December 29th Historical Events

1170 - Assassination inside Canterbury Cathedral of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury by followers of King Henry II; he subsequently becomes a saint and martyr in the Anglican Church & the Roman Catholic Church

1845 - Texas admitted as 28th state

1940 - Germany begins dropping bombs on London (WW II)

1997 - Hong Kong begins slaughtering all its chickens to prevent bird flu


1862 - Bowling ball invented

1891 - Edison patents "transmission of signals electrically" (radio)

1903 - French Equatorial Africa separates into Gabon, Chad & Ubangi-Shari

1911 - Sun Yat-sen becomes the first President of the Republic of China

1929 - Dutch colonial authorities arrest Sukarno and other key PNI leaders in Java

1948 - Canada recognizes Israel

1965 - "Thunderball", 4th James Bond film starring Sean Connery premieres in Tokyo

1968 - Israeli commandos destroy 13 Lebanese airplanes

1983 - US announced withdrawal from UNESCO

1984 - Indian PM Rajiv Gandhi claims victory in parlimetary elections

1997 - Russia signs agreement to build a $3B nuclear power plant in China

2012 - 200 people are executed by the Syrian army in Homs
 

Dec 29th, Departed Ones

1141 - Yue Fei, Chinese general, executed

1986 - [Maurice] Harold MacMillan, PM of Great-Britain (1957-63)

1995 - Lita Grey, second wife of Charlie Chaplin

2009 - Akmal Shaikh, British drug trafficker, executed by lethal injection in the People's Republic of China