampede on a bridge in Baghdad during a religious procession, crushing one another or plunging into the Tigris river. Nearly 1000 die, mostly women and children.

2006 - Police in Norway recover the Edvard Munch masterpieces The Scream and Madonna, two years after masked gunmen grabbed the national art treasures in front of stunned visitors at an Oslo museum.

2007 - The 25th Anniversary of Elk Cloner, regarded as the first virus to hit personal computers worldwide.

2008 - Practitioners of the ancient Greek religion gather among the ruined temples at the Acropolis, praying to Athena to stop the removal of sculptures and pieces of the temples to museums. Participants claim it is the first such gathering since the religion was abolished late in the 4th century.

2011 - The federal government's planned refugee swap deal with Malaysia is ruled unlawful by the High Court, effectively stymieing the government's so-called Malaysia Solution.

2012 - Kofi Annan's time as a would-be peacemaker among Syria's warring parties is over and he quietly leaves the role having failed to end the conflict in the Arab state. The task falls to another veteran UN diplomat, Lakhdar Brahimi.

2013 - An Indian juvenile court hands down the first conviction in the fatal gang rape of a young woman on a moving New Delhi bus, convicting a teenager of rape and murder and sentencing him to three years in a reform home; Renowned British TV interviewer David Frost dies aged 74 of a heart attack on board a cruise ship.

2015 - Unions royal commissioner Dyson Heydon rules he will not step aside over his speaking engagement at a Liberal fundraiser.

2017 - Britain marks 20 years since the death of Princess Diana, with flowers, photos and messages laid at the gate's of London's Kensington Palace; Australian soccer journalist Mike Cockerill dies.

TODAY'S BIRTHDAYS

Caligula (Gaius Caesar), Emperor of Rome (12-41); Theophile Gautier, French author (1811-1872); Maria Montessori, Italian doctor and educator (1870-1952); Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands (1880-1962); Fredric March, US actor (1897-1975); William Saroyan, US writer (1908-1981); James Coburn, US actor (1928-2002); Jack Thompson, Australian actor (1940-); Clive Lloyd, West Indian cricketer (1944-); Itzhak Perlman, Israeli violinist (1945-); Van Morrison, Irish singer-songwriter (1945-); Rudolf Schenker, German guitarist (1948-); Richard Gere, US actor (1949-); Edwin Moses, American athlete (1955-); Debbie Gibson, US singer-composer (1970-); Jordan's Queen Rania Al-Abdullah (1970-); Padraig Harrington, Irish golfer (1971); Chris Tucker, American actor and comedian (1972-); Craig Nicholls, Australian singer-songwriter and guitarist from The Vines (1977-).

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Show me the country in which there are no strikes and I'll show you that country in which there is no liberty - Emma Goldman, American anarchist (1869-1940).

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