Today in history, August 21: More than 1700 people die when toxic gas erupts from a volcanic lake in Cameroon

Highlights in history on this date:

1842: Founding of city of Hobart.
1911: German Emperor William II says Germany needs colonies, or a “place in the sun”, which he says the navy will secure.
1944: Representatives of the US, Britain, Russia and China meet at Dumbarton Oaks near Washington to plan for formation of the United Nations.
1959: Hawaii becomes 50th state of the United States.
1963: Buddhists are arrested and martial law is imposed in South Vietnam.
1983: Philippine opposition leader Benigno Aquino is assassinated as he steps from a plane in Manila after three years of self-imposed exile in the United States.
1986: More than 1700 people die when toxic gas erupts from a volcanic lake in the West African nation Cameroon.
1991: Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev returns to Moscow to reassert full control after failed coup.
1993: UN peacekeepers reach trapped Muslims in Mostar for the first time in two months and find 55,000 people on the verge of starvation.
1997: The newly appointed prime minister of Afghanistan, Abdur Rahim Gaffurzai, is killed along with 13 others in a plane crash.
2000: Efforts to reach the sunken Russian nuclear submarine Kursk end when divers say none of the 118 sailors on aboard survived the catastrophic explosion on the Barents Sea.
2001: Documents released by the National Security Archive, a US-based research organisation, show US officials knew of the Rwandan government’s involvement in the 1994 genocide.
2002: President Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan’s military ruler, announces he has amended the nation’s constitution to allow him to retain control over Parliament.
2003: French President Jacques Chirac gives a rare televised speech to address a heatwave that had caused an estimated 10,000 deaths in Europe over the first three weeks of August.
2007: Saddam Hussein’s cousin known as “Chemical Ali” and 14 others go on trial on charges of crimes against humanity in the brutal suppression of a Shi’ite uprising that killed tens of thousands after the 1991 Gulf War.
2011: Libyan rebels move into the capital Tripoli and move close to centre with little resistance from Muammar Gaddafi’s lessening defenders.
2015: Saudi-led coalition air strikes on the Yemeni city of Taiz leaves at least 65 civilians killed.
2017: The headless body of Swedish journalist Kim Wall is found in a Copenhagen bay. Wall was murdered and dismembered by Danish inventor Peter Madsen after he lured her onto his homemade submarine.

THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
“Happiness, it seems to me, consists of two things: first, in being where you belong, and second — and best — in comfortably going through everyday life, that is, having had a good night’s sleep and not being hurt by new shoes” — Theodor Fontane, German author (1819-1898).