What Happened in the World 100 Years Ago - 01/24/1921
[Allies opened talks on German war payments] In Paris, the Allies had decided how much Germany should pay in war reparations. The bottom line was nearly $56 billion, spreaded over 42 years. In addition, Germany would be forced to pay a 12.5 percent tax on her exports. German negotiators were likely to resist paying stiff reparations. If Germany failed to pay, the Allies threatened to seize German customs, keep troops in the Rhineland and reoccupy the Ruhr. The Allies' financial experts had figured that Germany could cover half the cost of the reparations by reductions in the military budget and elimination of royal stipends. But the German mark was devaluating so quickly that one correspondent in Paris said that trying to collect the reparations was "like shooting at the moon".
[中文] 盟国就德国战争赔款开了会谈
Historical Events
• Major Events
On July 4, 1776, the Thirteen Colonies claimed independence from Britain and a democratic United States was born. (07/04/1776)
The American Civil War between the Federal government ("Union") and 11 southern slave states (Confederate States of America). (1861 – 1865)
Winston Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt and Josef Stalin at the Yalta summit (02/1945)
Japan signed the surrender paper on the deck of Missouri on 9/3/1945. Picture shows the ceremony of Japan's surrender in China. (09/3/1945)
Establishment of the People's Republic of China (10/01/1949)
On January 1, 1979, the People's Republic of China and the United States issued a joint statement announcing the establishment of formal diplomatic relations between the two countries. From January 28 to February 5, Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping and his wife Zhuo Lin made an eight-day official visit to United States, at the invitation of U.S. President Jimmy Carter and his wife. (01/28/1979)
Hongkong Handover to China (07/01/1997)
• Tragic Events
The Great East Japan Earthquake (東日本大震災) was a magnitude 9.0 undersea megathrust earthquake off the coast of Japan, causing 15,689 deaths. (03/11/2011)
The Great Sichuan Earthquake (Wenchuan earthquake) was a deadly earthquake that measured at 8.0 Ms and 7.9 Mw occurred on Monday, May 12, 2008 in Sichuan province of China, killing an estimated 68,000 people. (05/12/2008)
Indian Ocean tsunami, the deadliest tsunami in recorded history, killed approximately 230,000 people. (12/26/2004)
19 al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked four commercial passenger jet airliners and intentionally crashed two of the airliners into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, killing everyone on board and thousands of those working in the buildings. (09/11/2001)
New York Terrorist Attack - Nearly 3,000 victims and the 19 hijackers died in the attacks. (09/11/2001)
Air France Flight 4590 (Concorde flight) caught fire and crashed moments after takeoff from Paris en route to New York. All one hundred passengers and nine crew members on board the flight died. (07/25/2000)
Two MiG-29s of the Russian Air Force Russian Swifts aerobatic team collided in mid-air and crashed away from the public. No one was hurt on the ground, and both pilots ejected safely. (07/1993)
Tangshan earthquake (in Heibei province), a magnitude 7.8 earthquake, leveled the city of one million people to the ground. The death toll reached 240,000. (07/28/1976)
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