This Day in History — October 29 – Breaking & Current Jamaica News - JamaicaObserver.com

This Day in History — October 29

Friday, October 29, 2010

Today's Highlight

Gabrielle Union, who starred opposite Will Smith and Martin Lawrence in the blockbuster film Bad Boys II, turns 37 today. (Photo: AP)

1929: the new York stock market collapses, marking "Black Tuesday", and the great Depression follows.

1863: the International Committee of the Red Cross is founded in Geneva.

1881: Japan's first national political party is founded.

1918: the Croatian parliament severs all ties with Austria-Hungary.

1923: the Republic of Turkey is proclaimed.

1942: Germans massacre 16,000 Jews in Pinsk, Russia.

1957: Fulgencio Batista suspends Cuba's Constitution.

1966: the feminist National Organisation for Women is founded in the US.

1990: Libya expels 145 members of the Palestine Liberation Front, a radical faction of the PLO, and close four training bases used by the guerrilla group.

1991: Yugoslav warplanes bomb eastern Croatia as Serbia threatens to break off European Community peace talks.

1996: Thousands of paintings, sculptures, coins and other objects plundered by the Nazis from Jewish homes in Austria go on sale in a special auction to benefit needy Holocaust survivors.

1997: for the first time, NATO peacekeepers are arrested when seven Ukrainian soldiers serving in Bosnia are caught unloading more than US$620,000 in cigarettes, whiskey, wine, and cognac from two trucks in Mostar.

1998: John Glenn, the first American in space 36 years earlier, rides the space shuttle into orbit at age 77; South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission condemns apartheid and violence committed by the African National Congress.

1999: a man confesses to killing 140 Colombian children in a five-year spree, during which he lured his victims by posing as a beggar, a cripple and a monk.

2000: more than 30,000 people demonstrate in Dusseldorf, Germany, against neo-Nazis and draw praise from a Jewish leader who says the nation is increasingly standing up against rising hate crimes.

2005: French youths riot for a second straight night in a Paris suburb, torching cars and throwing rocks at police to protest the deaths of two youths who were electrocuted while trying to evade police.

2007: a long-brewing power struggle between Somalia's Prime Minister Ali Mohammed Gedi and President Abdullahi Yusuf ends with the premier's resignation, throwing the government into further disarray as it struggles with an Islamic insurgency.

Today’s Birthdays

Edmund Halley, English astronomer (1656-1742); Joseph Goebbels, Nazi minister of propaganda (1897-1945); Frank Sedgman, Australian tennis champion (1927-); Richard Dreyfuss, US actor (1947-); Kate Jackson, US actress (1948-); Winona Ryder, US actress (1971-); Gabrielle Union, US actress (1973-).

Share This Post:

Posts From Around The Web: