This Day in History - February 10

Friday, February 10, 2012

Today's Highlight

2011: Embattled Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak hands over power to his vice-president, promising reforms including repeal of hated emergency laws, but his concession angers crowds in Cairo's Tahrir Square who chant: "Get out."

Other Events

1763: France cedes Canada and India to England as Treaty of Paris is signed, ending French and Indian War.

1933: The first singing telegram is sung in the United States.

1939: Japanese forces occupy Hainan Island, China.

1943: Britain's Eighth Army reaches Tunisian border in World War II.

1961: United States relinquishes rights to many defence bases in West Indies.

1962: The Soviet Union exchanges captured American U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers for Rudolph Ivanovich Abel, a Soviet spy held by the United States.

1964: Royal Australian Navy destroyer Voyager sinks after collision with HMAS Melbourne off Jervis Bay; more than 80 die.

1969: United States, Britain and France reject East German restrictions on travel to West Berlin, and remind Soviets of their responsibility to ensure free access.

1974: Iraq claims that 70 Iranians were killed or wounded in border clash between Iraqi and Iranian troops.

1991: Peruvian health ministry announces that at least 51 people have died of cholera in epidemic along that country's coast.

1993: Six million people in Madagascar vote in elections that topple President Didier Ratsiraka after 17 years in office.

1996: A slab of mountainside crushes a highway tunnel, killing 20 people in vehicles on the Japanese island of Hokkaido.

2001: Two dozen young anti-government demonstrators are injured and 100 arrested in clashes with riot police breaking up a Tehran rally. Incidents in Tehran and other cities come as Iran marks the 22nd anniversary of the Islamic revolution.

2002: Israeli warplanes and helicopter gunships attack a Palestinian National Authority security compound and other targets in Gaza City, wounding more than 30 people.

2009: US and Russian communication satellites collide in the first-ever crash of its kind in orbit, shooting out a pair of massive debris clouds.

Today's Birthdays

William Congreve, English dramatist (1670-1729); Boris Pasternak, Soviet writer (1890-1960); Leontyne Price, US soprano (1927-); Robert Wagner, US actor (1930-); Roberta Flack, US singer (1937-); Greg Norman, Australian golfer (1955-).