1.
1996
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January 3 – Motorola introduces the Motorola StarTAC Wearable Cellular Telephone, the worlds smallest and lightest mobile phone to date. January 4 – Hosni Mubarak, the president of Egypt, appoints a new government in response to accusations of corruption in the elections in late 1995. January 5 – Hamas operative Yahya Ayyash is assassinated by an Israeli Shabak-planted, january 7 – One of the worst blizzards in American history hits the eastern states, killing more than 150 people. Philadelphia receives a record 30.7 inches of snowfall, New York Citys public schools close for the first time in 18 years, january 8 – A Zairean cargo plane crashes into a crowded market in the center of the capital Kinshasa, killing 300. January 9–January 20 – Serious fighting breaks out between Russian soldiers and rebel fighters in Chechnya, january 11 – Ryutaro Hashimoto, leader of the Liberal Democratic Party, becomes Prime Minister of Japan. January 13 – Italys prime minister, Lamberto Dini, resigns after the failure of all-party talks to confirm him, New talks are initiated by president Oscar Luigi Scalfaro to form a new government. January 14 – Jorge Sampaio is elected president of Portugal, january 16 – President of Sierra Leone Valentine Strasser is deposed by the chief of defence, Julius Maada Bio. Bio promises to power following elections scheduled for February. The North Cape Barge is pulled along with it and leaks 820,000 gallons of heating oil. An Indonesian ferry sinks off the tip of Sumatra, drowning more than 100 people. January 20 – Yasser Arafat is re-elected president of the Palestinian Authority, january 21 – France undertakes its last nuclear weapon test. January 22 – Andreas Papandreou, Prime Minister of Greece, resigns due to health problems, january 24 – Polish Premier Józef Oleksy resigns amid charges that he spied for Moscow. He is replaced by Włodzimierz Cimoszewicz, january 26 – Whitewater scandal, U. S. First Lady Hillary Clinton testifies before a grand jury, january 27 – Colonel Ibrahim Baré Maïnassara deposes the first democratically elected president of Niger, Mahamane Ousmane, in a military coup. January 29 President Jacques Chirac announces an end to French nuclear testing. Fire destroys La Fenice, Venices opera house, january 30 – Irish National Liberation Army leader Gino Gallagher is killed in an internal feud. January 30–February 5 – Sarah Balabagan is caned in the United Arab Emirates, january 31 Colombo Central Bank bombing, an explosives-filled truck rams into the gates of the Central Bank in Colombo, Sri Lanka, killing at least 86 and injuring 1,400. An explosion in Shaoyang, China kills 122 and injures over 400 when 10 short tons of dynamite in an explosives warehouse underneath an apartment building detonate
2.
Australia
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Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and numerous smaller islands. It is the worlds sixth-largest country by total area, the neighbouring countries are Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and East Timor to the north, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu to the north-east, and New Zealand to the south-east. Australias capital is Canberra, and its largest urban area is Sydney, for about 50,000 years before the first British settlement in the late 18th century, Australia was inhabited by indigenous Australians, who spoke languages classifiable into roughly 250 groups. The population grew steadily in subsequent decades, and by the 1850s most of the continent had been explored, on 1 January 1901, the six colonies federated, forming the Commonwealth of Australia. Australia has since maintained a liberal democratic political system that functions as a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy comprising six states. The population of 24 million is highly urbanised and heavily concentrated on the eastern seaboard, Australia has the worlds 13th-largest economy and ninth-highest per capita income. With the second-highest human development index globally, the country highly in quality of life, health, education, economic freedom. The name Australia is derived from the Latin Terra Australis a name used for putative lands in the southern hemisphere since ancient times, the Dutch adjectival form Australische was used in a Dutch book in Batavia in 1638, to refer to the newly discovered lands to the south. On 12 December 1817, Macquarie recommended to the Colonial Office that it be formally adopted, in 1824, the Admiralty agreed that the continent should be known officially as Australia. The first official published use of the term Australia came with the 1830 publication of The Australia Directory and these first inhabitants may have been ancestors of modern Indigenous Australians. The Torres Strait Islanders, ethnically Melanesian, were originally horticulturists, the northern coasts and waters of Australia were visited sporadically by fishermen from Maritime Southeast Asia. The first recorded European sighting of the Australian mainland, and the first recorded European landfall on the Australian continent, are attributed to the Dutch. The first ship and crew to chart the Australian coast and meet with Aboriginal people was the Duyfken captained by Dutch navigator, Willem Janszoon. He sighted the coast of Cape York Peninsula in early 1606, the Dutch charted the whole of the western and northern coastlines and named the island continent New Holland during the 17th century, but made no attempt at settlement. William Dampier, an English explorer and privateer, landed on the north-west coast of New Holland in 1688, in 1770, James Cook sailed along and mapped the east coast, which he named New South Wales and claimed for Great Britain. The first settlement led to the foundation of Sydney, and the exploration, a British settlement was established in Van Diemens Land, now known as Tasmania, in 1803, and it became a separate colony in 1825. The United Kingdom formally claimed the part of Western Australia in 1828. Separate colonies were carved from parts of New South Wales, South Australia in 1836, Victoria in 1851, the Northern Territory was founded in 1911 when it was excised from South Australia
3.
