@rh18bold:Today in History

Today is Monday, December 28, the 362nd day of 2009. There are three days left in the year.

On this date

In 1694, Queen Mary II of England died after more than five years of joint rule with her husband, King William III.

In 1950, Chinese troops – "volunteers" – crossed the 38th parallel in the Korean Peninsula, forcing United Nations forces onto Seoul.

In 1968, Israeli commandos attacked Beirut airport, destroying 13 planes, after attacks on Israeli aircraft.

In 1972, Palestinian Black September guerrillas captured the Israeli embassy in Bangkok and took six hostages. The next day the hostages were freed and the guerrillas flown to Cairo.

In 1973, Alexander Solzhenitsyn published "Gulag Archipelago," about the Soviet Union's prisons.

In 1985, Lebanon's Muslim and Christian militias agreed to a Syrian-brokered ceasefire after four months of negotiations.

In 1989, Alexander Dubcek, the former Czechoslovak Communist leader who was deposed in a Soviet-led Warsaw Pact invasion in 1968 – the "Prague Spring" – was elected president of the country's parliament.

In 1989, the Soviet republic of Lithuania formally launched the Soviet Union's first multiparty system.

In 1999, Portugal and Indonesia restored full diplomatic relations after a break of nearly a quarter of a century, after Indonesia gave up control of the former Portuguese colony of East Timor.

Thought for Today

"Our chief defect is that we are more given to talking about things than to doing them." — Jawaharlal Nehru, Indian Independence leader and first prime minister (1889-1964).