Meeting at Algiers, the Palestine National Council, at the urging of PLO chairman Y─sir ?Araf─t, issued a declaration of independence for a state of Palestine in the West Bank and Gaza Strip on this day in 1988.
| 1938: | | | A farewell parade was held in Barcelona, Spain, for the volunteers of the International Brigades who fought for the Republicans during the Spanish Civil War. |
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| 1891: | | W. Averell Harriman, a statesman and leading U.S. diplomat in relations with the Soviet Union during World War II and the Cold War, was born. |
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| 1889: | | Emperor Pedro II of Brazil was forced to abdicate by a group of military officers led by Manuel Deodoro da Fonseca. |
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| 1885: | | St. Joseph Mukasa, one of the Martyrs of Uganda, was beheaded by order of Mwanga, kabaka (ruler) of Buganda. |
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| 1884: | | The Berlin West Africa Conference opened, in which the major European nations met to decide all questions connected with the Congo River basin of Central Africa. |
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| 1848: | | Pellegrino Rossi, a former member of the Carbonaria, was assassinated in Rome during the Revolutions of 1848. |
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| 1818: | | The Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle, the first of four congresses held by Great Britain, Austria, Prussia, Russia, and France following the Napoleonic Wars, concluded. |
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| 1630: | | | Johannes Kepler, the German astronomer who discovered three major laws of planetary motion, died in Regensburg. |
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| 1315: | | The Swiss Confederation achieved its first great military success against the Austrian Habsburgs at the Battle of Morgarten. |
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