Way back when: Today in history
BY GENE CURTIS
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
2/27/13 at 2:26 AM
1991 - Gulf War ends
A cease-fire in the Persian Gulf War was ordered by President George H.W. Bush, who told the nation in a broadcast from the Oval Office that Kuwait had been liberated and the Iraqi army had been defeated. The president's order brought at least a temporary halt to allied attacks that began 43 days earlier. He said the cease fire was contingent on an end to Iraqi firing and Scud missile attacks, the release of allied military prisoners and Kuwaiti civilian hostages, and Iraq's compliance with U.N. resolutions.
1999 - Nigeria elects president
Former military ruler Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo, who claimed in his campaign that he was the only man capable of holding the fractious Nigerian government together, became the country's first elected president since 1983. Vote totals indicated the Obasanjo won 62 percent of the votes, compared with 38 percent for challenger, Olu Falae, who challenged the fairness of the vote. "What happened on Saturday was a farce, a charade," declared former Finance Minister Falae. "The degree of fraud was so monumental as to make nonsense of the entire process."
2004 - Ferry bombed
The bombing of a ferry carrying about 900 passengers in the worst terrorist attack in the Philippines killed 116 passengers but most of the passengers and the entire crew of 155 were rescued by jumping into the sea or boarding rescue boats. The steel-hulled Superferry 14, listing to starboard, was towed into a cove on the Bataan Peninsula, near the mouth of Manila Bay, where it lay on one side in shallow water, still smoldering. The Philippines was the site of the world's worst peacetime maritime disaster when a ferry sank after colliding with a fuel tanker in 1987, killing 4,340 people.
2010 - Quake hits Chile
One of the largest earthquakes ever recorded - measured at 8.8 - tore apart houses, bridges and highways, and left more than 500 dead and more than 200,000 homeless in Chile. It also triggered a tsunami that damaged nearby coasts and a warning for Pacific Ocean countries but that never materialized. Newly built apartment buildings slumped and fell. Flames devoured a prison. Millions of people fled into streets darkened by the failure of power lines. The collapse of bridges tossed and crushed cars and trucks, and complicated efforts to reach quake-damaged areas by road. President Michelle Bachelet declared a "state of catastrophe" in central Chile.
Associated Images:
The smoldering wreck of Superferry 14 rests in shallow water near Manila, Philippines. AP file
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