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This Day in History - December 13

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Today is the 347th day of 2013. There are 18 days left in the year.

TODAY'S HIGHLIGHT

1989: South African President F W de Klerk meets for the first time with imprisoned African National Congress leader Nelson Mandela, at de Klerk's office in Cape Town.

OTHER EVENTS

1577: Sir Francis Drake of England sets out with five ships on a nearly three-year journey that would take him around the world.

1789: Austrian Netherlands declares independence as Belgium.

1918: US President Woodrow Wilson arrives in France, becoming the first chief executive to visit Europe while in office.

1921: United States, Britain, France and Japan sign Washington Treaty to respect each other's rights over insular possessions in Pacific.

1928: George Gershwin's An American in Paris is publicly performed for the first time at Carnegie Hall in New York.

1937: Japanese troops take Nanking in China and proceed to massacre an estimated 300,000 Chinese civilians.

1967: Military government in Greece crushes countercoup, and King Constantine flees to Rome with his family.

1972: US Apollo 17 astronauts, on last US moon mission, unveil plaque dedicated to peace on lunar surface.

1974: Egypt demands 50-year freeze on Israel's population as condition for peace in Middle East.

1981: Communist authorities impose martial law in Poland to crush the Solidarity labour movement. Martial law formally ends in 1983.

1990: African National Congress President Oliver Tambo arrives in South Africa after 30 years in exile; US diplomats arrive in Frankfurt after four months holding out in the embassy in Kuwait City under Iraqi occupation.

1991: Leaders of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan agree that they will join new Commonwealth of Independent States.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

Heinrich Heine, German poet (1797-1856); Ernst Werner von Siemens, German engineer (1816-1892); Emily Carr, Canadian painter/writer (1871-1945); Carlos Montoya, Spanish-American flamenco guitarist (1903-1993); Christopher Plummer, Canadian-born actor (1929-); Dick Van Dyke, US actor (1925-); Steve Buscemi, US

actor (1957-)

— AP

This Day in History

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