Today is Independence Day in Myanmar (Burma). On Jan. 4, 1948, the nation became an independent republic, named the Union of Burma, with Sao Shwe Thaik as its first president and U Nu as its first prime minister. Unlike most other former British colonies and overseas territories, the Union of Burma did not become a member of the Commonwealth. The country changed its name to Myanmar in 1989. On this day in 2003, Mikhail Saakashvili, the leader of the United National Movement in Georgia, replaced former president Eduard Shevardnadze in the Rose Revolution. A powerful coalition of "reformists" headed by Saakashvili, Nino Burjanadze and Zurab Zhvania united to oppose Shevardnadze's government in the Nov. 2, 2003 parliamentary elections. The "reformists" claimed that the elections were rigged; in response, the opposition organized massive demonstrations in the streets of Tbilisi. After two tense weeks, Shevardnadze resigned on Nov. 23, 2003, and was replaced as president on an interim basis by Burjanadze. On Jan. 4, 2004, Mikhail Saakashvili won the country's presidential election and was inaugurated on Jan. 25.
Today is the anniversary of the death of French author and philosopher Albert Camus (1913-1960). Camus is often associated with existentialism, but he himself rejected this label, and as he wrote in his essay "The Rebel," his whole life was devoted to opposing the philosophy of nihilism. Camus preferred to be known as a man and a thinker rather than as a member of a school or ideology. In 1957 Camus became the first African-born writer to receive the Nobel Prize. He died in a car crash only three years after receiving the award.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon suffered a massive stroke on this day in 2006, entering into a permanent coma. This was Sharon's second stroke after an earlier one he suffered in December 2005. Then-Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Olmert replaced Ariel Sharon in April 2006, only after the Israeli Cabinet declared Sharon permanently incapacitated. Sharon is still in a persistent vegetative state with an extremely low chance of recovery.
