Today in History - May 21
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427BC May 21,
Plato (d.347BC), Greek philosopher, was born. His work included the
"Republic," and the dialogues "Critias" and "Timaeus" in which he
mentioned the island empire of Atlantis. He claimed that an Egyptian
priest confided information about Atlantis to Solon, the Athenian
legislator, whose memoirs Plato claimed to have read. In 1998 2 books
on Atlantis were published: "Atlantis Destroyed" by Rodney Castleden
and "Imagining Atlantis" by Richard Ellis.
(HN, 5/21/98)(WSJ, 6/26/98, p.W9)
685 May 21, Battle at
Nechtansmere: Picts trounced the Northumbrians.
(MC, 5/21/02)
987 May 21, Louis V, last
Carolingian King of France (966-987), died. The Carolingian period of
Frankish rule from the dynasty of Pepin the Short ended in France with
the death of Louis V (20). [see May 22]
(PCh, 1992, p.78)(AHD, 1971, p.205)(MC, 5/21/02)
996 May 21, Otto III (16) was
crowned the Roman Emperor by his cousin Pope Gregory V.
(HN, 5/21/98)(MC, 5/21/02)
1471 May 21, King Henry VI was
killed in the tower of London, and Edward IV took the throne.
(HN, 5/21/98)
1527 May 21, Philip II (d.1598),
king of Spain and Portugal (1556-98), was born. He invaded England and
roasted heretics. He collected a fifth of all the wealth generated from
the mines and trade in the Americas. He invested heavily into his
military and lost it all with the defeat of the Armada in 1588. His
debt at his death amounted to 85 million ducats, or 300 tons of gold.
(HN, 5/21/98)(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R8)(MC, 5/21/02)
1535 May 21, Imperial authorities
in Antwerp captured and imprisoned William Tyndale for heresy over his
translation of the Bible into English.
(WSJ, 12/22/94,
A-20)(www.hyperhistory.net/apwh/bios/b2tyndalew.htm)
1536 May 21, The Reformation was
officially adopted in Geneva, Switzerland.
(HN, 5/21/98)
1542 May 21, Spanish explorer
Hernando De Soto died while searching for gold along the Mississippi
River. His men buried his body in the Mississippi River in what is now
Louisiana in order that Indians would not learn of his death, and thus
disprove de Soto's claims of divinity.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.16)(AP, 5/21/97)(MC, 5/21/02)
1602 May 21, Martha’s Vineyard was
first sighted by Captain Bartholomew Gosnold.
(HN, 5/21/98)
1650 May 21, James, Marquis of
Montrose, Scottish general, was hanged.
(MC, 5/21/02)
1674 May 21, Gen. Jan Sobieski was
chosen King of Poland. [see May 20]
(MC, 5/21/02)
1688 May 21, Alexander Pope
(d.1744), England, poet (Rape of the Lock), was born. His "Essay on
Criticism" contains the line: "A little learning is a dangerous
thing..."
(NH, 9/97, p.24)(MC, 5/21/02)
1786 May 21, Carl W. Scheele (43),
Swedish pharmacist, chemist, died.
(MC, 5/21/02)
1790 May 21, Paris was divided
into 48 zones.
(HN, 5/21/98)
1792 May 21, Gustave-Gaspard
Coriolis (d.1843), French engineer and mathematician, was born. He
became first person to describe the Coriolis force.
(SFC, 5/21/09,
p.D10)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaspard-Gustave_Coriolis)
1810 May 21, Charles Chevalier
d'Eon de Beaumont (81), French spy, cross dresser, died.
(MC, 5/21/02)
1819 May 21, The 1st bicycles
(swift walkers) in US were introduced in NYC.
(MC, 5/21/02)
1832 May 21, The first Democratic
National Convention got under way in Baltimore and re-nominated Andrew
Jackson.
(Hem, 8/96, p.86)(AP, 5/21/97)
1840 May 21, The Treaty of
Waitangi was signed by Maori chiefs of New Zealand and representatives
of Queen Victoria. It granted sovereignty over all New Zealand to Queen
Victoria, but only guaranteed the Maoris the land they wished to
retain. The treaty remained a source of friction to the present day.
(NG, Aug, 1974, p.197)(AP, 5/21/97)(SSFC, 11/14/04,
p.F11)
1844 May 21, Henri Rousseau
(d.1910), French painter (Dream), was born in Laval.
(HN, 5/21/01)
1856 May 21, Grace Hoadley Dodge,
philanthropist, helped organize the YWCA, was born.
(HN, 5/21/01)
1856 May 21, Lawrence, Kansas, was
captured and sacked by pro-slavery forces.
(HN, 5/21/98)
1860 May 21, Willem Einthoven,
Dutch physiologist, inventor of the electrocardiogram, was born.
(HN, 5/21/01)(MC, 5/21/02)
1861 May 21, The Confederate
Congress, meeting in Montgomery, Ala., voted to move the capital of the
Confederacy from Montgomery to Richmond, Va.
(AP, 5/21/07)
1861 May 21, Elena Molokhovets
(1831-1918), Russian writer, published “A Gift to Young Housewives,”
which remained popular in Russia for half a century.
(Econ, 12/20/08, p.141)(http://tinyurl.com/6u8dj4)
1863 May 21, The siege on Port
Hudson, Louisiana, began.
(HN, 5/21/98)
1864 May 21, Gen. David Hunter
took command of Dept. of West Virginia.
(MC, 5/21/02)
1865 May 21, C.J. Thomsen,
archaeologist who named the Stone, Iron and Bronze Ages, was born in
Denmark.
(MC, 5/21/02)
1867 May 21, Frances Densmore,
ethnomusicologist, was born.
(HN, 5/21/01)
1871 May 21-July 28, French
government troops attacked the Commune of Paris; 17,000 died.
(MC, 5/21/02)
1878 May 21, Glenn Hammond
Curtiss, aviation pioneer and contemporary of the Wright brothers, was
born in Hammondsport, N.Y. He also originally made bicycles and
invented the hydroplane. Curtiss` entrance into flying began in 1904
when Thomas Scott Baldwin, famous lighter-than-air devotee, asked
Curtiss to make him a two-cylinder, air-cooled engine to power his
airship. The first plane Curtiss had anything to do with was Red Wing,
which Casey Baldwin lofted from the ice at Keuka Lake on March 12, 1908.
(HN, 5/21/98)(HNQ, 5/28/01)
1879 May 21, Battle of Iquiquw was
fought.
(HN, 5/21/98)
1881 May 21, Clara Barton founded
the American Red Cross.
(CFA, ‘96, p.46)(AP, 5/21/97)
1892 May 21, The opera "I
Pagliacci," by Ruggiero Leoncavallo, was first performed, in Milan,
Italy.
(AP, 5/21/97)
1898 May 21, Armand Hammer,
millionaire industrialist, was born.
(HN, 5/21/98)
1902 May 21, Marcel Breuer,
Hungarian-born architect, was born.
(HN, 5/21/01)
1904 May 21, Fats Waller (d.1943),
[Thomas Wright], jazz singer, composer (Ain't Misbehavin'), was born in
NYC.
(MC, 5/21/02)
1909 May 21, Sister Maria
Innocentia Hummel, artist, was born.
(HN, 5/21/01)
1917 May 21, Raymond Burr, actor,
was born in BC, Canada. He played Perry Mason on television.
