QUOTE OF THE DAY

BIRTHS

Josef Pospisil (1861-20.12.1916), Czech chess composer.
Vasily Panov 1906-13.01.1973), Soviet Master, author, and journalist.
Yair Kraidman( 1932), the first Israeli-born Grandmaster.
Valentin Lukov, (1955), Bulgarian Grandmaster.
Sergey Kishnev, (1956), Russian Grandmaster.
Gennadi Gutman (1973), Ukrainan Grandmaster.
Mikhail Simantsev (1978); Ukrainian Grandmaster.
Eduardo Iturrizaga Bonelli (1989), Venezuelian Grandmaster.

DEATHS

Lajos Asztalos (29.07.1889-1956), a Hungarian chess International Master, professor, and languages teacher.

CHESS EVENTS

1995 K. Arakhamia (GEO) won the Women’s Interzonal tournament held in Kishinev, Moldova, with 9½/13.

WORLD EVENTS

1179 – Philip II is crowned King of France.
1520 – The Strait of Magellan, the passage immediately south of mainland South America connecting the Pacific and the Atlantic Oceans, is first discovered and navigated by European explorer Ferdinand Magellan during the first recorded circumnavigation voyage.
1555 – French Huguenots establish the France Antarctique colony in present-day Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
1755 – In Portugal, Lisbon is totally devastated by a massive earthquake and tsunami, killing between 60,000 and 90,000 people.
1814 – Congress of Vienna opens to re-draw the European political map after the defeat of France in the Napoleonic Wars.
1894 – Nicholas II becomes the new (and last) Tsar of Russia after his father, Alexander III, dies.
1918 – Western Ukraine gains independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
1922 – Abolition of the Ottoman sultanate: The last sultan of the Ottoman Empire, Mehmed VI, abdicates.
1960 – Tim Cook, American businessman, and engineer, current CEO of Apple Inc was born.
1981 – Antigua and Barbuda gains independence from the United Kingdom.
1982 – Honda becomes the first Asian automobile company to produce cars in the United States with the opening of its factory in Marysville, Ohio; a Honda Accord is the first car produced there.
1993 – The Maastricht Treaty takes effect, formally establishing the European Union.
2000 – The Republic of Serbia and Montenegro joins the United Nations.

(Source: Wikipedia)