[This is a highly-slanted, unbalanced version of the full AP list, which can be found at the Korea Times, and they'd be so proud if you'd visit!]
Highlights in history on this date:
1945 - Charter establishing United Nations is signed in San Francisco, California, by 50 nations.
1948 - The Berlin airlift begins after the Soviets blockade West Berlin. The lift feeds two million Berliners for eleven months. Read about Gail Halvorsen, AKA The Candy Bomber at the Wiki.
1962 - United States declares it will not support any attempt by Chinese nationalists on Formosa to land forces on the Chinese mainland.
1990 - Nelson Mandela speaks before U.S. Congress, thanking it for imposing sanctions against South Africa and asking that sanctions be maintained until "irreversible" reforms are enacted.
1998 - In a ceremony heavy in symbolism, U.S. President Bill Clinton opens a state visit to China in Tiananmen Square, where a protest movement for democracy was brutally suppressed nine years earlier.
2000 - Scientists announce that the human genetic code has essentially been deciphered, a monumental achievement that opens a dramatic new frontier in medicine.
2001- Seven North Koreans take refuge in a U.N. office in Beijing and request asylum, highlighting the plight of North Korean famine victims whom China refuses to regard as refugees.
2003 - The U.S. Supreme Court rules, 6-3, that a Texas law banning sodomy between consenting same-sex adults is unconstitutional.
2004 - The United States and the European Union agree in a joint statement to back Iraq's request for NATO military assistance to support the training of Iraqi security forces, and to reduce Iraq's international debt.
2008 - South Korea lifts its ban on U.S. beef imports, and President Lee Myung-bak urges the country to move past the dispute that has paralyzed his government with weeks of tumultuous protests.
2009 - Honduras' leftist President Manuel Zelaya pushes ahead with a referendum on revamping the constitution, risking his rule in a standoff against Congress, the Supreme Court and the military.
Today's Birthdays:
George Morland, English artist (1763-1804); Bartolome Mitre, Argentine president (1821-1906); Baron William Homson Kelvin, English physicist (1824-1907); Pearl Buck, U.S. author (1892-1973); Peter Lorre, Hungarian actor (1904-1964); Chris Isaak, U.S. singer (1956--); Chris O'Donnell, actor (1970--); Patty Smyth, singer (1957--); Sean Hayes, U.S. actor (1970--).