Monarch
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A monarch is the sovereign head of state in a monarchy. A monarch may exercise the highest authority and power in the state, alternatively, an individual may become monarch by conquest, acclamation or a combination of means. A monarch usually reigns for life or until abdication, if a young child is crowned the monarch, a regent is often appointed to govern until the monarch reaches the requisite adult age to rule. A monarch can reign in multiple monarchies simultaneously, for example, the monarchy of Canada and the monarchy of the United Kingdom are separate states, but they share the same monarch through personal union. Monarchs, as such, bear a variety of titles — king or queen, prince or princess, emperor or empress, archduke, duke or grand duke, Prince is sometimes used as a generic term to refer to any monarch regardless of title, especially in older texts. A king can also be a husband and a queen can be a kings wife. If both people in a reign, neither person is generally considered to be a consort. Monarchy is political or sociocultural in nature, and is associated with hereditary rule. Most monarchs, both historically and in the present day, have been born and brought up within a royal family, different systems of succession have been used, such as proximity of blood, primogeniture, agnatic seniority, Salic law, etc. In an elective monarchy, the monarch is elected but otherwise serves as any other monarch, historical examples of elective monarchy include the Holy Roman Emperors and the free election of kings of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. In recent centuries, many states have abolished the monarchy and become republics, advocacy of government by a republic is called republicanism, while advocacy of monarchy is called monarchism. A principal advantage of hereditary monarchy is the continuity of national leadership. In cases where the monarch serves mostly as a ceremonial figure real leadership does not depend on the monarch, a form of government may in fact be hereditary without being considered monarchy, such as a family dictatorship. Monarchies take a variety of forms, such as the two co-princes of Andorra, positions held simultaneously by the Roman Catholic Bishop of Urgel and the elected President of France. Similarly, the Yang di-Pertuan Agong of Malaysia is considered a monarch despite only holding the position for five years at a time, hereditary succession within one patrilineal family has been most common, with preference for children over siblings, sons over daughters. Other European realms practice one form or another of primogeniture, whereunder a lord was succeeded by his eldest son or, if he had none, by his brother, the system of tanistry was semi-elective and gave weight also to ability and merit. The Salic law, practiced in France and in the Italian territories of the House of Savoy, in most fiefs, in the event of the demise of all legitimate male members of the patrilineage, a female of the family could succeed. Spain today continues this model of succession law, in the form of cognatic primogeniture, in more complex medieval cases, the sometimes conflicting principles of proximity and primogeniture battled, and outcomes were often idiosyncratic
4.
