On This Day, Dec. 27: Beirut car bomb kills former ambassador

Dec. 27 (UPI) -- On this date in history:

In 1932, Radio City Music Hall opened in New York.

In 1941, Japanese warplanes bombed Manila in the Philippines even though it had been declared an "open city." United Press correspondent Frank Hewlett described the damage to Santo Domingo church, a convent and girls' college.

In 1968, the Apollo 8 astronauts -- Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, William Anders -- returned to Earth after orbiting the moon 10 times in a flight that helped open the way for moon-landing missions.

In 1983, Pope John Paul II met privately in a jail cell with Mehmet Ali Agca, the Turkish man who shot and attempted to assassinate the pontiff in 1981. The pope pardoned the 25-year-old.

UPI File Photo

In 1985, gunmen opened fire at El Al ticket counters at airports in Rome and Vienna, killing 20 people and injuring more than 100.

In 1991, a Scandinavian Airlines jet with 129 people aboard crashed and broke apart after taking off from Stockholm. No one died in the incident.

In 1992, Port Authority police arrested singer Harry Connick Jr. for attempting to board a plane at JFK International Airport with an unloaded gun. The court dropped the charges after the singer agreed to make a public service announcement about the dangers of breaking gun laws.

File Photo by H. Ruckemann/UPI

In 2007, former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, first woman to hold that post in an Islamic state, was assassinated in a suicide attack as she left a political rally in Rawalpindi. Police said she was shot twice by a gunman who then set off a bomb in her motorcade, killing another 20 people.

In 2008, 225 people died when Israeli jets bombed Gaza in retaliation for Hamas-fired rockets, Israeli and Palestinian sources said. At least 300 people were injured.

In 2013, a car bomb in Beirut killed seven people, including Mohamad Chatah, Lebanon's former ambassador to the United States. Dozens of others were injured in the attack, which officials said targeted Chatah's convoy in the central section of the city.

In 2015, Iraqi security forces retook control of Ramadi from Islamic State militants.

In 2020, President Donald Trump signed legislation establishing New River Gorge in West Virginia a national park and preserve.