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On This Day: Sichuan earthquake kills tens of thousands

On May 12, 2008, a magnitude-8 earthquake killed more than 69,000 people in China, with nearly 18,000 missing and hundreds of thousands homeless.

By UPI Staff
A man stops to look at a sidewalk photography exhibit of images taken after the killer May 12, 2008, earthquake hit Sichuan, in Beijing January 14, 2009. File Photo by Stephen Shaver/UPI
1 of 5 | A man stops to look at a sidewalk photography exhibit of images taken after the killer May 12, 2008, earthquake hit Sichuan, in Beijing January 14, 2009. File Photo by Stephen Shaver/UPI | License Photo

On this date in history:

In 1909, two giraffes, one leopard and one buffalo killed, and two leopard cubs captured were the latest additions to the former President Teddy Roosevelt's hunting trophies, according to reports out of Nairobi.

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In 1926, the British general strike, which had held the nation in its grip for more than 8 1/2 days, was called off.

In 1937, George VI was crowned king of England, succeeding his brother Edward, who abdicated to marry U.S. divorcee Wallis Simpson.

In 1949, Soviet authorities announced the end of a land blockade of Berlin. The blockade lasted 328 days but was neutralized by the Allies' Berlin airlift.

In 1975, a Cambodian gunboat fired on the U.S. cargo ship Mayaguez and forced it into a Cambodian port, setting off an international incident. Although authorities were to release the ship's crew members unharmed, a mission to rescue them led to many deaths among U.S. troops and others.

In 2000, Adam Petty, the fourth-generation driver of NASCAR's first family of racing, died after crashing into a wall during a practice session at New Hampshire International Speedway. He was 19.

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File Photo by Patrick Ward/UPI

In 2002, former President Jimmy Carter began a visit to Cuba. He was the first president, in or out of office, to visit the island since communists took over in 1959.

In 2007, about 100,000 people attended a "Family Day" rally in Rome to protest a move that would grant more rights to same-sex and unmarried couples in Italy.

In 2008, a magnitude-8 earthquake, China's deadliest in three decades, killed more than 69,000 people, with nearly 18,000 missing and hundreds of thousands homeless. It is often called the Great Sichuan Earthquake.

In 2010, a man armed with a meat cleaver entered a central China kindergarten classroom and slaughtered seven children, a teacher and her mother before taking his own life. Seventeen people died and about 100 were injured in five attacks in Chinese schools in a two-month period.

Extra security watches over students leaving school in Beijing on May 14, 2010, two days after an armed man attacked a kindergarten classroom. File Photo by Stephen Shaver/UPI
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In 2011, a German court sentenced John Demjanjuk, 91, to five years in prison for his role in killing 28,060 Jews as a World War II Nazi concentration camp guard in Poland. Demjanjuk, a Ukrainian who worked for decades in a U.S. auto plant, died the following year.

In 2013, 19 people were injured in what police said were gang-related shootings at a Mother's Day parade in New Orleans.

In 2014, authorities confirmed that Galindo Mellado Cruz, founder of the Zetas drug cartel, was killed three days earlier in a gunbattle with the Mexican army.

In 2016, Vice President Michel Temer became Brazil's interim president after the Senate voted to proceed with an impeachment trial for Dilma Rousseff.

File Photo by Monika Graff/UPI

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