(HN, 5/21/99)(MC, 5/21/02)
1921 May 21, Andrei Sakharov,
Russian physicist, was born. He is known as "the father of the Soviet
H-bomb" and was the first recipient of the 1975 Nobel Peace Prize.
(HN, 5/21/99)
1924 May 21, Bobby Franks (14) was
murdered in a "thrill killing" committed by Nathan Leopold Jr. (19) and
Richard Loeb (18), two rich college kids of the University of Chicago.
The meticulously planned crime might never have been solved had
Leopold's unique eyeglasses not been found near Franks' body. They were
defended by Clarence Darrow, who pleaded his clients guilty in order to
keep the case from a jury. Richard Loeb was a cousin of Bobby Franks.
The sensational two-month trial generated an outcry in favor of
execution, but Judge John Caverly sentenced the two to life
imprisonment. Loeb was killed in a prison fight in 1936. Leopold, with
the support of Prosecutor Crowe, was released from prison in 1958 and
died of a heart attack in 1971. In 1956 Meyer Levin authored
“Compulsion,” an account of the case. A play dramatizing the case was
written in 1995 by John Logan. In 2008 Simon Baatz authored “For the
Thrill of It: Leopold, Loeb, and the Murder That Shocked Chicago.”
(AP, 5/21/97)(WSJ, 12/1/95, p.A-12)(AP,
5/21/97)(WSJ, 11/10/07, p.W8)(WSJ, 8/8/08, p.W8)
1926 May 21, Robert Creeley, poet,
was born.
(HN, 5/21/01)
1927 May 21, Charles Lindbergh
(Lucky Lindy) landed in Le Bourget Field in Paris after a 33.5-hour
nonstop, first solo flight from Roosevelt Field on New York’s Long
Island. In 1953 Lindbergh authored his memoir “The Spirit of St. Louis.”
(F, 10/7/96, p.68)(AP, 5/21/97)(SFC, 10/20/99,
p.C10)(ON, 2/08, p.1)
1927 May 21, Dedication ceremonies
were held for the Carquinez Bridge over the Sacramento River between
Crocket and Vallejo, Ca. It had opened for traffic on May 21. The
cantilever bridge was built by American Toll Bridge Co. A 2nd was added
in 1958. The bridge was scheduled for demolition in 2004.
(www.cocohistory.com/photos-bridges.html#GTPhoto3)(SFC, 6/24/02,
p.B3)(SSFC, 11/9/03, p.A25)
1932 May 21, Amelia Earhart
made her first transatlantic solo flight from Newfoundland to Ireland.
(HN, 5/21/98)(AP, 5/20/97)
1935 May 21, Jane Addams (b.1860),
a founder of ACLU (Nobel 1973), died. She was known for her work as a
social reformer, pacifist, and founder of Hull House in Chicago in
1889. She was the first American woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize
(1931). In 2001 Jean Bethke Elshtain authored "Jane Addams and the
Dream of American Democracy" and edited "The Jane Addams Reader."
(AHD, 1971, p.15)(HN, 9/6/98)(WSJ, 1/2/02,
p.A16)(MC, 5/21/02)
1940 May 21, Nazis surrounded the
British Army at Dunkirk.
(HN, 5/21/98)
1940 May 21, British tank forces
attacked General Erwin Rommel’s 7th Panzer Division at Arras, slowing
his blitzkrieg of France.
(HN, 5/21/99)
1941 May 21, The first U.S. ship,
the SS Robin Moor, was sunk by a U-boat.
(HN, 5/21/98)
1944 May 21, Mary Bourke Robinson,
first woman president of Ireland (1990-1997), was born.
(HN, 5/21/01)
1945 May 21, Actors Lauren Bacall
and Humphrey Bogart were married.
(SFEC, 5/18/97, Par p.6)(MC, 5/21/02)
1945 May 21, German Reichsfuhrer,
SS Heinrich Himmler, was captured.
(MC, 5/21/02)
1950 May 21, French sources
reported that Viet Minh guerrillas had infiltrated Cambodia and opened
an arms-smuggling corridor to Thailand.
(www.geocities.com/khmerchronology/1950.htm)
1951 May 21, The U.S. Eighth Army
counterattacked to drive the Communist Chinese and North Koreans out of
South Korea.
(HN, 5/21/99)
1951 May 21, Leaders of China and
Tibet signed an agreement promising a high degree of autonomy for Tibet
under Chinese rule. Tibetans later said the agreement was signed under
duress.
(WSJ, 8/30/08, p.A8)
1955 May 21, The first
transcontinental round-trip solo flight was completed.
(HN, 5/21/98)
1956 May 21, The first known
airborne US hydrogen bomb was tested over Bikini Atoll in the Pacific.
(WUD, 1994, p.1685) (EWH, 1968, p.1210)(AP, 5/21/97)
1959 May 21, The musical "Gypsy,"
inspired by the life of stripper Gypsy Rose Lee, opened on Broadway.
(AP, 5/21/97)
1961 May 21, Governor Patterson
declared martial law in Montgomery, Alabama.
(HN, 5/21/98)
1964 May 21, The 1st
nuclear-powered lighthouse began operations in the Chesapeake Bay.
(MC, 5/21/02)
1966 May 21, The new $114 million
Stanford Linear Accelerator Center at Stanford Univ., Ca., began
smashing atoms.
(SFC, 9/30/02, p.A5)(SFC, 9/26/07, p.B7)
1970 May 21, The National Guard
was mobilized to quell disturbances at Ohio State University. [see May
4]
(HN, 5/21/98)
1975 May 21, The trial against the
Baader-Meinhof gang began in Stuttgart.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Army_Faction)
1978 May 21, The Unification
Church of Sun Myung Moon wed 118 couples in England.
(www.tparents.org/Library/Unification/Topics/U-Stuff/BLSS-HST.htm)
1979 May 21, Former San Francisco
City Supervisor Dan White was convicted of voluntary manslaughter in
the 1978 murders of Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk.
The verdict set off the "White Night Riots," involving thousands of
protesters outside City Hall. $400,000 worth of property damage
resulted including 14 police cars.
(SFC, 7/11/96, p.C2)(AP, 5/21/97)(SFC, 11/26/98,
p.A19)
1980 May 21, The $22 million Star
Wars sequel "Empire Strikes Back" premiered.
(SFC, 5/20/05, p.F2)
1980 May 21, Ensign Jean Marie
Butler became the first woman to graduate from a U.S. service academy
as she accepted her degree and commission from the Coast Guard Academy
in New London, Conn.
(AP, 5/21/00)
1981 May 21, Francois Mitterrand
began serving as president of France. He was the first socialist
president of the Fifth Republic and the first left-wing head of
government since 1957.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fran%C3%A7ois_Mitterrand)
1982 May 21, During the Falklands
War, British amphibious forces landed on the beach at San Carlos Bay.
(AP, 5/21/07)
1983 May 21, Eric Hoffer (b.1902),
longshoreman-philosopher, died in SF. His writings included "The True
Believer" (1951), a critical view of mass movements, "The Passionate
State of Mind," "The Ordeal of Change," and "The Temper of the Time."
(SFC, 1/22/00,
p.A15)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Hoffer)
1985 May 21, Patti Frustaci of
Riverside, Calif., who was expecting septuplets, gave birth to six live
babies, three of whom died in the following weeks.
