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 Kassaï. 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.
Read the rest of this article:
<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using material from an unpublished manuscript that she originally wrote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>
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