Today in history, August 19: Woman is sentenced to death-by-stoning under Islamic law in Nigeria for giving birth to a child nine months after her divorce

Highlights in history on this date:

1840: The City of Adelaide is declared, four years after settlement.
1914: British Navy torpedoes and damages German battleship Westfalen in North Sea and the German fleet bombards English coast.
1918: Britain opens offensive on the Western front during WWI.
1929: Death of Sergei Diaghilev, Russian ballet impresario and director.
1930: The two halves of the Sydney Harbour Bridge are joined together.
1934: German plebiscite approves vesting of sole executive power in Adolf Hitler as Fuehrer.
1936: Leading Spanish writer Federico Garcia Lorca is shot by Fascist supporters of Franco after being forced to dig his own grave at the beginning of the civil war.
1942: Large raid by British and Canadian commandos on Dieppe, France, is repulsed with heavy casualties during WWII.
1945: Start of the August Revolution against French rule in Vietnam, led by Ho Chi Minh and the Viet Minh.
1953: The Soviet Union publicly acknowledges it has tested a hydrogen bomb.
1955: Hundreds are killed in anti-French rioting in Morocco and Algeria.
1958: Val McDonald arrives in Alice Springs to become the Northern Territory’s first fully fledged transport driver.
1960: Soviet Sputnik 5 satellite is launched into orbit carrying two dogs named Belka and Strelka.
1961: Australian TV current affairs program Four Corners makes its debut.
1966: Hundreds die during an earthquake in eastern Turkey.
1973: George Papadopoulos sworn in as president of Greece as the monarchy comes to an end.
1977: Death of US comedian-actor Groucho Marx.
1979: Pope John Paul II makes major diplomatic gesture by calling for resumption of ties between Vatican and China’s Roman Catholics.
1980: A fire incinerates 301 people on-board a Saudi Arabian airliner when it makes an emergency landing at Riyadh airport.
1987: Britain’s mass murderer Michael Ryan shoots dead 16 people during a rampage through Hungerford, west of London.
1995: In northern India, 348 people are killed when a passenger train rams another that had stopped on the tracks after hitting a cow.
2000: Harry Oppenheimer, the South African mining magnate who became chairman of Anglo American Corp and De Beers Consolidated Mines, dies. He was 91.
2002: A woman is sentenced to death-by-stoning under Islamic law in Nigeria for giving birth to a child nine months after her divorce.
2005: The first-ever joint military exercise between Russia and China, called Peace Mission 2005, begins.
2007: A major Gaza power company shuts off the last of its generators after Israel blocks the Nahal Oz fuel crossing the previous week because of security threats.
2008: Pirates seize a Malaysian palm oil tanker with a crew of 39 in the Gulf of Aden.
2011: Muammar Gaddafi’s forces fire rockets, mortar shells and anti-aircraft guns in a bid to keep the rebels from gaining complete control and advancing toward the capital, only 50 kilometres away.
2012: WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange says he is a victim of an American “witch-hunt”, from the balcony where he is holed-up at the Ecuadorean embassy in London.
2013: Waves of Syrian Kurds cross a bridge into northern Iraq to escape the war embattling President Bashar al-Assad.
2014: Egyptian attempts to broker an end to a month-long war between Israel and Hamas collapse in heavy fighting.
2015: Islamic State terrorists behead Syrian antiques scholar Khaled al-Asaad, 81, who spent most of his life looking after the ancient ruins of Palmyra.
2016: Australian mother Sara Connor and her British partner are arrested in Bali after the bashing death of a policeman on Kuta Beach.
2017: Left-wing groups and Berlin residents prevent more than 500 far-right extremists from marching to the place where high-ranking Nazi official Rudolf Hess died 30 years ago.
2018: India’s Kerala state is hit by its worst floods in a century, which leave 350 dead and force the evacuation of an estimated 800,000 people.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS:
Maria Jeanne Becu, Comtesse du Barry, French adventuress (1746-1793); Benjamin Harrison, 23rd US president (1833-1901); Orville Wright, US aviation pioneer (1871-1948); Georges Enescu, Romanian composer (1881-1955); Gabrielle `Coco’ Chanel, French fashion designer (1883-1971); Ogden Nash, US writer-poet (1902-1971); Frank McCourt, Irish author (1930-2009); Jill St John, US actor (1940-); Bill Clinton, former US president (1946-); John Deacon, British musician (Queen) (1951-); Brendan Nelson, Australian politician (1958-); John Stamos, US actor (1963-); Kyra Sedgwick, US actor (1965-); Lee Ann Womack, US singer (1966-); Matthew Perry, US actor (Friends) (1969-); Mary Joe Fernandez, US tennis player (1971-); Missy Higgins, Australian singer-songwriter (1983-); Tammin Sursok, Australian actor and singer (1983-).

THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
“One can live in the shadow of an idea without grasping it” — Elizabeth Bowen, Irish author.