This Day in History – April 20
Today is the 111th day of 2012. There are 255 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight
2009: Dozens of Western diplomats walk out of a UN conference in Geneva when Iran’s hardline president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad calls Israel a cruel and racist state and the US denounces his remarks as hateful.
Other Events
1792: France declares war on Austria, marking the start of the French Revolutionary wars.
1859: The Dutch conclude a treaty granting Portugal the right to govern the northern part of Timor, Atauro Island and Oecussi.
1902: Scientists Marie and Pierre Curie isolate the radioactive element radium.
1919: King Nicholas is dethroned in Montenegro, which votes for union with Serbo-Slovene-Croat State — now Yugoslavia.
1923: Egyptian constitution is adopted.
1959: United Federal Party wins Northern Rhodesia elections.
1968: Pierre Elliott Trudeau is sworn in as Canada’s prime minister.
1972: US Apollo 16 astronauts make safe landing on Moon.
1980: The first Cubans sailing to the US as part of the massive Mariel boatlift reach Florida.
1986: Giant irrigation reservoir bursts and floods Sri Lanka town, leaving at least 100 people dead and up to 20,000 families homeless.
1987: PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat calls for sovereign Palestinian state “with Jerusalem as its capital”.
1990: Lech Walesa is re-elected as chairman of Poland’s Solidarity by a large margin.
1994: Israeli and PLO negotiators wrap up an agreement transferring civilian government powers to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and Jericho.
1995: Egyptian aircraft begin a UN-approved shuttle of Muslim pilgrims from Libya to Saudi Arabia.
1999: The worst in a rash of school shootings in the US kills 15 people, including the two student gunmen, at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado.
2004: A Panamanian court sentences five Cuban exiles, who had been accused of plotting to kill Fidel Castro, to between seven and eight years in prison. The men were arrested after Castro announced a plot to kill him during an Ibero-American summit to Panama in November 2000.
2005: Ecuador’s congress removes embattled President Lucio Gutierrez from office after a week of escalating street protests against him and swears in Vice-President Alfredo Palacio as the country’s new leader.
2007: South Africa’s veterinary association announces that 30 dogs in the country have been killed in the last two weeks because of pet food laced with melamine, an industrial chemical traced to China. US recalled pet foods with laced ingredients in March after the deaths of 16 pets.
2010: Europe’s busiest airports reopen as air traffic across the continent lurches back to life. But the gridlock created by Iceland’s volcanic ash plume is far from over: Officials say it will be weeks before all stranded travellers can be brought home.
