QUOTE OF THE DAY

BIRTHS

Konrad Erlin (10.02.1856-1944), an Austrian chess composer.
Eugene Znosko Borovsky (16.08.1884-1954), a Russian chess master, writer, and teacher who was living in France for many years.
Vlatko Bogdanovski (1954), a Macedonian Grandmaster who won the national championship in 1993.
Fliura Uskova (1964), a Kazakh Woman Grandmaster.
Ekaterina Borulya (1969), a German Woman Grandmaster born in Ukraine.
Jennifer Shahade (1980), an American Woman Grandmaster, writer and chess commentator who won two US Women’s Championships.

DEATHS

Amos Burn (1848-1925), a strong British Master and a chess columnist.
Carl Ahues (26.12.1883-1968), a German International Master who was the German Champion in 1929.
Alexander Khasin (1951-2016), a Russian Grandmaster and coach.

CHESS EVENTS

1990 In Lyon, Garry Kasparov retained his title of World Champion beating Anatoly Karpov 12½-11½.
2000 The Chinese Grand Master Ye Jiangchuan broke a world record in a simultaneous chess by playing 1004 opponents at the Chinese Chess New Century Festival in Tian Yuan, China.
2000 Al Ain Chess Club A (UAE) won the first Asian Club Cup.
2012 In Tunis, Abd Erahmen Hichem from Egypt became the African U20 Champion.

WORLD EVENTS

1759 Arthur Guinness signs a 9,000-year lease at £45 per annum and starts brewing Guinness.
1857 Queen Victoria chooses Ottawa, then a small logging town, as the capital of Canada.
1862 American Civil War: Abraham Lincoln signs an act that admits West Virginia to the Union, thus dividing Virginia in two.
1878 Karl Benz, working in Mannheim, Germany, filed for a patent on his first reliable two-stroke gas engine, and he was granted the patent in 1879.
1879 Thomas Edison demonstrates incandescent lighting to the public for the first time, in Menlo Park, New Jersey.
1907 The first New Year’s Eve celebration is held in Times Square (then known as Longacre Square) in Manhattan.
1923 The Sahara was crossed by an automobile for the first time.
1942 After five months of battle, Emperor Hirohito allowed the Japanese commanders at Guadalcanal to retreat.
1944 World War II: Hungary declares war on Nazi Germany.
1946 President Harry S. Truman officially proclaims the end of hostilities in World War II.
1951 The Marshall Plan expires after distributing more than US$13.3 billion in foreign aid to rebuild Europe.
1955 General Motors becomes the first U.S. corporation to make over US$1 billion in a year.
1958 Cuba’s dictator Juan Batista fled as Rebels under Fidel Castro marched into Havana.
1965 Jean-Bédel Bokassa, leader of the Central African Republic army, and his military officers begins a coup d’état against the government of President David Dacko.
1968 The first flight of the Tupolev Tu-144, the first civilian supersonic transport.
1970 Paul McCartney filed a lawsuit to dissolve the Beatles’ partnership.
1983 In Nigeria a coup d’état led by Major General Muhammadu Buhari ends the Second Nigerian Republic.
1991 All official Soviet Union institutions have ceased operations by this date and the Soviet Union is officially dissolved.
1992 Czechoslovakia is peacefully dissolved in what is dubbed by media as the Velvet Divorce, resulting in the creation of the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
1994 The First Chechen War: Russian army began a New Year’s storming of Grozny.
1994 Bosnian government officials and Bosnian Serb leaders signed a U.N.-brokered cease-fire agreement.
1998 The European Exchange Rate Mechanism freezes the values of the legacy currencies in the Eurozone, and establishes the value of the euro currency.
1999 First President of Russia, Boris Yeltsin, resigns from office, leaving Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as the acting President and successor.
2004 Ukrainian PM Viktor Yanukovych resigned, acknowledging that he had little hope of reversing the election victory of his Western-leaning rival, Viktor Yushchenko.
2019 China informs the World Health Organization (WHO) that a new virus called coronavirus has broken out in Wuhan, the ninth most populous Chinese city.

(Source: Wikipedia-Timeline)

GAME OF THE DAY