This day in history

On this day, American General Douglas MacArthur returns to the Philippines, wading ashore on Leyte Island.

The son of an American Civil War hero, MacArthur served as chief U.S. military adviser to the Philippines before the Second World War. On 8 December, 1941, the day after Pearl Harbour was bombed, Japan launched its invasion of the Philippines. Undaunted by his failure to hold the islands of Luzon and Corregidor, he promised the Philippine people, I shall return. On 20 October, 1944, after advancing island by island across the Pacific Ocean, MacArthur stepped onto the island of Leyte.

In January 1945, his forces invaded the main Philippine island of Luzon. Manila, the Philippine capital, fell in March, and in June MacArthur announced Allied offensive operations on Luzon to be at an end. Scattered Japanese resistance continued until the end of the war in August.

British human rights activist, James Mawdsley, is released from a Burmese prison having spent 415 days in solitary confinement for protesting against the military junta’s control of Burma.

The Dalai Lama begins his first visit to Britain.

The wife of assassinated U.S. President John Kennedy, 39 year old Jacqueline Kennedy, marries Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis.

The biggest demonstration yet against American involvement in the Vietnam War takes when 4,000 people take to the streets of Oakland, California.