On this day in 1999, 12 years after an agreement was reached between China and Portugal, several centuries of Portuguese rule ended in Macau when it became a special administrative region under Chinese sovereignty.
| 1989: | | The United States launched Operation Just Cause, a military invasion of Panama, the initial attack focusing primarily on the Panama City headquarters of leader Manuel Noriega. |
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| 1974: | | Ethiopia was declared a socialist state under the leadership of Mengistu Haile Mariam. |
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| 1971: | | Pakistani President Agha Mohammad Yahya Khan transferred power to Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. |
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| 1960: | | The Vietnamese National Liberation Front was formed, with the purpose of effecting the reunification of North and South Vietnam. |
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| 1860: | | | Following Abraham Lincoln's election as U.S. president, South Carolina became the first U.S. state to secede from the Union. |
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| 1841: | | | French educator Ferdinand-Édouard Buisson, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1927 (jointly with the German pacifist Ludwig Quidde), was born. |
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