(AP, 5/21/05)(http://tinyurl.com/ypm8k4)
1987 May 21, In the wake of the
Iraqi attack on the U.S. frigate Stark that claimed 37 lives, the
Senate approved a proposal requiring President Reagan to send Congress
a report detailing the threat to U.S. ships in the Persian Gulf.
(AP, 5/21/98)
1987 May 21, The TV series “The
Days and Nights of Molly Dodd” starred Blair Brown as a divorced woman
living in NYC. The show continued to 1991.
(LSA, Spring, 2009,
p.44)(www.imdb.com/title/tt0092336/releaseinfo)
1988 May 21, Risen Star won the
Preakness Stakes.
(AP, 5/21/98)
1988 May 21, The Soviet news
agency Tass reported that the Communist Party leaders of Armenia and
Azerbaijan had been dismissed after fresh outbreaks of ethnic tensions
in the two southern Soviet republics.
(AP, 5/21/98)
1989 May 21, Thousands of native
Chinese marched in Hong Kong, Paris, Tokyo and scores of other cities
in a worldwide show of support for the pro-democracy demonstrators in
Beijing.
(AP, 5/21/99)
1990 May 21, Israeli soldiers shot
and killed three Palestinians in violence sparked by the slayings of
seven Palestinians by an Israeli civilian a day earlier.
(AP, 5/21/00)
1991 May 21, Ethiopia’s Marxist
president (Mengistu Haile Mariam) resigned and fled into exile as
rebels continued to advance. Mengistu left behind thousands of pages of
memoranda. (AP, 5/21/01)(Econ, 9/29/07, p.50)
1991 May 21, A Tamil suicide
bomber assassinated PM Rajiv Gandhi (46) at a campaign rally near
Madras. Tamil leader Velupillai Prabhakaran ordered the assassination.
Gandhi and 16 others were killed when the female Tamil bomber, Dhanu,
presented him flowers hiding explosives packed with 10,000 metal
pellets. 41 Indian and Sri Lankan suspects were charged with murder and
conspiracy. 12 suspects later committed suicide when they were trapped
by police. In 1999 4 of the 25 convicted had their death sentences
confirmed. 3 death sentences were commuted to life in prison and 19
sentences were set aside. In 1999 3 Tamil men and a woman, convicted in
1991, were scheduled for execution.
(HFA, '96, p.30)(SFE, 9/16/96, p.A9)(SFC, 1/9/96,
p.A10)(SFEC, 8/3/97, p.A15) (SFC, 1/29/98, p.A10)(WSJ, 5/12/99,
p.A1)(SFC, 10/16/99, p.A16)(SFC, 5/30/00, p.A25)
1992 May 21, The US Coast Guard
announced that high-seas interdiction of Haitian refugees was being
drastically scaled back because refugee camps at the U.S. naval base at
Guantanamo, Cuba, were filled.
(AP, 5/21/97)
1993 May 21, President Clinton met
at the White House with Russian Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev;
afterward, Clinton expressed pessimism over resolving the ethnic
conflict in the Balkans and pledged not to send American soldiers into
a "shooting gallery."
(AP, 5/21/98)
1994 May 21, Israeli commandos
swept into Lebanon’s eastern mountains and abducted Mustafa Dirani, a
Shiite Muslim guerrilla leader of the Believer's Resistance. In 2000
Dirani sued Israel with charges of torture and sodomy. Dirani was
released in Jan 2004, as part of a complex prisoner exchange between
Hezbollah and Israel.
(SFEC, 11/17/96, p.A14)(SFC, 3/14/00, p.A10)(AP,
5/21/04)
1994 May 21, South Yemen seceded
from Yemen.
(www.al-bab.com/yemen/chron/yem94b.htm)
1994 May 21, John Henry Weidner
(b.1912), Dutch-US resistance fighter, died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johan_Hendrik_Weidner)
1995 May 21, Les Aspin (56),
former US Secretary of Defense, died at a Washington D.C. hospital
after suffering a massive stroke.
(AP, 5/21/00)
1996 May 21, The US Congress
listed the California red-legged frog as an endangered species. The
year long moratorium blocking new listings by the Fish and Wildlife
Service ended last month.
(WSJ, 5/22/96, p.A-10)
1996 May 21, The Alabama Dept. of
Corrections decided to stop chaining prisoners together after one year
due to security problems.
(SFC, 6/21/96, p.A1,9)
1996 May 21, Al "Lash" LaRue, a
bullwhipping star of low-budget 1940s Westerns, died at 78. He had
performed in touring shows and attempted suicide in 1958. He was
arrested for possession of marijuana in the 1970s as a traveling
evangelist.
(SFC, 5/31/96, p.E2)
1996 May 21, Mary Perot Nichols
(79), journalist, died.
(www.upenn.edu/almanac/v42/n33/deaths.html)
1996 May 21, Bangladesh Pres.
Abdur Rahman Biswas accused the army chief. Lt. General Abu Saleh
Mohammad Nasim of ordering troops to march against the government.
There has been 2 presidents assassinated, 3 military coups, and 18 coup
attempts since independence in 1971.
(SFC, 5/21/96, p.A-10)
1996 May 21, A bombing in New
Delhi, India, killed 25 people. Kashmiri separatists claimed
responsibility.
(WSJ, 5/22/96, p.A-1)
1996 May 21, A Tanzanian
ferry sank on Lake Victoria and at least 615 people, many of whom were
students, were killed. Pres. Mkapa called the sinking a national
disaster. The ferry, MV Bukoba with capacity for 441, was traveling
from Bukoba to Mwanza. 563 of the 663 aboard were presumed dead.
(WSJ, 5/22/96, p.A-1)(SFC, 5/22/96, p.A8)(WSJ,
5/23/96, p.A-1)(AP, 5/21/97)
1996 May 21, The government of
Zambia adopted new constitutional amendments to prevent Kenneth Kaunda
from running for president. The amendments require that candidates be
at least second-generation Zambians. Kaunda is the son of immigrants
from Malawi.
(SFC, 5/22/96, p.A9)
1997 May 21, Prosecutors at the
Oklahoma City bombing trial of Timothy McVeigh rested their case.
(AP, 5/21/98)
1997 May 21, The space shuttle
Atlantis undocked from the Russian Mir space station.
(AP, 5/21/98)
1997 May 21, The UN approved an
agreement for equitable use of waters that flow through more than one
country.
(SFC, 5/22/97, p.C2)
1997 May 21, In Afghanistan
faction leader Gen. Abdurrashid Dostum, an ethnic-Uzbek, was up against
mutineers in 6 of his 8 northern provinces.
(SFC, 5/22/97, p.C2)(SFC, 10/10/01, p.A3)
1997 May 21, In Bulgaria Ivan
Kostov was elected the new premiere by the parliament. He planned
reforms for the economy, cleanup of corruption, and gaining admission
to the EU and NATO.
(SFC, 5/22/97, p.C3)
1997 May 21, In India an
earthquake killed at least 27. Its epicenter was near Jabalpur City,
about 400 miles southeast of New Delhi.
(SFC, 5/22/97, p.C4)
1997 May 21, In Mexico a half-ton
of cocaine was stolen from a police station in Sonora. Seven government
employees were later charged with the theft.
(SDUT, 6/6/97, p.A1)
1998 May 21, In Anaheim, Ca.,
Disney opened its world of tomorrow.
(SFC, 5/22/98, p.A19)
1998 May 21, Frank and Shirley
Capaci of Streamwood, Ill., announced they were holding a winning
Powerball ticket worth $195 million.
