The arrest and assassination of Ngo Dinh Diem, then president of South Vietnam, marked the culmination of a successful coup d'état led by General Duong Van Minh in November 1963. On the morning of November 2, 1963, Diem and his adviser and younger brother Ngo Dinh Nhu were arrested after the Army of the Republic of Vietnam had been successful in a bloody overnight siege on Gia Long Palace in Saigon. The coup was the end result of nine years of autocratic and nepotistic family rule in South Vietnam. Discontent with the Diem regime had been simmering below the surface, and exploded with mass Buddhist protests against long running religious discrimination after the government shooting of protesters who defied a ban on the flying of the Buddhist flag. However, when rebel forces entered the palace, the brothers were not present, as they had escaped the previous night to a loyalist shelter in Cholon. The brothers had kept in communication with the rebels through a direct link from the shelter to the palace, and misled them into believing that they were still in the palace. Soon after, the Ngo brothers agreed to surrender and were promised safe exile; after being arrested, they were instead executed in the back of an armoured personnel carrier by ARVN officers on the journey back to military headquarters at Tan Son Nhut Air Base.

Read the rest of this article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrest_and_assassination_of_Ngo_Dinh_Diem

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1795: French Revolution: Under the terms of a new constitution that was ratified during the aftermath of the Reign of Terror and the subsequent Thermidorian Reaction, the Directory succeeded the National Convention as the executive government of France. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Directory)

1917: British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour issued the Balfour Declaration, proclaiming British support for the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balfour_Declaration_of_1917)

1936: BBC Television Service launched the world's first regular, public, high-definition television service. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_One)

1947: American industrialist and aviator Howard Hughes flew Spruce Goose, the largest flying boat ever built, on its maiden flight from the coast of Long Beach, California, USA. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hughes_H-4_Hercules)

2000: Expedition 1: American astronaut William Shepherd and Russian cosmonauts Sergei Krikalev and Yuri Gidzenko became the first resident crew to arrive at the International Space Station. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Space_Station)

_____________________ Wiktionary's Word of the day:

tmesis: (prosody) The insertion of one or more words between the components of a compound word. (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/tmesis)

_____________________ Wikiquote of the day:

By the theory of our Government majorities rule, but this right is not an arbitrary or unlimited one. It is a right to be exercised in subordination to the Constitution and in conformity to it. One great object of the Constitution was to restrain majorities from oppressing minorities or encroaching upon their just rights. Minorities have a right to appeal to the Constitution as a shield against such oppression. -- James K. Polk (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/James_K._Polk