Elizabeth II
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Elizabeth II has been Queen of the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand since 6 February 1952. Elizabeth was born in London as the eldest child of the Duke and Duchess of York, later King George VI and Queen Elizabeth and her father acceded to the throne on the abdication of his brother Edward VIII in 1936, from which time she was the heir presumptive. She began to undertake duties during the Second World War. Elizabeths many historic visits and meetings include a visit to the Republic of Ireland. She has seen major changes, such as devolution in the United Kingdom, Canadian patriation. She has reigned through various wars and conflicts involving many of her realms and she is the worlds oldest reigning monarch as well as Britains longest-lived. In October 2016, she became the longest currently reigning monarch, in 2017 she became the first British monarch to commemorate a Sapphire Jubilee. Elizabeth has occasionally faced republican sentiments and press criticism of the family, however, support for the monarchy remains high. Elizabeth was born at 02,40 on 21 April 1926, during the reign of her paternal grandfather and her father, Prince Albert, Duke of York, was the second son of the King. Her mother, Elizabeth, Duchess of York, was the youngest daughter of Scottish aristocrat Claude Bowes-Lyon, 14th Earl of Strathmore and she was delivered by Caesarean section at her maternal grandfathers London house,17 Bruton Street, Mayfair. Elizabeths only sibling, Princess Margaret, was born in 1930, the two princesses were educated at home under the supervision of their mother and their governess, Marion Crawford, who was casually known as Crawfie. Lessons concentrated on history, language, literature and music, Crawford published a biography of Elizabeth and Margarets childhood years entitled The Little Princesses in 1950, much to the dismay of the royal family. The book describes Elizabeths love of horses and dogs, her orderliness, others echoed such observations, Winston Churchill described Elizabeth when she was two as a character. She has an air of authority and reflectiveness astonishing in an infant and her cousin Margaret Rhodes described her as a jolly little girl, but fundamentally sensible and well-behaved. During her grandfathers reign, Elizabeth was third in the line of succession to the throne, behind her uncle Edward, Prince of Wales, and her father, the Duke of York. Although her birth generated public interest, she was not expected to become queen, many people believed that he would marry and have children of his own. When her grandfather died in 1936 and her uncle succeeded as Edward VIII, she became second-in-line to the throne, later that year, Edward abdicated, after his proposed marriage to divorced socialite Wallis Simpson provoked a constitutional crisis. Consequently, Elizabeths father became king, and she became heir presumptive, if her parents had had a later son, she would have lost her position as first-in-line, as her brother would have been heir apparent and above her in the line of succession
5.
Governor-general
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Governor-General or governor general, in modern usage, is the title of an office-holder appointed to represent the monarch of a sovereign state in the governing of an independent realm. Governors-General have also previously been appointed in respect of major colonial states or other territories held by either a monarchy or republic, in modern usage, the term governor-general originated in those British colonies which became self-governing within the British Empire. In these cases, the Crowns representative in the federated Dominion was given the title of governor general. Another non-federal state, Newfoundland, was a Dominion for 16 years with the Kings representative retaining the title of governor throughout this time, since 2016, the title governor-general has been given to all representatives of the sovereign in independent Commonwealth realms. In these countries the governor-general acts as the representative, performing the ceremonial and constitutional functions of a head of state. The only other nation which uses the designation is Iran. In Iran, the authority is headed by a governor general. As such they held the prerogative powers of the monarch. The monarch or imperial government could overrule any governor-general, though this could often be cumbersome, the governors-general are entitled to wear a unique uniform, which are not generally worn today. If of the rank of general, equivalent or above. The report resulting from the 1926 Imperial Conference stated, in other words, the political reality of a self-governing Dominion within the British Empire with a governor-general answerable to the sovereign became clear. British interference in the Dominion was not acceptable and independent country status was clearly displayed, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand were clearly not controlled by the United Kingdom. The governor-general, however, is appointed by the monarch. Executive authority is vested in the monarch, though much of it can be exercisable only by the governor-general on behalf of the sovereign of the independent realm. Except in rare cases, the only acts in accordance with constitutional convention and upon the advice of the national prime minister. The governor-general is still the representative of the sovereign and performs the same duties as they carried out historically. In some realms, the monarch could in principle overrule a governor-general, in Australia the present Queen is generally assumed to be head of state, since the governor-general and the state governors are defined as her representatives. However, since the governor-general performs almost all national regal functions, to a lesser extent, uncertainty has been expressed in Canada as to which officeholder—the monarch, the governor general, or both—can be considered the head of state
6.