(AP, 5/21/99)
1998 May 21, In Springfield, Ore.,
Kipland Kinkel (15) killed 1 classmate and wounded 19 more at Thurston
High School. His parents, William (59) and Faith (57), were found shot
dead at home and a 2nd student died the next day. He had been expelled
from school the previous day for bringing a gun to school. Kinkel
dropped an insanity plea in 1999 and pleaded guilty to 4 counts of
murder and 26 counts of attempted murder. He was sentenced to over 111
years in prison.
(SFC, 5/22/98, p.A1)(SFC, 5/23/98, p.A1)(SFC,
9/25/99, p.A3)(SFC, 11/11/99, p.A3)
1998 May 21, Canada ordered major
cuts in the catch of Coho salmon on the West Coast due to declining
stocks. Fishing on the Skeena and Thompson River runs was banned and US
officials were urged to take similar action.
(WSJ, 5/22/98, p.A1)
1998 May 21, India announced a
moratorium on nuclear tests and restated a willingness to negotiate an
agreement on a formal test ban.
(SFC, 5/22/98, p.D3)
1998 May 21, In the wake of deadly
anti-government protests, Indonesia’s Pres. Suharto resigned after 32
years in power and appointed his vice-president, B.J. Habibie (b.
6/25/36), as the new leader. In 2005 Richard Lloyd Parry authored “In
the Time of Madness,” an account of Indonesia’s transformation
following the resignation of Suharto.
(SFC, 5/21/98, p.A14)(AP, 5/21/99)(Econ, 4/2/05,
p.77)
1998 May 21, In Cuernavaca,
Mexico, police arrested the wife, son, daughter and daughter-in-law of
kidnapper Daniel Arizmendi Lopez. He was wanted for carrying out at
least 18 bold and brutal kidnappings since 1996.
(SFEC, 5/31/98, p.A24)
1998 May 21, In Portugal the
4-month Expo ‘98 was inaugurated in Lisbon. The theme of the fair
expanded on the UN theme Int’l. Year of the Oceans. 15 million people
were expected to visit with exhibits from almost 150 countries.
(SFEC, 2/1/98, p.T6)(SFC, 5/22/98, p.D3)
1998 May 21, In Russia armed
gunmen occupied a building in Makhachkala, Dagestan, in support of
Nadirshakh Khachilayev, who led demands for a new government.
(SFC, 5/22/98, p.D3)
1998 May 21, In northwest Turkey
rains caused floods and left at least 10 people dead.
(SFC, 5/22/98, p.D4)
1999 May 21, Susan Lucci won a
Daytime Emmy Award for best actress on her 19th try.
(AP, 5/21/00)
1999 May 21, Presidential friend
and fund-raiser Yah Lin "Charlie" Trie pleaded guilty to campaign
finance violations and agreed to cooperate in an investigation of
illegal Asian donations to the Democrats.
(AP, 5/21/00)
1999 May 21, The US urged a
buildup of ground forces to secure the return of Kosovo refugees.
(SFC, 5/22/99, p.A1)
1999 May 21, NATO forces bombed
the Dubrava prison near Istok and 19 inmates and guards were killed.
NATO said the facility was used as military barracks. NATO also
mistakenly bombed a KLA base in Kosare that had been seized 6 weeks
earlier and 7 KLA fighters were killed and 25 wounded.
(SFC, 5/22/99, p.A1)(SFEC, 5/23/99, p.A8)
1999 May 21, In Colombia Piedad
Cordoba, an opposition senator, was kidnapped in Bogota by suspected
ELN rebels. They said she would be freed with a message about the peace
process. Carlos Castano, head of the United Self-Defense Forces later
admitted that he ordered the abduction.
(SFC, 5/22/99, p.A16)(SFC, 5/24/99, p.A13)
1999 May 21, In Indonesia students
in Jakarta clashed with police during protests that former Pres.
Suharto be prosecuted on the one year anniversary of Suharto's
resignation.
(SFC, 5/22/99, p.A12)
1999 May 21, A luxury cruise
liner, the Sun Vista, sank off Malaysia's western coast; nearly 1,100
passengers and crew escaped safely.
(AP, 5/21/00)
1999 May 21, In Mexico the
northern states of Coahuila, Chihuahua, Sonora, Durango and Sinaloa
were declared disaster areas due to the ongoing drought.
(SFC, 5/22/99, p.A16)
1999 May 21, In Russia Pres.
Yeltsin reappointed several key members of the previous government to a
new Cabinet. He named Vladimir Rushailo as the interior minister and
Nikolai Aksyonenko as a first deputy prime minister. The media
described Rushailo and Aksyonenko as tools of Boris Berezovsky. Yeltsin
also signed permission to keep the Mir space station aloft pending
private financing.
(SFC, 5/22/99, p.A16)(SFC, 5/25/99, p.A8)
1999 May 21, In South Africa a
principal and teacher opened fire on students who were throwing stones
angered by field trip fees. Sithembiso Gcwenya (19) was killed and 2
students were wounded near Scottburgh on the Indian Ocean.
(SFC, 5/22/99, p.A12)
2000 May 21, "Dancer in the Dark"
won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival; the Grand Prize went to
"Devils on the Doorstep."
(AP, 5/21/01)
2000 May 21, In Pennsylvania a
commuter plane, returning from Atlantic City, NJ, crashed in the Pocono
Mountains near Wilkes-Barre and all 19 people aboard were killed.
(SFC, 5/22/00, p.A1)(AP, 5/21/01)
2000 May 21, Mark Hughes (44), the
late founder of Herbalife International, a maker of nutritional
supplements, died. His son Alex (8) was the sole beneficiary of a $400
million trust.
(AP, 9/13/05)
2000 May 21, Sir John Gielgud
English actor, died in Aylesbury at age 96. In 2004 Richard Mangan
introduced and edited “Sir John Gielgud: A Life in Letters.”
(SFC, 5/23/00, p.A1)(AP, 5/21/01)(WSJ, 6/18/04,
p.W10)
2000 May 21, In Britain Dame
Barbara Cartland, author of 723 romance novels, died at age 98.
(SFC, 5/22/00, p.A14)
2000 May 21, In Fiji 10 junior MPs
were released after they signed resignation letters. Prime Minister
Chaudhry also agreed to sign a letter of resignation.
(SFEC, 5/21/00, p.B11)
2000 May 21, In Haiti elections
began for 7,625 positions. The Family Lavalas party of former Pres.
Aristide won 14 of 19 senate seats. The international community put
millions in foreign aid on hold until results are revised.
(SFC, 5/22/00, p.A11)(SFC, 5/27/00, p.A13)(SFC,
5/31/00, p.A13)(AP, 2/11/04)
2000 May 21, In the Philippines
soldiers rescued 2 children held by hostages on Basilan. 7 hostages
still remained with Muslim rebels.
(SFC, 5/22/00, p.A11)
2000 May 21, In Sierra Leone
rebels freed 54 more UN workers as government forces advanced on rebel
positions.
(SFC, 5/22/00, p.A10)
2001 May 21, The Supreme Court
ruled, six-to-three, that a radio host cannot be sued for airing a
phone conversation taped illegally by a third party.
(AP, 5/21/02)
2001 May 21, The Mitchell Report
on Mideast violence called on Palestinians to jail terrorists and
Israel to freeze settlement activity.
(AP, 5/21/02)
2001 May 21, Ford Motor and
Bridgestone/Firestone announced the termination of their century old
business relationship.
