Today in History: Death of Idi Amin of Uganda

The following are some of the major events to have occurred on August 16:

1600s – Annual bareback horse race in Siena’s central square, dating back to the 1600s.

1896 - Gold first discovered in Klondike, found at Bonanza Creek in the Yukon, Canada by George Carmack.

1945 - Puyi, the last Chinese Emperor and ruler of Manchukuo is captured by Soviet troops.

1948 – American baseball player George Herman (Babe) Ruth died in New York City.

1949 – U.S. journalist-author Margaret Mitchell died. She wrote only one novel — “Gone with the Wind”.

1977 – Elvis Presley died aged 42 from heart failure brought on by abuse of prescribed drugs.

1996 – Leonel Fernandez, a 42-year-old lawyer who grew up in New York City, became the 100th president of the Dominican Republic.

2002 – Palestinian Abu Nidal, the world’s most prolific and hotly pursued guerrilla mastermind, died aged 65. Abu Nidal, whose real name was Sabri al-Bana, headed a group called Fatah-The Revolutionary Council.

2003 – Idi Amin died. Amin, a one-time army boxing champion who became one of Africa’s bloodiest despots, ruled Uganda from 1971 for 8 years.

2004 – The United States said it would withdraw about 70,000 troops from Europe and Asia in a major restructuring of military forces prompted by the end of the Cold War.

2005 – Brother Roger, one of the 20th century’s leading ecumenical figures, was stabbed to death by a woman during a service at the Taize community he founded in eastern France.

2012 – South African police open fire against thousands of striking miners in Rustenburg.

(Reuters)