Today in history, November 8: West and East Germany end 23 years of Cold War antagonism, Donald Trump is elected US's 45th president

West and East Germany end 23 years of Cold War antagonism by signing a good-neighbour treaty pledging mutual respect for each other and Donald Trump is elected US's 45th president

1793: Louvre Museum in Paris opens to public.
1895: Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen, German physicist, discovers X-rays.
1923: Adolf Hitler stages unsuccessful coup in Munich that comes to be known as the Beer-Hall Putsch.
1933: Nadir Shah, ruler of Afghanistan, is assassinated and succeeded by his son, Mohammed Zahir Shah.
1939: Seven people are killed when bomb explodes at Buergerbraukeller in Munich just after Hitler delivers speech on the anniversary of the abortive 1923 putsch.
1942: Allied forces begin landings in North Africa, beginning the Algeria-Morocco campaign of World War II.
1944: The Tasmanian Australian National Football League is instituted.
1960: John F. Kennedy elected US president.

1972: West and East Germany end 23 years of Cold War antagonism by signing a good-neighbour treaty pledging mutual respect for each other.
1978: Pope John Paul II calls human rights “the great effort of our time”.
1988: Nearly 9000 foreign tourists are evacuated from Sri Lankan beach resorts after Sinhalese extremists threaten to attack South Coast hotels.
1989: Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega offers to end arms imports to his country in exchange for demobilisation of Contra rebels.
1990: US President George Bush orders 200,000 more US troops to the Persian Gulf in preparation for an attack on Iraq.
1992: Japanese escort ship collides with a Greenpeace boat tracking a freighter loaded with plutonium.
1994: France arrests 95 people in its biggest sweep against Islamic militants.
1998: In Bangladesh, 15 former military commanders are sentenced to death for the 1975 assassination of the country’s first prime minister.
2000: Canadian writer Margaret Atwood wins Britain’s coveted Booker Prize for her novel The Blind Assassin.
2 001: The discovery of eight remains — five skeletons and the partially clad bodies of three young women — in Mexico ignites fear that a series of 57 rape-murders did not end in the 1990s.
2003: A car bomb detonates in a residential compound in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, killing at least 17 people and wounding more than 120 others. Most of the victims are believed to be Arab Muslims.
2004: Muslim groups ask the Dutch government to protect Islamic sites after an elementary school is bombed — the latest in escalating tensions following the killing of a filmmaker, allegedly by an Islamic radical.
2005: France declares a state of emergency after nearly two weeks of rioting in heavily immigrant suburbs of Paris and other cities.

2009: Iraq’s parliament ends weeks of debate and passes a long-delayed law paving the way for the planned January election to go forward, sidestepping a crisis that could have delayed the US troop withdrawal.
2 010: Scientists at the world’s largest atom smasher in Geneva say they have succeeded in recreating conditions shortly after the Big Bang.
2012: Iran bans the import of 75 luxury products as Western economic sanctions increasingly choke off its commerce and critical oil revenue.
2013: The Qantas heavy maintenance base at Avalon closes with the loss of 300 jobs.
2015: Detainees riot at Christmas Island following the death of asylum seeker Fazel Chegeni after he escaped from a detention centre.
2016: US Republican Donald Trump is elected the nation’s 45th president after a close and often highly animated contest with his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.

THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
“Man is born to live, not to prepare for life.” — Boris Pasternak, Russian author (1890-1960).