(WSJ, 5/23/01, p.A1)
2001 May 21, Joerg C. Tiller of
MIT said a new polymer, called hexyl-PVP, could be used as a surface
coating and was able to kill common disease-causing organisms.
(SFC, 5/22/01, p.A6)
2001 May 21, In Chile Pres.
Ricardo Lagos made a state-of-the-nation address and raised the
government’s job creation pledge to 150,000 to help offset rising
unemployment.
(WSJ, 5/25/01, p.A8)
2001 May 21, In Iquique, Chile, 26
prisoners, mostly first time offenders, died after rioting inmates set
fires in their cells. Authorities later said the fire was started by
accident.
(WSJ, 5/22/01, p.A1)(WSJ, 5/23/01, p.A1)
2001 May 21, In Cairo Saad Eddin
Ibrahim, an Egyptian American human rights campaigner, was sentenced to
7 years in prison of charges of tarnishing Egypt’s image, accepting
foreign money and embezzling funds. His conviction was overturned Dec
3, 2002.
(SFC, 5/22/01, p.A10)(SFC, 12/4/02, p.A19)
2001 May 21, Amid escalating
Middle East violence, an international commission submitted a report
calling for end to violence, but it was never implemented.
(AP, 9/6/03)
2001 May 21, Cardinals from around
the world gathered at the Vatican for a three-day meeting to ponder the
challenges facing the Roman Catholic Church and who might lead it after
Pope John Paul II.
(AP, 5/21/02)
2002 May 21, President Bush warned
that al-Qaida terrorists still "want to hurt us," while his Pentagon
chief, Donald Rumsfeld, said terrorists inevitably will acquire weapons
of mass destruction from countries like Iraq, Iran or North Korea.
(AP, 5/21/03)
2002 May 21, The Bush
administration announced that it would resume economic aid to
Yugoslavia because it had met requirements to cooperate with the war
crimes tribunal in The Hague.
(SFC, 5/22/02, p.A15)
2002 May 21, The US State Dept
issued its annual report on terrorism: "Patterns of Global Terrorism
2001." Iran was branded as the most active supporter of terrorism due
to increased support for Palestinian militants.
(SFC, 5/22/02, p.A12)
2002 May 21, Merrill Lynch agreed
to pay $100 million to settle allegations that it misled investors
during the 1990s.
(SFC, 5/22/02, p.A1)
2002 May 21, Citigroup agreed to
buy Cal Fed Bank for $5.8 billion in cash and stock.
(SFC, 5/22/02, p.A1)
2002 May 21, In Medellin,
Colombia, fighting between security forces and guerrillas left at least
9 people dead including 2 children.
(SFC, 5/22/02, p.A15)
2002 May 21, In Germany there were
anti-war protests on the eve of Pres. Bush's arrival.
(WSJ, 5/22/02, p.A1)
2002 May 21, It was reported that
scientists in Guatemala had found the source of jade deposits used by
the Olmecs and Mayans.
(SFC, 5/22/02, p.A2)
2002 May 21, Fighting between
Indian and Pakistan soldiers in Kashmir killed 9 civilians and wounded
7 others. Gunmen in Srinagar assassinated Abdul Ghani Lone (70), a
moderate Kashmiri separatist leader.
(SFC, 5/21/02, p.A9)(SFC, 5/22/02, p.A13)(WSJ,
5/22/02, p.A1)
2003 May 21, Ruben Studdard edged
Clay Aiken to win the second "American Idol" competition on Fox TV.
(AP, 5/21/04)
2003 May 21, Christie Whitman
(56), former New Jersey governor, announced her resignation as chief of
the Environmental Protective Agency.
(SFC, 5/22/03, p.A1)
2003 May 21, In Algeria a 6.7
earthquake struck near Algiers. More than 2,200 people were killed and
thousands injured. Thenia, 40 miles east of Algiers, was worst hit.
(SFC, 5/22/03, p.A1)(AP, 5/25/03)(SFC, 5/27/03,
p.A12)
2003 May 21, American troops
guarding the US Embassy in Kabul shot and killed four Afghan soldiers,
apparently mistaking them for assailants.
(AP, 5/21/03)
2003 May 21, In Barbados PM Owen
Arthur's governing Labor Party won elections in a landslide victory
that secured the party 23 seats in the legislature. The opposition
Democratic Labor Party won seven seats in the 30-seat Parliament.
(AP, 5/22/03)
2003 May 21, In northeastern Congo
the death toll from more than a week of tribal fighting rose to 280
people.
(AP, 5/22/03)
2003 May 21, In Iraq US forces
captured Aziz Saleh Numan, former Baath regional command chairman for
west Baghdad. He was No. 8 on the most wanted list.
(SFC, 5/23/03, p.A20)
2003 May 21, Israeli troops shot
to death 2 Palestinians including a mother of 8 during a clash at the
West Bank village of Qarawat Bani Zeid.
(SFC, 5/22/03, p.A3)
2003 May 21, In Myanmar bombs
exploded on the border with Thailand, killing four people.
(AP, 5/21/03)
2003 May 21, The Mexican Justice
Department said that 258 women had been killed since 1993 in Ciudad
Juarez.
(AP, 5/22/03)
2003 May 21, NATO's 19 nations
agreed unanimously to start planning to help Poland lead a
multinational peacekeeping force in Iraq.
(AP, 5/21/03)
2003 May 21, Taiwan reported 35
new cases of SARS for a total of 418 with 52 deaths.
(SFC, 5/22/03, p.A3)
2004 May 21, Nearly 100,000
unionized SBC Communications Inc. workers began a four-day strike to
protest the local-phone giant's latest contract offer.
(AP, 5/21/04)
2004 May 21, In northeastern
Bangladesh a bomb exploded during noon prayers at a Muslim shrine,
killing two Bangladeshi men and wounding about 100 people.
(AP, 5/22/04)
2004 May 21, The UN Security
Council approved a peacekeeping force of 5,600 troops for Burundi to
help the African nation finally end a 10-year civil war.
(AP, 5/21/05)
2004 May 21, The European Union
confirmed its backing for Russia to join the World Trade Organization,
and Russian President Vladimir Putin said Moscow in turn would speed up
ratification of the troubled Kyoto accord on global warming.
(AP, 5/21/04)
2004 May 21, In Iraq American
AC-130 gunships and tanks bombarded militia positions near two shrines
in the holy city of Karbala, killing 18 fighters loyal to a rebel
cleric.
(AP, 5/21/04)
2004 May 21, Israeli troops pulled
back from two neighborhoods in the Rafah refugee camp.
(AP, 5/21/04)
2004 May 21, Japanese automaker
Mitsubishi Motors Corp., struggling to survive, announced it would cut
11,000 jobs.
(AP, 5/21/05)
2004 May 21, African finance
ministers began a two-day meeting in Uganda to discuss how their
governments can do more to reduce trade imbalances with rich nations.
(AP, 5/21/04)
2005 May 21, Afleet Alex regained
his footing and his drive after being cut off by Scrappy T in a
frightening collision and breezed home to win the Preakness Stakes;
Kentucky Derby winner Giacomo finished third.
(AP, 5/21/06)
2005 May 21, In Oakland, Ca.,
groundbreaking took place for the new Cathedral of Christ the Light at
the northwest tip of Lake Merritt. It was built on the site of an 1893
neo-Gothic brick church damaged by the 1989 earthquake. The $131
million Catholic project was designed by Craig Hartman. Completion was
expected in 2008. Dedication ceremonies for the $190 million cathedral
were later set for Sep 25, 2008.