Bill Hayden
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William George Bill Hayden AC is an Australian politician who was the 21st Governor-General of Australia from 1989 to 1996. He was previously the Leader of the Labor Party and Leader of the Opposition from 1977 to 1983, earlier he had briefly been the Treasurer of Australia under Gough Whitlam in 1975. Born in Brisbane, Bill Hayden was the son of George Hayden, an Irish-American sailor originally from Oakland, California, Hayden was educated at Brisbane State High School, played soccer for Eastern Suburbs FC and served in the Queensland Police Force from 1953 to 1961. He continued his education privately, completing a degree at the University of Queensland. Prior to the 1970s, he was a democratic socialist. During the late 1950s he became active in the Labor Party, in the 1961 federal election he surprised almost everyone, including himself, by winning the House of Representatives seat of Oxley, located in southwest Brisbane. He ousted Don Cameron, the Minister for Health in the Menzies Liberal government, Haydens win was part of a 15-seat swing to Labor that nearly brought down the Menzies government. One of the youngest members of the legislature, Hayden proved to be a diligent, in 1969 he became a member of the Opposition front bench. On 6 June 1975 he succeeded Jim Cairns as Treasurer, a position he held until the Whitlam government was dismissed by the Governor-General, Sir John Kerr, on 11 November 1975. Labor suffered its worst-ever defeat in the election held a month later, the Liberals Malcolm Fraser became Prime Minister, when Labor lost the 1977 election in yet another landslide, Whitlam retired as leader and Hayden was elected to succeed him. His political views had become more moderate, and he advocated economic policies which encompassed the private sector, several opinion polls during early 1980 showed the ALP under Hayden neck-and-neck with, or actually ahead of, Frasers administration. Labor finished a mere 0.8 percent behind Frasers government on the two-party vote, yet, due to the geographically uneven nature of the swing, Labor fell 12 seats short of toppling the Coalition. Hayden did, however, manage to slash Frasers majority, from 48 seats to 21 and he not only regained most of what Labor had lost in the previous two elections, but put the party within striking distance of winning the next election. By 1982 it was evident that Fraser was manoeuvring to call an early election, but the main threat to Hayden came less from Fraser than from elements in Haydens own party. Bob Hawke, a union leader who had been elected to Parliament two years earlier, began mobilising his supporters to challenge Haydens leadership. On 16 July 1982 Hayden narrowly defeated a challenge by Hawke in a party ballot, in December Labor surprised many pundits by its failure to win the vital Flinders by-election in Victoria, further raising doubts about Haydens ability to lead the ALP to power. On 3 February 1983, in a meeting in Brisbane, various leading Labor figures, including Paul Keating and Senator John Button, Hawke was then elected leader unopposed. Later that morning, unaware of the events in Brisbane, Fraser in Canberra called an election for 5 March
7.
William Deane
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Sir William Patrick Deane AC, KBE, QC is a former Australian judge and was the 22nd Governor-General of Australia. William Deane was born in the Melbourne suburb of St Kilda and he was educated at Catholic schools, including St Josephs College, Hunters Hill, and at the University of Sydney, where he graduated in arts and law. He also attended the Hague Academy of International Law, after graduation, Deane worked in the federal Attorney-Generals Department in Canberra and at the law firm Minter Simpson. He also travelled to Europe to study international law and he was called to the Sydney Bar in 1957 and also lectured in law at university. During this time, Deane was active in the Catholic community, in 1955 he briefly became a member of the Democratic Labor Party, a predominantly Catholic and anti-Communist breakaway from the Australian Labor Party. In June 1982 he was appointed to the High Court of Australia and he received a knighthood in August 1982. On the court he formed part of the majority which recognised native title in the landmark Mabo case of 1992. In August 1995, the Labor Prime Minister, Paul Keating, Deane retired from the High Court in November and was sworn in as Governor-General on 16 February 1996. Less than a month later the Liberal/National coalition led by John Howard defeated Keatings government in the Australian federal election,1996, Deane officially opened the 2000 Summer Olympics held in Sydney. He is also a Patron of Reconciliation Australia and of the Australian Indigenous Doctors Association, Government appointed him as Patron of the National Capitals 2013 Centenary Celebrations. He is a former Patron and Chair of international aid-organization CARE Australia, Deane was appointed a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire on 10 August 1982, a few weeks after being appointed to the High Court. On Australia Day 1988, he was made a Companion of the Order of Australia and he is also a Knight Commander with Star of the Papal Order of St. Gregory the Great and a Knight of the Venerable Order of St. John. In 2001, Deane was awarded the Sydney Peace Prize for his consistent support of vulnerable and disadvantaged Australians, governor General of Australia – Official biography of Sir William Deane and Lady Deane, published by Government House, Canberra. A Mirror to the People, documentary film on the Office of Governor-General of Australia, featuring Deane, Zelman Cowen, High Court biography Retrieved 20 August 2014
8.
