On this date in...
1942: World War II: President Franklin D. Roosevelt orders General Douglas MacArthur out of the Philippines as American defenses collapses.
1971: Lea Salonga was born in Manila to Feliciano Salonga and Ligaya Imutan. She spent the first six years of her childhood in Angeles City, Pampanga before moving back to Manila. Lea is a Filipina singer and actress best known for her musical role in Miss Saigon, for which she won the Olivier, Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critics, and Theatre World Awards, the first to win various international awards for a single role. She was the first Asian to play Eponine in the musical Les Misérables on Broadway and was the singing voice of Princess Jasmine from Aladdin in 1992 and Mulan for Mulan and Mulan II in 1998 and in 2004, respectively.
1986: Start of the People Power Revolution in the Philippines. Filipinos launched the so-called People Power revolution that led to the ouster of Ferdinand Marcos. At about 15:00, Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile barricades himself together with some followers, many of them young colonels, in the Ministry of National Defense in Camp Aguinaldo. The Deputy Chief of Staff of the Armed Force of the Philippines, General Fidel Ramos, joins the forces of Enrile at about 17:00. The event is aired to the public at approximately 18:45. At 21:00, the archbishop of Manila, Jaime Cardinal Sin, through Radio Veritas gives support to the Enrile rebellion. Simultaneously, Agapito Aquino, the brother of the slain opposition leader, forms a people power group that barricades Camp Crame and Camp Aguinaldo, to protect the rebellious military from an attack by Marcos forces. The barricade begins with not more than 20 persons at about 21:30 but soon grows bigger and bigger.
1999: a fire broke outin the University of Bohol or UB. One half of the structures in the University were burned. The three-storey Founders' Hall was built six months after and another three-storey Achievers' Hall was completed one year after the fire.
