Birthday Girl

Its my birthday, I am 20 years old

Up in Scotland it is Burns Night

The day I celebrate my birthday, in current affairs the Palestinians go to the polls

Surge in support for Hamas as voters prepare to reject Fatah at polls

· Today's Palestinian vote will be bitter contest
· Arafat's faction to lose out after years of corruption

I wish my friend handool all the best and wish his party the PFLP well in the poll.

Historical events on this momentous day

# 41 - After a night of negotiation, Claudius is accepted as Roman Emperor by the Senate.
# 1327 - Edward III becomes King of England.
# 1494 - Alfonso II becomes King of Naples.
# 1533 - Henry VIII of England secretly marries his second wife Anne Boleyn.
# 1858 - The Wedding March by Felix Mendelssohn becomes a popular wedding recessional after it is played on this day at the marriage of Queen Victoria's daughter, Victoria, and Friedrich of Prussia.
# 1915 - Alexander Graham Bell inaugurates U.S. transcontinental telephone service.
# 1924 - The 1924 Winter Olympics open in Chamonix, France (in the French Alps), inaugurating the Winter Olympic Games.
# 1941 - Pope Pius XII elevates the Apostolic Vicariate of the Hawaiian Islands to the dignity of a diocese. It becomes the Roman Catholic Diocese of Honolulu.
# 1949 - The first Israeli election -- David Ben-Gurion becomes Prime Minister.
# 1961 - In Washington, D.C. John F. Kennedy delivers the first live presidential television news conference.
# 1971 - Charles Manson and three female "family members" are found guilty of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment.