November 21st, 2008

Today in History

2004:
2004 - The second round of the Ukrainian presidential election is held, unleashing massive protests and controversy with regards to the election's integrity.

1980:
1980 -Lake Peigneur drained into an underlying salt deposit. A misplaced Texaco oil probe drilled into the Diamond crystal salt mine; water flowing down into the mine eroded the edges of the hole. The whirlpool created sucked the drilling platform, several barges, houses and trees thousands of feet, to the bottom of the dissolving salt deposit.

1969:
US President Richard Nixon and Japanese Premier Eisaku Sato agree in Washington, DC on the return of Okinawa to Japanese control in 1972. Under terms of the agreement, the US is to retain its rights to bases on the island, but these are to be nuclear-free.

1964:
Second Vatican Council: The third period of the Catholic Church's ecumenical council closes.

1953:
Authorities at the British Natural History Museum announce that the skull of the "Piltdown Man", held to be one of the most famous fossil skulls in the world, was a hoax.