Today in History, August 28

HIGHLIGHTS IN HISTORY ON THIS DATE:

1532 - Forces of Suleiman I, sultan of Turkey, ravage Carinthia and Croatia.

1574 - Treaty of Bristol settles commercial disputes between English and Spanish merchants.

1619 - Gabor Bethlen of Transylvania invades Hungary; Ferdinand II is elected Holy Roman Emperor.

1640 - Scots defeat British force at Newburn-On-Tyne.

1793 - British force under Admiral Alexander Hood occupies Toulon, France.

1833 - British Parliament bans slavery throughout the British Empire.

1848 - In South Africa, Boers are defeated at Boomplatz by British forces and retire across Vaal River, thus ensuring Orange River sovereignty.

1849 - Venice, Italy, submits to Austria after a long siege.

1879 - British troops capture Cetywayo, last of the great Zulu kings, in the Zulu War.

1910 - Montenegro is proclaimed an independent kingdom under Nicholas I.

1914 - In World War I, the Royal and German navies fight the battle of Heligoland Bight in the North Sea, the Germans losing four ships and 1000 sailors and the British 33 sailors.

1917 - Ten suffragists are arrested as they picket the US White House.

1922 - The first radio advertisement, a 10-minute property commercial by Queensboro Realty Corp, is broadcast by station WEAF in New York.

1928 - All-Party Congress at Lucknow, India, votes for dominion status within the British Empire.

1947 - Legendary bullfighter Manolete is fatally wounded by a bull during a fight in Linares, Spain.

1968 - Police and anti-Vietnam war demonstrators clash in the streets of Chicago as the Democratic National Convention nominates Hubert H Humphrey for US president.

1971 - Twenty-five people die and 1150 are rescued when the Greek liner Haleanna catches fire.

1973 - An earthquake hits area southwest of Mexico City, killing 500 people and injuring 1000 others; Princess Anne becomes the first member of the British royal family to visit the Soviet Union, arriving in Kiev for an equestrian event.

1981 - John W Hinckley Jr pleads innocent to charges of attempting to kill US President Ronald Reagan (he was later acquitted by reason of insanity); In Kenya, Paul Nakwale is found guilty of murdering Born Free author Joy Adamson.

1985 - Launch of Aussat, Australia's first domestic communications satellite.

1986 - Bolivian government imposes a nationwide state of siege in response to march to La Paz by about 7000 workers opposed to mine closures.

1987 - Death of John Huston, US actor and film director.

1988 - An Italian Air Force jet collides in air with two other jets and plunges into a crowd of spectators at air show in Ramstein, West Germany, killing 53 people and injuring about 500.

1989 - Police say masked Sikh gunmen raid passenger train in India's Punjab State and massacre at least 22 Hindu passengers.

1990 - Iraq declares Kuwait its 19th province.

1994 - Australia finishes its Commonwealth Games in Victoria, Canada with record 87 gold medals; Father Jean-Marie Vincent, a prominent Haitian Catholic priest loyal to deposed President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, is shot dead by suspected paramilitary gunmen.

1995 - A shell crashes into a crowd near the central marketplace in Sarajevo, killing 38 people.

1996 - The 1981 marriage of Prince Charles and Princess Diana, launched amid pomp and pageantry, ends with a rubber-stamp divorce.

1997 - Rival factions clash inside Venezuela's notorious El Dorado prison, leaving 29 prisoners dead and 13 inmates seriously injured.

1999 - A space capsule bearing the last full-time crew to inhabit Russia's ageing Mir space station lands safely on the Kazakh Steppe.

2000 - More than four years after hooded military judges convict American Lori Berenson of planning a rebel attack, Peru's military overturns her life sentence and clears the way for a new, civilian trial.

2001 - Women's rights groups protest the approval of a new law in Chihuahua, Mexico, which provides for reduced sentences for rapes that were "provoked" by the victim.

2004 - At the Athens Olympics, Moroccan Hicham El Guerrouj becomes the first man in 80 years to win both the 1500 and the 5000 races at one Olympics, joining Finnish great Paavo Nurmi in the history books.

2006 - Australian Democrats founder Don Chipp dies, aged 81; The world's oldest person on record, 116-year-old Ecuadorean woman Maria Esther de Capovilla, who drank donkey milk for health, dies.

2007 - A devout Muslim, Abdullah Gull, 56, wins Turkey's presidency after months of confrontation with the secular establishment, promising to be impartial and praising the idea that Islam and the state should be separate.

2009 - A coroner rules Michael Jackson's death was a homicide caused primarily by the powerful anaesthetic propofol and another sedative, increasing the likelihood of criminal charges against the pop star's doctor.

2012 - Michelle Martin, who let two eight-year-old girls starve in a cellar and helped her pedophile husband, Marc Dutroux, carry out horrific abuse of other girls goes from prison to a convent, outraging Belgians who opposed the early release of one of the country's most despised criminals.

2013 - Matt Doust, one of Australia's best young artists whose portrait of model Gemma Ward made 2011's Archibald Prize shortlist, dies aged 29.

2014 - Indonesia and Australia resume co-operation after the phone-tapping of president Yudhoyomo and those close to him; Qantas posts a $2.8 billion loss but CEO Alan Joyce says the worst is over.

2015 - Heavy snow south of Hobart sees motorists stranded on a highway.

2017 - Texans brace themselves for record floods, tidal surges and tornadoes as Tropical Storm Harvey batters communities.

Today's Birthdays:

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, German poet and philosopher (1749-1832); Leo Tolstoy, Russian writer (1828-1910); Arthur Calwell, Australian politician (1896-1973); Charles Boyer, French-born actor (1899-1978); Donald O'Connor, US actor-dancer (1925-2003); Ben Gazzara, US actor (1930-2012); William Cohen, US Defence Secretary (1940-); Alice Playten, US actress (1947-2011); Wayne Osmond, US singer (1951-); Daniel Stern, US actor (1957-); Emma Samms, US actress (1960-); Shania Twain, US singer (1965-); Jason Priestley, US actor (1969-); Jack Black, US actor-singer (1969-); Janet Evans, US swimmer (1971-); LeAnn Rimes, US country singer (1982-); Florence Welch, British singer of Florence + the Machine (1986-); Andrej Pejic, Australian model (1991-).

Quote from History:

"The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference." - Elie Wiesel, Romanian-born author.

AAP/AP/Reuters lh/jca/dmg/ek/cjb

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