On This Day: Winston Churchill appointed British PM for a second time

The following are some of the major events to have occurred on October 26:

1905 – Revolutionary Russian workers in St Petersburg formed the first Soviet, or workers’ assembly, in a brief uprising.

1951 – Winston Churchill was appointed British prime minister for a second time after his Conservative party narrowly won an election.

1979 – South Korean President Park Chung-hee was shot and killed by his intelligence chief.

1994 – Israel and Jordan signed a peace treaty in a ceremony at their border attended by U.S. President Bill Clinton.

2000 – An Ilyushin-18 aircraft ploughed into a mountain in ex-Soviet Georgia, killing more than 80 people.

2001 – Veteran Afghan opposition commander Abdul Haq was captured and executed by Taliban troops while on a mission inside Afghanistan to gather support for a peace plan.

2002 – One hundred and twenty-nine out of a total of 750 hostages were killed when Russian special forces stormed a Moscow theatre at dawn to end a three-day siege by Chechen rebels. Two died of gunshot wounds, the rest of gas poisoning. Forty-one guerrillas were also killed.

2004 – The Israeli parliament approved Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s plan to withdraw from the occupied Gaza Strip and parts of the West Bank. Israel completed its troop withdrawal from Gaza in September 2005.

2013 – World record for largest harp ensemble set in Paraguay.

2015 – Powerful earthquake strikes remote Hindu Kush mountain area of Afghanistan with shockwaves in India and Pakistan.

2017 – Funeral of Thai King Bhumibol Adulyadej.

(Reuters)