TODAY <$>is Friday, May 31, the 151st day of 2002. There are 214 days left in the year.

ON THIS DATE<$>

In 1910, the Union of South Africa was founded.

In 1913, the 17th amendment to the Constitution, providing for the popular election of US senators, was declared in effect.

In 1961, South Africa became an independent republic.

In 1962, Second World War Gestapo official Adolf Eichmann was hanged in Israel for his role in the Nazi Holocaust.

In 1970, tens of thousands of people died in an earthquake in Peru.

In 1989, House Speaker Jim Wright, dogged by questions about his ethics, announced he would resign. (Thomas Foley later succeeded him.)

In 1991, leaders of Angola’s two warring factions signed a peace treaty, ending a 16-year-old civil war.

THOUGHT FOR TODAY

“Every ambitious man is a captive and every covetous one a pauper.” — Arab proverb.