On this day in 1992, nearly 69 percent of white South African voters backed F.W. de Klerk's reforms—which included the repeal of racially discriminatory laws—and effectively endorsed the dismantling of apartheid.
| Today: | | St. Patrick, patron saint of Ireland, died this day in 461, according to legend, and now his feast day is celebrated widely in Ireland and the United States. |
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| 1938: | | Poland issued an ultimatum to Lithuania in an attempt to settle the territorial dispute over the city of Vilnius. |
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| 1917: | | | Nat King Cole, an American musician who first came to prominence as a jazz pianist but who reached enormous popularity with his warm, relaxed, somewhat breathy-voiced ballad singing, was born. |
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| 1905: | | | Eleanor Roosevelt, niece of President Theodore Roosevelt, married her distant cousin Franklin D. Roosevelt, later U.S. president. |
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| 1861: | | | In Turin, Italy, after more than 10 years of revolution led by such figures as Giuseppe Garibaldi, a parliament assembled and officially proclaimed the unified Kingdom of Italy. |
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| 1776: | | British General William Howe evacuated Boston after a successful siege by American revolutionaries led by General George Washington. |
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