Today in History, August 3
HIGHLIGHTS IN HISTORY ON THIS DATE:
1492 - Christopher Columbus embarks from Palos de la Frontera, Spain, aboard the Santa Maria, on his first voyage of westward exploration.
1571 - Turks take Famagusta, Cyprus, after 11-month siege and massacre many inhabitants.
1610 - Captain Henry Hudson, seeking a new passage to the Pacific, discovers the bay which now bears his name.
1778 - La Scala Opera House in Milan, the work of Giuseppe Piermarini, is opened.
1846 - One of Australia's oldest boys' school, Hutchins School in Hobart, opens
1852 - First steamship to arrive in Sydney, SS Chusan, berths after 80-day journey from England.
1881 - British troops occupy Egyptian town of Suez.
1891 - Australia's second-biggest bank at the time, the Bank of Van Diemen's Land closes after incurring a debt of one million pounds.
1904 - British troops enter Lhasa, Tibet, as the Dalai Lama flees.
1914 - Germany declares war on France; Belgium refuses Germany's request to allow its troops to enter the country; Britain warns Germany against invading Belgium.
1940 - Lithuania is formally incorporated into the Soviet Union as the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic.
1943 - Anti-Nazi demonstrations are held in Milan, Genoa and other northern Italian cities during World War II.
1945 - All ethnic Germans and Hungarians in Czechoslovakia are stripped of their citizenship.
1956 - Gold Coast (Africa) League Assembly adopts Kwame Nkrumah's resolution demanding independence from Britain.
1958 - Atomic-powered US submarine Nautilus makes first undersea crossing of North Pole.
1966 - Death of Lenny Bruce, US comedian, from a drugs overdose.
1968 - The standard gauge railway from Perth to Kalgoorlie is opened and the Prospector - the fastest train at the time - makes its inaugural run on the tracks three years later.
1988 - Thousands of students march through Rangoon to denounce hard-line leader Sein Lwin, who clamps indefinite martial law on the Burmese capital.
1991 - Russian branch formally breaks off from the Soviet Union's Communist Party to form a new party led by reform-minded Communists.
1996 - UN report says Burundi's Tutsi-led army killed thousands of Hutu civilians in a series of previously unreported massacres between April and July.
2001 - The International Monetary Fund announces it will loan $US1.2 billion ($A1.30 billion) to Argentina and extend $US15 billion ($A16.23 billion) line of credit to Brazil.
2005 - French authorities find 351 foetuses and stillborn babies stored in bags and jars at a Paris hospital.
2006 - Hundreds of thousands of people are evacuated as Typhoon Prapiroon slams into southern China.
2007 - Phyllis Turner, 94, who left school at the age of 12 becomes the world's oldest recipient of a master's degree from University of Adelaide in Australia.
2008 - At least 145 people are killed in a stampede of pilgrims at a remote Hindu temple in India.
2011 - Schoolgirl Madeleine Pulver, 18, is held hostage with a "bomb" around her neck by Paul Douglas Peters, 50, who is later arrested in the US.
2014 - A strong earthquake in southern China's Yunnan province kills at least 367 people and injures more than 1800.
2015 - A Syrian fighter jet crashes into a marketplace in the town of Ariha leaving at least 31 people dead and dozens injured.
2016 - Philippino Police shoot dead six people in President Duterte's war on drugs that has claimed the lives of 500 alleged addicts since his election on May 9.
2017 - Australia's Commonwealth Bank is accused of more than 53,000 breaches of laws put in place to combat money laundering and the financing of terrorism.
Today's Birthdays:
James Wyatt, English architect (1746-1813); Elisha Graves Otis, US inventor (1811-1861); Alfred Deakin, three times Prime Minister of Australia (1856-1919); Stanley Baldwin, British Prime Minister (1867-1947); King Haakon VII of Norway (1872-1957); Dolores del Rio, US-Mexican film star (1905-1983); Leon Uris, US author (1924-2003); Tony Bennett, US singer (1926-); Terry Wogan, Irish broadcaster (1938-2016); Martin Sheen, US actor (1940-); Martha Stewart, US lifestyle guru (1941-); John Landis, US film director (1950-); Jay North, US actor (1951-); Evangeline Lily, Canadian actress (1979-); Sonny Bill Williams, NZ rugby league footballer (1985-); Charlotte Casiraghi, daughter of Princess Caroline of Monaco (1986-); Karlie Kloss, American model (1992-).
Thought For Today:
Let me tell you the truth. The truth is what is, and what should be is a fantasy. A terrible, terrible lie that someone gave to the people long ago - Lenny Bruce (1925-1966)