Prime minister
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A prime minister is the most senior minister of cabinet in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. In many systems, the prime minister selects and may dismiss members of the cabinet. In most systems, the minister is the presiding member. In parliamentary systems fashioned after the Westminster system, the minister is the presiding and actual head of government. In such systems, the head of state or the head of states official representative usually holds a ceremonial position. The prime minister is often, but not always, a member of the Legislature or the Lower House thereof and is expected with other ministers to ensure the passage of bills through the legislature. In some monarchies the monarch may also exercise powers that are constitutionally vested in the crown. The first actual usage of the prime minister or Premier Ministre was used by Cardinal Richelieu when in 1625 he was named to head the royal council as prime minister of France. Louis XIV and his descendants generally attempted to avoid giving this title to their chief ministers, the term prime minister in the sense that we know it originated in the 18th century in the United Kingdom when members of parliament disparagingly used the title in reference to Sir Robert Walpole. Over time, however, the title became honorific and remains so in the 21st century, the monarchs of England and the United Kingdom had ministers in whom they placed special trust and who were regarded as the head of the government. Examples were Thomas Cromwell under Henry VIII, William Cecil, Lord Burghley under Elizabeth I, Clarendon under Charles II and these ministers held a variety of formal posts, but were commonly known as the minister, the chief minister, the first minister and finally the prime minister. The power of ministers depended entirely on the personal favour of the monarch. Although managing the parliament was among the skills of holding high office. Although there was a cabinet, it was appointed entirely by the monarch, when the monarch grew tired of a first minister, he or she could be dismissed, or worse, Cromwell was executed and Clarendon driven into exile when they lost favour. Kings sometimes divided power equally between two or more ministers to prevent one minister from becoming too powerful, late in Annes reign, for example, the Tory ministers Harley and St John shared power. The monarch could no longer any law or impose any tax without its permission. It is at point that a modern style of prime minister begins to emerge. A tipping point in the evolution of the prime ministership came with the death of Anne in 1714, George spoke no English, spent much of his time at his home in Hanover, and had neither knowledge of, nor interest in, the details of English government
9.
