Tony Blair is the current Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. He has led the Labour Party since July 1994, and brought Labour into power with a landslide victory in the 1997 general election, replacing John Major as Prime Minister and ending 18 years of Conservative government. He is now the Labour Party's longest-serving Prime Minister. He moved the Labour Party towards the centre of British politics, using the term "New Labour" to distinguish what he calls "modern social democracy" and his party's refusal to reverse privatisation and support for a market economy from its past belief in nationalisation and Fabian socialism. Since the advent of the "War on Terror" much of his agenda has been dominated by foreign affairs and he has supported many aspects of the foreign policy of George W. Bush. His party won an unprecedented third term in the 2005 general election, but its majority in the House of Commons was reduced considerably.

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_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1794: Reign of Terror leader Maximilien Robespierre was guillotined. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximilien_Robespierre)

1914: Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, starting World War I. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I)

1976: The Tangshan earthquake measuring between 7.8 and 8.2 magnitude flattened Tangshan, China, killing 242,769 and injuring 164,851. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tangshan_earthquake)

1990: Alberto Fujimori became President of Peru and the first person of East Asian descent to become executive head of state of a non-Asian nation. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alberto_Fujimori)

1996: The remains of the prehistoric Kennewick Man were discovered. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kennewick_Man)

_____________________ Wikiquote of the day:

"Whenever a theory appears to you as the only possible one, take this as a sign that you have neither understood the theory nor the problem which it was intended to solve." -- Karl Popper (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Karl_Popper)