(SSFC, 5/22/05, p.A1)(SFC, 9/13/08, p.A7)(WSJ,
2/18/09, p.D7)
2005 May 21, In east Cleveland,
Ohio, a fire broke out during a sleepover at a crowded house, killing
seven kids and two adults.
(AP, 5/22/05)
2005 May 21, In NYC a Cessna 172S
crashed at Coney Island killing all 4 people aboard.
(SSFC, 5/22/05, p.A4)
2005 May 21, Howard Morris (85),
best known for playing poetry-spouting hillbilly Ernest T. Bass on the
"Andy Griffith Show," died at his home in the Hollywood section of Los
Angeles.
(AP, 5/23/05)
2005 May 21, In eastern
Afghanistan fighting between insurgents and US-led coalition and Afghan
forces left 12 rebels dead and one U.S. soldier slightly wounded. In
southern Afghanistan a bomb exploded near a U.S. military patrol,
killing one American soldier and wounding two others.
(AP, 5/21/05)(AP, 5/22/05)
2005 May 21, Azerbaijani
protesters demanding free elections were beaten back by police, who
arrested dozens as they broke up a banned rally.
(AP, 5/21/05)
2005 May 21, The Belgian film “The
Child,” by Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, won the Palme d’Or at the
Cannes Film Festival.
(SSFC, 5/22/05, p.A2)
2005 May 21, China ordered
emergency measures to prevent an outbreak of avian flu after
investigators said migratory birds found dead in a western province
this month were killed by the virus.
(AP, 5/21/05)
2005 May 21-2005 May 22, Some 160
delegates from Cuba’s opposition movement held an assembly in Havana
without government interference.
(Econ, 5/28/05, p.40)
2005 May 21, Germany's prestigious
Academy of Arts was reopened at its pre-World War II site next to
Berlin's Brandenburg Gate.
(AP, 5/21/05)
2005 May 21, Sunni groups joined
forces to form a political and religious organization to represent the
minority as it seeks to gain influence in Iraq's new Shiite-dominated
government.
(AP, 5/21/05)
2005 May 21, In South Korea Chung
Se-yung (76) died in Seoul. He helped build Hyundai Motor Co. into one
of the world’s biggest car companies.
(SFC, 5/23/05, p.B4)
2005 May 21, In Libya reporter
Daif al-Ghazal (32) was taken from the northern city of Benghazi by
armed men and taken to an unknown location. His body was found a week
later.
(AP, 6/5/05)
2005 May 21, In Lahore, Pakistan,
some 300 male and female runners participated in .06-mile footrace in a
symbolic victory for co-ed running.
(SFC, 6/1/05, p.A8)
2005 May 21, The Palestinian
interior ministry said the Hamas militant group has agreed to halt
mortar and rocket fire on Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip, a deal
meant to save a truce threatened by three consecutive days of violence.
(AP, 5/21/05)
2005 May 21, In central Peru a
passenger bus plunged off a bridge into a river on, killing at least 35
people and injuring 30 others.
(AP, 5/21/05)
2005 May 21, In South Africa
several hundred people, most of them white, demonstrated to protest a
proposal to change the capital's name from Pretoria, the name given to
it by white settlers, to Tshwane, as the site was once known to its
original African inhabitants.
(AP, 5/22/05)
2005 The Eurovision song contest
was held in Kiev, Ukraine.
(Econ, 5/14/05, p.57)
2005 May 21, In eastern Venezuela
armed gunmen stole a 2nd government-owned helicopter before dawn after
taking 3 security guards hostage at an airport in Ciudad Bolivar.
(AP, 5/21/05)
2006 May 21, US Attorney General
Alberto Gonzales said the government has the legal authority to
prosecute journalists for publishing classified information.
(SFC, 5/22/06, p.A2)
2006 May 21, In Louisiana a
shooting spree at The Ministry of Jesus Christ church in Baton Rouge
left 4 people dead. Anthony Bell (25) then kidnapped his wife and
killed her. He was charged with murder in the deaths of his wife and
her grandparents, great aunt and a cousin.
(AP, 5/22/06)(SFC, 5/22/06, p.A3)
2006 May 21, In Oregon demolition
crews destroyed the 499-foot cooling tower of the Trojan Nuclear Power
Plant. Demolition of the containment dome was scheduled in 2008.
(SFC, 5/22/06, p.A2)
2006 May 21, In SF some 62,000
runners participated in the annual Bay to Breakers race. Gilbert Okari
(27) of Kenya won in 34 minutes and 20 seconds. Among the women
Ukrainian Tetyana Hladyr won in 39:09. Mayor Newsom finished the 7.46
miles in 59:04.
(SFC, 5/22/06, p.A1)
2006 May 21, Katherine Dunham
(96), a pioneering dancer, author and civil rights activist, died in
New York.
(AP, 5/21/07)
2006 May 21, Grand Ole Opry legend
Billy Walker (77) died in a traffic accident along an Alabama
interstate highway.
(AP, 5/21/07)
2006 May 21, In Afghanistan a car
bomb exploded on a busy road in Kabul, killing the driver of the car
and two civilians.
(AP, 5/21/06)
2006 May 21, Greek Cypriots voted
to elect a new parliament on this divided island, their first vote
since rejecting a UN reunification plan. Voters put their weight behind
parties in President Tassos Papadopoulos' governing coalition, a result
likely to be seen as an endorsement of his rejection of a UN plan to
reunify this war-divided island.
(AP, 5/21/06)
2006 May 21, In Egypt global
business and political leaders focused on dialogue, democracy and
development in the Middle East. 3 major players, Iran, Hamas and Syria,
were absent.
(AP, 5/21/06)
2006 May 21, Iraq's new PM Nouri
al-Maliki promised to use "maximum force" if necessary to end the
brutal insurgent and sectarian violence racking his country. A suicide
bomber killed at least 13 people and injured 17 when he blew himself up
in a downtown Baghdad restaurant frequented by police. The attack came
as PM Nouri al-Maliki pledged to soon fill vacancies in his two key
security ministries. Bombs and killings across Iraq left a total of 30
people dead.
(AP, 5/21/06)(SFC, 5/22/06, p.A6)(AP, 5/21/07)
2006 May 21, The Israeli Cabinet
approved the transfer of $11 million worth of medicine and health
supplies to the Palestinians to help ease the deteriorating
humanitarian conditions in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Officials said
that Israel has approved plans to expand four Jewish settlements in the
West Bank, a practice the United States has opposed in the past.
(AP, 5/21/06)
2006 May 21, Local authorities
said boats carrying more than 400 migrants have been intercepted off
Lampedusa over the past 48 hours, overwhelming the tiny island south of
Sicily.
(AP, 5/21/06)
2006 May 21, Islamic militants
dressed as policemen hurled grenades and shot into a rally by the
ruling Congress party in India's portion of Kashmir, killing at least 7
people and wounding 22 others. Two attackers were killed.
(AFP, 5/21/06)
2006 May 21, Kuwait's ruler
dissolved parliament and called early elections amid a dispute between
the government and lawmakers over electoral reform.
(AP, 5/21/06)
2006 May 21, A Kuwait criminal
court acquitted five former Guantanamo detainees of charges that they
collected money for Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network. Abdullah Salih
al-Ajmi (29), released from Guantanamo in 2005, took part in a suicide
bomb attack in Mosul in April, 2008.
