A local politician from Spain’s ruling Popular Party died after a car bomb attack in a Barcelona suburb, which Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar implicitly blamed on the Basque group ETA. Aznar described the killing of Francisco Cano Consuegra, 45, as a “bloody new act by the terrorists, which shows that they will stop at nothing.” There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but officials blamed the attack on the Basque separatist organisation, which has already killed 21 people in Spain this year, four of them members of the Popular Party. Francisco Cano, who had been hospitalised with critical injuries, was a councillor for the nearby town of Viladecavalls and a plumber by profession. Associates said he had apparently been driving for several hours when a bomb attached to the underside of his van exploded in the Barcelona suburb of Terrassa, where he worked. Aznar expressed his condolences to Francisco Cano’s family.
Other highlights:
1799 George Washington, the first president of the US, dies at age 67.
1911 Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen becomes first man to reach South Pole.
1912 Louis Botha resigns as South Africa’s premier.
1913 Greece formally annexes Crete.
1918 Portugal President Sidonio Paes is assassinated.
1927 China and Soviet Union break relations.
1935 Thomas Masaryk, the founder and first president of Czechoslovakia,
resigns due to ill health.
1939 Soviet Union is dropped from League of Nations.
1946 UN General Assembly votes to establish UN headquarters in New York City.
1950 The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UN Refugee Agency) is established.
1962 Nasa’s Mariner 2 becomes the first spacecraft to fly by Venus.
1962 North Rhodesia’s first African-dominated government is formed under Kenneth Kaunda.
1963 The Baldwin Hills Reservoir dam burst in Los Angeles, California, kills five people.
1979 Oman signs pacts with the UAE regarding a border dispute.
1981 Israel annexes Golan Heights, captured from Syria in 1967.
1989 Opposition leader Patricio Aylwin is elected president in Chile’s first free election since 1970.
1990 African National Congress (ANC) president Oliver Tambo returns to South Africa after 30 years in exile.
1991 Former East German leader Erich Honecker is offered asylum in North Korea.
1992 Easing a 17-year embargo, the US allows its companies to sign contracts in Vietnam.
1995 Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia sign a US-brokered peace settlement for Bosnia.
1999 US and German negotiators agree to establish a fund of $5.2 billion for Nazi-era slaves and forced labourers.
2000 Vladimir Putin, the first Russian president to visit Cuba since the collapse of the Soviet Union, holds talks with Fidel Castro in Havana.
2001 52 pilgrims killed in Jordan bus crash.
2004 The Millau viaduct, the tallest bridge in the world, officially opens in France.
2007 A bus collides with a train in northern India, killing at least 16 people, including nine children.
2012 A gunman open fire at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, killing 27 people including 18 children.
2014 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe wins in re-election.
