Person report

★17 Mar 1942
The Holocaust: The first mass killings of Jews began at Bełżec extermination camp in occupied Poland, the first of the Aktion Reinhard camps to begin operation.

★23 Feb 1944
In response to an insurgency in Chechnya, the Soviet Union began the forced deportation of native Chechen and Ingush of North Caucasus to Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.

★26 Apr 1944
World War II: U.S. Navy submarines began attacks on Japan's Take Ichi convoy as it sailed in waters between Taiwan and the Philippines, eventually sinking four vessels and killing over 4,000 troops.

★09 Aug 1945
World War II: USAAF bomber Bockscar dropped a "Fat Man" atomic bomb on Nagasaki, Japan.

★18 Feb 1957
Kenyan independence leader Dedan Kimathi, who spearheaded the Mau Mau Uprising, was executed by British authorities, who saw him as a terrorist.

★14 Oct 1957
After three days of heavy rain, the Turia overflowed and flooded the city of Valencia, Spain, causing at least 81 deaths and up to 16 million pesetas in damage.

★09 May 1961
In a speech to the National Association of Broadcasters, FCC chairman Newton N. Minow described commercial television programming as "a vast wasteland".

★28 Jun 1978
In Regents of the Univ. of Cal. v. Bakke, the U.S. Supreme Court barred quota systems in college admissions but declared that affirmative action programs giving advantage to minorities are constitutional.

★20 Aug 1988
The Troubles: The Provisional Irish Republican Army bombed a bus carrying British Army soldiers in Northern Ireland, killing eight of them and wounding another 28.

★19 Oct 1988
The British government banned the voices of representatives from Sinn Féin and several Irish republican and Loyalist paramilitary groups from being broadcast on television and radio in the United Kingdom.

Historical data by Wikipedia Contributors CC BY-SA 3.0.