Pop - Singer Kurt Calleja

Events in 1989 and 5-5

Events in the world in the birth year of Kurt Calleja

• US planes shoot down two Libyan fighters over international waters in Mediterranean (Jan. 4).
• Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini declares author Salman Rushdie's book The Satanic Verses offensive and sentences him to death (Feb. 14).
• Tens of thousands of Chinese students take over Beijing's Tiananmen Square in rally for democracy (April 19 et seq.). More than one million in Beijing demonstrate for democracy; chaos spreads across nation (mid-May et seq.). Thousands killed in Tiananmen Square as Chinese leaders take hard line toward demonstrators (June 4 et seq.).
• Mikhail S. Gorbachev named Soviet President (May 25).
• P. W. Botha quits as South Africa's President (Aug. 14).
• Deng Xiaoping resigns from China's leadership (Nov. 9).
• After 28 years, Berlin Wall is open to West (Nov. 11).
• Czech Parliament ends Communists' dominant role (Nov. 30).
• Romanian uprising overthrows Communist government (Dec. 15 et seq.); President Ceausescu and wife executed (Dec. 25).
• US troops invade Panama, seeking capture of General Manuel Noriega (Dec. 20).

Birthday Kurt Calleja (5-5) in history

• Day 5-5 year 1809: Mary Kies of South Killingly became the first woman to be granted a patent for the right to the technique of weaving straw with silk and thread.
• Day 5-5 year 1821: Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte passed away on the island of Saint Helena
• Day 5-5 year 1891: Carnegie Hall (then known as Music Hall) opened in New York City. Peter Tchaikovsky was the guest conductor.
• Day 5-5 year 1925: John Scopes was arrested in Tennessee for teaching Darwinism.
• Day 5-5 year 1961: Alan Shepard became the first American in space.
• Day 5-5 year 1981: Bobby Sands of the Irish Republican Army died in a prison hospital on the 66th day of his hunger strike.
• Day 5-5 year 2004: Pablo Picasso's "Boy with a Pipe" became the most expensive painting ever sold.