Saint-Sylvestre coup d'état was a coup d'état staged by Jean-Bédel Bokassa, leader of the Central African Republic army, and his military officers against the government of President David Dacko on 31 December 1965 and 1 January 1966. Dacko was aware that Bokassa had made plans to take over his government, and countered by forming the gendarmerie headed by Jean Izamo. Bokassa and his men started the coup on New Year's Eve in 1965 by first capturing Izamo and locking him in a cellar at Camp de Roux. They then occupied the capital, Bangui, and overpowered the gendarmerie and other resistance. After midnight, Dacko was arrested and forced to resign from office and then imprisoned at Camp Kassaď. According to official reports, eight people died while resisting the coup. Izamo was tortured to death within a month, but Dacko's life was spared due to foreign intervention. Soon after the coup, Bokassa dissolved the National Assembly, abolished the Constitution and issued a number of decrees, banning begging, female circumcision, and polygamy, among other things. Bokassa initially struggled to obtain international recognition for his regime, but the new government eventually obtained recognition from other African nations.

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<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint-Sylvestre_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat>

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Today's selected anniversaries:

1077:

Walk to Canossa: Pope Gregory VII lifted the excommunication of Henry IV after the Holy Roman Emperor made his trek from Speyer to Canossa Castle to beg the pope for forgiveness for his actions in the Investiture Controversy.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walk_to_Canossa>

1547:

Nine-year-old Edward VI became the first Protestant ruler of England, during whose reign Protestantism was established for the first time in the country with reforms that included the abolition of clerical celibacy and the mass.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_VI_of_England>

1754:

Horace Walpole first coined the word "serendipity" in a letter he wrote to a friend, saying that he derived the term from the Persian fairy tale The Three Princes of Serendip.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horace_Walpole%2C_4th_Earl_of_Orford>

1813:

The novel Pride and Prejudice by English author Jane Austen was published, using material from an unpublished manuscript that she originally wrote between 1796 and 1797.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pride_and_Prejudice>

1855:

A train on the Panama Railway made the world's first transcontinental crossing, a {{convert|48|mi|adj=on}} trip from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean across the Isthmus of Panama.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panama_Railway>

1986:

The NASA Space Shuttle Challenger disintegrated 73 seconds into its tenth mission, killing all seven crew members.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Challenger_disaster>

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Wiktionary's word of the day:

humdrum (adj):
Lacking variety or excitement; dull; boring
<http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/humdrum>

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Wikiquote quote of the day:

For the sincere friend
 Who gives me his frank hand.
 And for the cruel man who pulls out of me
 the heart with which I live,
 I grow neither nettles nor thorns:
 I grow a white rose.   --José Martí
<http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Mart%C3%AD>