(AP, 5/21/06)(SFC, 5/8/08, p.A8)
2006 May 21, In Liberia tens of
thousands of children marched against hunger, adding their voices to a
global event to tackle food shortages that many in the war-battered
west African nation have felt firsthand.
(AP, 5/21/06)
2006 May 21, Montenegro voted by a
slim margin to secede from Serbia and form a separate nation, erasing
the last vestiges of the former Yugoslavia.
(Econ, 3/4/06, p.47)(AP, 5/22/06)
2006 May 21, In Nigeria rock star
and activist Bono told African finance ministers that the recent
goodwill of wealthy industrialized countries toward Africa could
dissipate unless the continent tackles corruption.
(Reuters, 5/21/06)
2006 May 21, Pakistan and Iran
officials met again in Islamabad to discuss a proposed 1,735-mile
pipeline that would deliver Iranian gas to Pakistan and India.
(AP, 5/21/06)
2006 May 21, In Sri Lanka 2
soldiers were killed and two others wounded in two separate Claymore
mine attacks in the northeastern Trincomalee district and the northern
district of Vavuniya. Figures maintained by the Scandinavian truce
monitoring mission showed that 510 people were killed in Sri Lanka's
embattled regions since December. Suspected rebels attacked the offices
of three international aid groups in what appeared to be their first
assault on foreigners. Tamil separatists denied the charge.
(AFP, 5/21/06)(AP, 5/21/06)
2007 May 21, US Democratic
presidential hopeful Joseph Biden called for US troops to help quell
the violence in Sudan's Darfur region, drawing a strong rebuke from
Sudan's UN envoy.
(AP, 5/21/07)
2007 May 21, A Chinese delegation
led by Vice Premier Wu Yi arrived in the United States for two days of
talks that will spotlight tensions over US trade deficits with the
Asian export giant. A Chinese state fund that is buying a $3 billion
stake in US private equity firm Blackstone Group LP wants to avoid
political backlashes when it makes other investments abroad.
(AP, 5/21/07)
2007 May 21, Bill Richardson, Gov.
of New Mexico, officially joined the race for the Democratic
presidential nomination.
(WSJ, 5/22/07, p.A1)
2007 May 21, The US Supreme Court
ruled that parents don't need to hire a lawyer to sue public school
districts over their children's special education needs.
(AP, 5/21/08)
2007 May 21, The US Food and Drug
Administration issued a safety alert for the diabetes drug Avandia,
marketed by GlaxoSmithKline, which disputed a report saying it was
linked to a greater risk of heart attack. A doctor in Maryland had
linked Avandia to congestive heart failure in 2000, but GlaxoSmithKline
rejected her warning and tried to stop her from talking about it with
other doctors and hospitals.
(AP, 5/21/08)(WSJ, 11/19/08, p.B6)
2007 May 21, Florida set its 2008
presidential primary for January 29.
(WSJ, 5/22/07, p.A1)
2007 May 21, It was reported that
California’s spending trends would have the prison budget overtake
spending on state universities in five years.
(SFC, 5/21/07, p.A1)
2007 May 21, Afghanistan's lower
house of parliament voted to oust an outspoken female lawmaker who has
enraged former mujahedeen fighters now in President Hamid Karzai's
US-backed government. Malalai Joya (29) had compared parliament to a
stable full of animals in a recent TV interview. A parliament rule
known as Article 70 forbids lawmakers from criticizing one another.
(AP, 5/21/07)
2007 May 21, Mining giant Rio
Tinto and energy powerhouse BP announced plans for a $1.5 billion
coal-fired power project in Australia which would capture carbon
dioxide to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
(AP, 5/21/07)
2007 May 21, The presidents of
Belarus and Iran sought to cement ties that the Belarusian leader
called "a strategic partnership." Belarus will develop an oil field in
Iran under an agreement announced by President Alexander Lukashenko
during a visit by Pres. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
(AP, 5/21/07)
2007 May 21, In Greenwich,
England, a spectacular fire heavily damaged the clipper ship Cutty
Sark, one of London's proudest relics of the 19th century tea trade
with China designed to be the fastest ship of its day. Cutty Sark left
London on its first voyage on Feb. 16, 1870, proceeding around Cape
Hope to Shanghai 3 1/2 months later. The ship made only eight voyages
to China in the tea trade, as steam ships replaced sail on the high
seas.
(AP, 5/21/07)
2007 May 21, In Chile Pres.
Michelle Bachelet apologized for failing to fix her capital's public
bus system and promised to raise education spending by hundreds of
millions of dollars.
(AP, 5/21/07)
2007 May 21, Ethiopian troops
backing Somalia's fragile government killed one person and wounded
another after their convoy was targeted by a land mine in Mogadishu.
Two Ethiopian rebel groups, the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) and the
Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF), said they have killed 157
troops in the east of the country this month.
(AP, 5/21/07)(AFP, 5/22/07)
2007 May 21, Indar Jit Rikhye
(86), Indian peacekeeper, died. In 1970 he set up the Int’l. Peace
Academy in NYC to train military officers and diplomats in simulated
conflicts.
(Econ, 6/9/07, p.99)(www.ipacademy.org/our-work)
2007 May 21, Iran charged Haleh
Esfandiari, a jailed Iranian-American academic, with setting up a
network to overthrow the Islamic establishment, the government
announced. Esfandiari, director of the Middle East Program at the
Washington-based Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars, has been held at
Tehran's notorious Evin Prison since early May.
(AP, 5/21/07)
2007 May 21, Gunmen in two cars
attacked a minibus outside Hibhib, Diyala Province, killing 7
passengers, including a child. In western Baghdad, a roadside bomb
exploded near a group of Iraqi soldiers patrolling the Sunni-dominated
Adil neighborhood in western Baghdad, killing three of the soldiers and
injuring two. The Iraqi newspaper Azzaman reported that one of its
reporters, Ali Khalil (22), was kidnapped while leaving a relative's
house in the increasingly volatile Baiyaa neighborhood of Baghdad and
found dead several hours later. Two gunmen killed two police officers
as they walked by the police station in Muqdadiyah. In Basra gunmen
killed one police officer and wounding another in an attack on their
patrol. A British soldier and a civilian driver were killed when a
supply convoy was attacked in the center of Basra.
(AP, 5/21/07)(AP, 5/22/07)
2007 May 21, Israel pushed ahead
with its campaign against Palestinian rocket squads, pounding the Gaza
Strip with new airstrikes that killed five militants. A rocket from
Gaza killed an Israeli woman.
(AP, 5/21/07)(WSJ, 5/22/07, p.A1)
2007 May 21, Japanese Emperor
Akihito and Empress Michiko arrived in Sweden, kicking off a 10-day
tour of Europe that will take in the three Baltic nations and Britain,
where they have faced protests in the past.
(AP, 5/21/07)
2007 May 21, Kazakhstan's Pres.
Nazarbayev (66) approved a constitutional amendment that waives
presidential term limits and allows him to seek the top post
indefinitely.
(AP, 5/22/07)(Econ, 5/26/07, p.42)
2007 May 21, Lebanese troops
pounded a Palestinian refugee camp with artillery and tank fire for a
second day, raising huge palls of smoke as they battled a militant
group suspected of ties to al-Qaida in the worst eruption of violence
since the end of the 1975-90 civil war.