Paul Keating
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Paul John Keating is an Australian politician who was the 24th Prime Minister of Australia and the Leader of the Labor Party from 1991 to 1996. Keating was appointed Treasurer by newly elected Prime Minister Hawke in 1983, although lacking any formal education in economics, Keating went on to become arguably one of the most reforming Treasurers in Australian history. In 1990 he was elected Deputy Leader of the Labor Party, Keating later challenged Hawke for the leadership in June 1991, and resigned from the ministry following defeat. Six months later he challenged Hawke again, this time successfully, Policy package, despite consistently poor government opinion polls following the effects of the early 1990s recession. After being resoundingly defeated by John Howard at the 1996 election, Keating resigned as Prime Minister, Keating grew up in Bankstown, a working-class suburb of Sydney. He was one of four born to Matthew Keating, a boilermaker and trade union representative of Irish Catholic descent. His siblings include Anne Keating, a director and businesswoman. He then worked as assistant for a trade union, having joined the Labor Party as soon as he was eligible. In 1966, he became president of NSW Young Labor, in the 1960s, Keating also managed rock band The Ramrods. Through his contacts in the unions and the NSW Young Labor Council, Keating met future senior Labor figures such as Laurie Brereton, Graham Richardson and he also developed a friendship with former New South Wales Premier Jack Lang. In 1971, he succeeded in having Lang re-admitted to the Labor Party, after Labors defeat in the election one month later, Keating was promoted to become an opposition spokesman, as an opposition spokesman, his parliamentary style was that of an aggressive debater. In 1981, he was elected president of the New South Wales Labor Party, however, by 1982, his faction had swung behind Hawke, and Keating endorsed his challenge. The formal announcement of Keatings support for Hawke was written by a fellow Labor politician, although Hayden survived the challenge, pressure continued to mount on him, and he eventually resigned in February 1983 after a poor by-election result. Hawke was elected to him, and he subsequently led Labor to a landslide victory in the election just six weeks later. Following Labors victory in the 1983 election, Keating was appointed Treasurer of Australia by Prime Minister Bob Hawke – he would go on to hold that post until 1991. That the deficit had increased in the lead up to the election had not been disclosed in pre-election documents released by the Fraser government. According to Hawke, the historically large $9.6 billion budget deficit left by the Coalition became a stick with which we were able to beat the Liberal National Opposition for many years. Keating was one of the driving forces behind the various extensive macro-
10.
John Howard
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John Winston Howard, OM, AC was the 25th Prime Minister of Australia, serving from 11 March 1996 to 3 December 2007. Only Sir Robert Menzies has served in the position longer, born in Sydney, Howard was a solicitor at Clayton Utz before entering politics, having studied law at the University of Sydney. A member of the Liberal Party and former president of the Young Liberals, he first stood for office at the 1968 New South Wales state election, but lost narrowly. At the 1974 federal election, Howard was elected to the Division of Bennelong and he was promoted to cabinet in 1977, and later in the year replaced Phillip Lynch as Treasurer of Australia, remaining in that position until the defeat of Malcolm Frasers government in 1983. In 1985, Howard was elected leader of the Liberal Party for the first time and he led the Liberal–National coalition to the 1987 federal election, but lost to Bob Hawkes Labor government, and was removed from the leadership in 1989. Remaining a key figure in the party, Howard was re-elected leader in 1995, after defeating Paul Keatings Labor government in 1996, the Howard Government was re-elected at the 1998,2001 and 2004 elections. Howards actions as prime minister included new gun laws, the introduction of a nationwide value-added tax, immigration reform, Australia also contributed troops to the War in Afghanistan and the Iraq War under his government, and led the International Force for East Timor. The Howard government was defeated at the 2007 federal election, with the Labor Partys Kevin Rudd succeeding him as prime minister, Howard also lost his own seat at the election, becoming only the second prime minister to do so. John Howard is the son of Mona and Lyall Howard. His parents were married in 1925 and his eldest brother Stanley was born in 1926, followed by Walter in 1929, and Robert in 1936. Lyall Howard was an admirer of Winston Churchill, and sympathetic to the New Guard during its early years, Howards ancestors were English, Scottish and Irish. Howard was born and raised in the Sydney suburb of Earlwood and his mother had been an office worker until her marriage. His father and his grandfather, Walter Howard, were both veterans of the First AIF in World War I. They also ran two Dulwich Hill petrol stations where Howard worked as a boy, Lyall Howard died in 1955 when John was sixteen, leaving his mother to take care of John. Howard suffered an impairment in his youth, leaving him with a slight speech impediment. It also influenced him in ways, limiting his early academic performance, encouraging a reliance on an excellent memory. Howard attended the state schools Earlwood Primary School and Canterbury Boys High School, Howard won a citizenship prize in his final year at Earlwood, and subsequently represented his secondary school at debating as well as cricket and rugby. In his final year at school he took part in a show hosted by Jack Davey, Give It a Go broadcast on the commercial radio station, 2GB
