On this day in 1993, after a long history of foreign rule and decades of war, the small East African country of Eritrea began three days of voting on a referendum to make official its independence from Ethiopia.
| 1998: | | James Earl Ray, convicted assassin of Martin Luther King, Jr., died in prison in Nashville, Tennessee. |
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| 1906: | | | Russian Tsar Nicholas II promulgated the Fundamental Laws, which marked the end of unlimited autocracy but fell short of the reforms promised in the October Manifesto. |
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| 1858: | | | German physicist Max Planck, who originated quantum theory, was born in Kiel. |
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| 1791: | | | James Buchanan, the 15th U.S. president, was born near Mercersburg, Pennsylvania. |
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| 1016: | | | Upon the death of King Ethelred II of England, his son claimed the throne as Edmund II. |
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