(AP, 5/21/07)
2007 May 21, Norway said it would
make its first transfer of direct aid to the Palestinians' new
government, more than two months after the Nordic country broke with
most Western nations by recognizing the Hamas-led coalition.
(AP, 5/21/07)
2007 May 21, In Pakistan radical
Islamist students kidnapped three policemen in Islamabad, creating a
second tense police hostage stand-off.
(AP, 5/21/07)
2007 May 21, Paraguayan President
Nicanor Duarte and Brazil's Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva met in Paraguay's
capital, Asuncion, and vowed to boost legitimate trade and to
strengthen cross-border cooperation in fighting smuggling in the Triple
Border.
(AP, 5/22/07)
2007 May 21, Polish doctors
launched a nationwide open-ended strike, demanding a pay raise amid
complaints that the health system is underfunded and medical
professionals are overworked.
(AP, 5/22/07)
2007 May 21, In northern Sri Lanka
6 people were killed during deepening fighting between government
soldiers and separatist rebels.
(AP, 5/21/07)
2007 May 21, In Tanzania the
appeals court of the UN-backed Rwandan genocide tribunal upheld a life
sentence for Mika Muhimana (57), convicted on multiple counts of rape
and murder. Muhimana, a Hutu, was accused of involvement in the rape of
nearly 30 women from the minority Tutsi tribe during Rwanda's 1994
genocide.
(AFP, 5/21/07)
2008 May 21, Pres. Bush signed
legislation to protect people from losing their jobs or health
insurance when genetic testing reveals they are susceptible to costly
diseases.
(WSJ, 5/22/08, p.D6)
2008 May 21, American Airlines
said it will remove 75 of 954 aircraft in its fleet and start charging
some domestic passengers $15 to check a suitcase due to rising fuel
costs. Oil futures closed at a record $133.17.
(SFC, 5/22/08, p.C1)(WSJ, 5/22/08, p.A1)
2008 May 21, In Afghanistan 2 NATO
soldiers and a civilian interpreter were killed when an explosion hit
them during a patrol in eastern Ghazni province. In eastern Kunar
province a rocket hit a schoolyard in Asmor district, killing one
student and wounding four others. The victims were between eight and 14
years old.
(AP, 5/21/08)(WSJ, 5/22/08, p.A9)(AP, 5/23/08)
2008 May 21, In Australia Milton
Orkopoulos (50), the former New South Wales state minister for
Aboriginal affairs, was jailed for nearly 14 years on child sex and
drugs charges.
(AFP, 5/21/08)
2008 May 21, Ethiopian PM Meles
Zenawi claimed that government troops have killed or captured 95
percent of rebels in the separatist Ogaden region.
(AFP, 5/22/08)
2008 May 21, Hundreds of French
fishermen clashed with police in Paris and severely disrupted
cross-Channel traffic as they stepped up a 10-day-old protest against
soaring fuel costs.
(AFP, 5/21/08)
2008 May 21, Georgia held
parliamentary elections.
(AP, 5/22/08)
2008 May 21, India and Pakistan
signed a pact in Islamabad granting consular access to prisoners in
each other's jails but reported no significant progress in negotiations
on the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir.
(AP, 5/21/08)
2008 May 21, In Indonesia
thousands of students took to the streets across the country to protest
the government's plan to raise fuel prices.
(AP, 5/21/08)
2008 May 21, At least 11 people
were killed when gunfire broke out after a roadside bombing in a Shiite
militia stronghold in eastern Baghdad near Sadr City, scene of a major
military clampdown. The shooting occurred in the Obeidi neighborhood
after three roadside bombs targeted joint US-Iraqi troops. An Iraqi
television cameraman, Wissam Ali Auda, of Afaq TV, was killed in the
fighting. A second journalist was killed north of Baghdad. The
bullet-riddled body of Hashim al-Hussein (35), a correspondent for the
Sharq newspaper kidnapped a day earlier, was found dumped near the city
of Baqouba. A US helicopter strike north of Baghdad killed 8 civilians,
including several children. The US military said the assault targeted
al-Qaida fighters but acknowledged that children died.
(AP, 5/21/08)(AP, 5/22/08)
2008 May 21, Brian Keenan (66), a
commanding figure during the Irish Republican Army's long march from
war to peace, died of cancer.
(AP, 5/21/08)
2008 May 21, Israel and Syria said
they were holding indirect peace talks through Turkish mediators on a
dispute that centers on the Golan Heights.
(AP, 5/21/08)
2008 May 21, Premier Silvio
Berlusconi moved his Cabinet meeting to Naples, vowing to clean the
city's streets of the garbage that has piled up for months and become a
stinking symbol of government inadequacy.
(AP, 5/21/08)
2008 May 21, Lebanon's feuding
factions reached a breakthrough deal, following talks in Qatar, to end
the country's 18-month political stalemate. The deal gives the militant
Hezbollah group and its allies veto over any government decision.
(AP, 5/21/08)
2008 May 21, In northern Mali 27
people were killed, including 10 soldiers, following an insurgent
attack on an army base. Ethnic Tuareg rebels active in the area claimed
responsibility for the attack. They said only one of their fighters
died in the skirmish and that they had taken some 60 soldiers hostages.
(AP, 5/22/08)
2008 May 21, UN chief Ban Ki-moon
began a mission for Myanmar's cyclone victims, saying "our focus now is
on saving lives," as the military government gave approval UN
helicopters to distribute aid.
(Reuters, 5/21/08)(WSJ, 5/22/08, p.A1)
2008 May 21, In northern Nigeria
46 soldiers, who just returned from a peacekeeping mission in Darfur,
were killed in a road accident. 10 people drowned and six were rescued
when their boat capsized in Port Harcourt.
(AFP, 5/22/08)(AFP, 5/23/08)
2008 May 21, Pakistan's government
promised to "gradually" pull out troops from the northwestern valley of
Swat after signing a peace agreement with Taliban militants.
(Reuters, 5/21/08)
2008 May 21, In Moscow, Russia,
Manchester United prevailed over Chelsea in the soccer final of the
Champions League.
(Econ, 5/24/08, p.77)
2008 May 21, The interior
ministers of Senegal and Spain signed an agreement extending
cooperation between the west African nation and the EU border control
agency Frontex to combat illegal immigration by one year.
(AFP, 5/21/08)
2008 May 21, In southern Somalia
dozens of heavily armed gunmen kidnapped two Italian aid workers and
their Somali colleague.
(AP, 5/21/08)
2008 May 21, In South Africa
xenophobic violence, that has killed at least 24 people, spilled over
to the volatile Zulu heartland and security officials discussed whether
to use troops to quell unrest.
(Reuters, 5/21/08)
2008 May 21, Dozens of men on
horseback armed with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades
ambushed Nigerian peacekeepers serving with the joint UN-African Union
force in Darfur. No casualties were reported.
(AP, 5/23/08)
2008 May 21, Two Swedish
contractors were arrested suspected of preparing to sabotage The
Oskarshamn nuclear power plant in southern Sweden, after traces of
explosives were found on one of the men. Police released the 2 men the
next day as technical experts continued an investigation.
(AFP, 5/21/08)(Reuters, 5/22/08)
2008 May 21, Ukraine moved to
strengthen its currency, the hryvnia, by revising its peg to the dollar
form 5.05 hryvnia per dollar to 4.85.
(WSJ, 5/22/08, p.C14)
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