1928: Hirohito crowned in Japan
Two years after the death of his father, Michinomiya
Hirohito is enthroned as the 124th
Japanese monarch in an imperial line dating back to 660 B.C. Emperor Hirohito presided over one of the most turbulent eras in his nation’s history. From rapid military expansion beginning in 1931 to the crushing defeat of
Japan by Allied forces in 1945, Hirohito ruled the Japanese people as an absolute monarch whose powers were nevertheless sharply limited in practice. After U.S. atomic bombs destroyed the Japanese cities of
Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it was Hirohito who argued for his country’s surrender, explaining to the Japanese people in his first-ever radio address that the unendurable must be endured. Under U.S. occupation and post-war reconstruction, Hirohito was formally stripped of his powers and forced to renounce his alleged divinity, but he remained his country’s official figurehead until his death in 1989. He was the longest-reigning monarch in Japanese history.
2001
In the wake of the 9th September terrorist attacks in America, President George W. Bush address the general assembly of the
United Nations asking support in his
war on terror. 1995
In
Nigeria, the writer and
human rights activist, Ken Saro-Wiwa, is executed by the country’s military rulers.
1991
British au pair Louise Woodward walks free from a court in America as her murder conviction is reduced to
manslaughter. The
judge, taking into account the length of time she had already spent in jail for killing youngster Matthew Eappen, releases Woodward.
1982
The leader of the
Soviet Union Leonid Brezhnev dies aged 75.
1975
In America, the freighter ship
SS Edmund Fitzgerald sinks 17 in Lake Superior, killing all 29 crew members.
1975
The United Nations General Assembly passes resolution 3379, equating
Zionism with racism. The resolution is later repealed in 1991.
1971
The
Khmer Rouge launch an attack on the airport in Phnom Penh,
Cambodia killing 25 people, highlighting the fragility of the American backed government of Lon Nol.
1970
The Soviet Lunar probe Lunokhod 1 is launched.
1969
Sesame Street, a pioneering TV show that teaches generations of young children the alphabet and how to count, makes its broadcast debut in America.
1960
D.H. Lawrence’s book Lady Chatterley’s Lover sells out on its first run in Britain after being banned from being published since 1928.1942
The Second World War:
German troops occupy
Vichy France, which had previously been free of an
Axis military presence.
1871
Journalist
Henry Morton Stanley, sent to Africa by his newspaper to find Scottish missionary Dr
David Livingstone, finally makes contact with him in Ujiji on Lake Tanganyika in Zanzibar and asks, “Dr. Livingstone, I presume?”
1775
The
Continental Congress establishes the Continental Marines, later renamed the U.S. Marine Corps.
