Flashback

Today is Saturday, Aug. 27, the 239th day of 2005. There are 126 days left in the year.

Today’s highlight in history: On Aug. 27, 1945, American troops began landing in Japan following the surrender of the Japanese government in World War II.

Ten years ago: American and Chinese officials agreed to begin planning a fall summit between President Clinton and Chinese President Jiang Zemin.

Five years ago: Continuing a two-day visit to Nigeria, President Clinton said Africans had to “break the silence” about AIDS or risk losing hard-fought democratic and economic gains. Fire broke out in Moscow’s landmark Ostankino television tower, killing three people. A botched Israeli military raid on an Islamic militant hide-out in the West Bank ended with three Israeli soldiers being accidentally killed by their comrades.

One year ago: President Bush signed executive orders designed to strengthen the CIA director’s power over the nation’s intelligence agencies and create a national counterterrorism center. Three students were killed in a fire at a University of Mississippi fraternity house.

On this date:

In 1770, German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was born in Stuttgart.

In 1883, the island volcano Krakatoa blew up; the resulting tidal waves in Indonesia’s Sunda Strait claimed some 36,000 lives in Java and Sumatra.

In 1892, fire seriously damaged New York’s original Metropolitan Opera House.

In 1894, Congress passed the Wilson-Gorman Tariff Act, which contained a provision for a graduated income tax that was later struck down by the Supreme Court.

In 1908, Lyndon B. Johnson, the 36th president of the United States, was born near Stonewall, Texas.

In 1928, the Kellogg-Briand Pact was signed in Paris, outlawing war and providing for the peaceful settlement of disputes.

In 1962, the United States launched the Mariner II space probe, which flew past Venus in December.

In 1967, Brian Epstein, manager of the Beatles, was found dead in his London flat from an overdose of sleeping pills.

In 1975, Haile Selassie, the last emperor of Ethiopia’s 3,000-year-old monarchy, died in Addis Ababa at age 83 almost a year after being overthrown.

In 1979, British war hero Lord Louis Mountbatten was killed off the coast of Ireland in a boat explosion claimed by the Irish Republican Army.