This Date In Not U.S.-Centric History

Today's Highlight:
1991: South African President FW de Klerk announces that he will scrap all remaining laws that uphold apartheid.
Other Notable Events:
1587: England's Queen Elizabeth I signs warrant for execution of Mary Queen of Scots.
1775: Peasants in Bohemia revolt against servitude.
1881: First signs of nationalist movement appear in Egypt as military officers stage uprising.
1896: Crete, inspired by Greece, begins revolution against Turkey.
1908: Portugal's King Carlos I and Crown Prince are murdered in Lisbon, Manuel II becomes king.
1917: Germany decides to let its submarines attack merchant ships from neutral nations going to Britain, a move that triggers the United States' entry into World War I.
1924: Britain recognises Communist government of Soviet Union.
1935: Anglo-German conference is held in London to discuss Germany's rearmament; Italy sends troops to East Africa.
1946: Trygve Lie, Norwegian Socialist, is elected United Nations secretary-general; Hungarian Republic is proclaimed.
1968: Central pacific nation of Nauru becomes independent.
1972: British Embassy in Dublin is bombed as anti-British demonstrations sweep Ireland.
1990: Romanian National Salvation Front agrees to a power-sharing arrangement until national elections can be held.
1992: US President George Bush and Russian President Boris Yeltsin sign Camp David declaration stating Russia and United States do not regard each other as potential adversaries, formally ending the Cold War.
1993: Israel's Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin announces he will accept the return of 100 deported Palestinians.
1994: A French journalist is slain and an Australian colleague is wounded in Algiers' ancient Casbah district, the first foreign journalists attacked since the start of the Islamic insurgency in 1992.
1995: Flooded rivers make refugees of almost 250,000 people in the Netherlands.
1996: President Jacques Chirac announces that France has finished its nuclear testing "once and for all."
1997: An Air Senegal plane carrying European tourists crashes in Senegal, killing at least 20 people and injuring 30.
1998: Miguel Angel Rodriguez wins the presidency in Costa Rica.
1999: Thousands of people flee the capital of Guinea-Bissau as fighting intensifies between loyalist and rebel forces.
2001: US President George W. Bush unveils a plan to spend $1 billion over five years on the New Freedom Initiative, programmes to help disabled Americans buy homes and stay in the work force.
2002: Fighters loyal to Afghan warlord Bacha Khan retreat from the city of Gardez, the capital of Paktia province, after several days of heavy fighting between his forces and the local council, which rejects his leadership. About 60 people are killed.
2004: US President George W Bush, under mounting political pressure, plans to sign an executive order to establish a full-blown investigation of US intelligence failures that led to the invasion of Iraq.
2005: Rebels attack a Colombian military post in southwest Colombia with homemade rockets, killing nine soldiers and wounding 20.
2006: A US government audit finds guerrilla attacks in Iraq have forced the cancellation of more than 60 per cent of water and sanitation projects, in part because American intelligence failed to predict the brutal insurgency.
2007: Suspected Muslim guerrillas storm a Philippine jail in the southern city of Kidapawan and blast a hole through a wall, freeing three alleged bombers and dozens of other inmates.
2008: Two female suicide bombers with a history of psychiatric treatment kill almost 100 people at two pet markets in central Baghdad. Iraqi and US officials have said the women may have been unwitting bombers strapped with remote-control explosives.
2009: Gunmen abduct American UN worker John Solecki in Quetta, Pakistan, and kill his driver.
Today's Birthdays: Feodor Chaliapin, Russian opera singer (1873-1938); Renata Tebaldi, Italian opera singer (1922-2004); Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin, Russian president (1931-2007).