British warship limps towards Australia
2002 - A British warship that hit rocks off a remote island in eastern Australia a month ago was being pulled towards the Australian mainland, with tugs dragging the crippled destroyer backwards. The HMS Nottingham had been anchored about 100 metres off Australia’s resort island of Lord Howe, 780km northeast of Sydney, since it ran onto the well charted rocks in stormy weather and almost sank. Work to strengthen the punctured and partially flooded vessel for towing through open seas was completed several days ago, but the navy had to wait for suitable weather to begin the three-to-four-day journey to the Australian east coast port of Newcastle. With conditions calm in the morning, the tugs began to tow the Type 42 air-defence destroyer backwards.
August 6
1661 - Portuguese and Dutch sign treaty whereby Portugual retains Brazil and the Dutch keep Ceylon, now Sri Lanka.
1849 - Peace of Milan ends war between Sardinia and Austria.
1896 - French parliament votes for the annexation of Madagascar.
1914 - Serbia and Montenegro declare war on Germany.
1926 - American Gertrude Ederle becomes the first woman to swim across the English Channel.
1844 - French under Duc de Joinville begin hostilities against Morocco.
1942 - Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands becomes the first reigning queen to address a joint session of the US Congress.
1945 - The first atomic bomb ever used in war is dropped by the US on Hiroshima, Japan
1965 - US president Lyndon Johnson signs Voting Rights Act.
1979 - Three Spanish Foreign Legion deserters land at Geneva airport aboard an airliner they hijacked at gunpoint, and surrender immediately to police.
1986 - William J. Schroeder dies after living 620 days with the “Jarvik 7” artificial heart.
1990 - Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto’s government is ousted.
1991 - The web’s inventor Tim Berners-Lee publishes the world’s first website.
1992 - American Kevin Young smashes one of the oldest track world records by winning the men’s 400 metre hurdles at the Olympics in Barcelona.
1993 - Morihiro Hosokawa is elected Japanese prime minister.
1997 - Korean Air jumbo jet carrying 254 persons slams into a mountain in Guam while trying to land during a night-time thunderstorm.
2005 - Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is sworn in as Iranian president.
2007 - Russia deploys new air defence systems capable of shooting down ballistic missiles.
2008 - Sonia Sotomayor is confirmed by the US Senate making her the 111th and first Hispanic Supreme Court justice in the US.
2010 - UAE confirms a terrorist attack on a Japanese oil tanker in Fujairah port.
2011 - A US military helicopter crashes in Afghanistan, killing 31 special operation troops and seven Afghan commandos.
