Today in History - February 12 | Thirty million people die after ill-fated war on sparrows

The government of China issued a directive on February 12, 1958, leading to the extinction of sparrows in the country.

As part of leader Mao Zedong's Great Leap Forward, China's Central Committee announced the Four Pests campaign, aimed at wiping out rats, flies, mosquitoes and sparrows.

Sparrows were blamed for eating nearly 2kg a grain per bird every year, and killing them was seen as a way to boost agricultural productivity.

The birds were poisoned, killed with slingshots, or tormented with loud noises so they avoided landing for long they died of exhaustion.

The war on sparrows was a huge success, wiping out the birds across China.

But the ramifications were huge. Sparrows were the primary predator of locusts, which ate grain far more voraciously.

The famine which began during the Great Leap Forward is estimated to have killed as many as 30 million people.

Two men break into Norway's National Gallery in Oslo and make off with iconic painting The Scream by Edvard Munch on February 12, 1994.

The burglars left a mocking note: "Thanks for the lax security".

They then made a ransom demand for $USD1 million.

But the painting was recovered in a sting operation by Norwegian and UK police three months later.

Four men were found guilty, but were released because of a legal technicality. The arresting UK officers had entered Norway under false identities.

The last emperor of China, Aisin-Gioro Puyi, was forced to abdicate the throne on February 12, 1912.

Puyi had an extraordinary life, becoming emperor four years earlier at the age of two years old.

As the nephew of the childless previous emperor, Puyi was forcibly taken from his parents and raised by palace eunuchs, who were powerless to resist his demands.

As emperor, Puyi never washed or dressed himself, and never wore the same clothes twice. Eunuchs would even blow onto his soup to cool it.

Puyi was forced to abdicate after a mutiny from the army garrison, and then was reinstated to the throne five years later in a reign that lasted 12 days.

In 1931 he was installed as a puppet leader of Japanese-controlled Manchuria, a role for which he was despised by locals.

He spent much of that time as a virtual prisoner in his palace, but that did not stop him carrying out wanton acts of cruelty on servants.

At the end of World War II, he was taken prisoner by the Soviet Union, though they allowed him to retain some servants to make his bed and dress him.

Two years later he was returned to then-Communist China, where he was jailed for 10 years as a war criminal.

In that prison, he had to learn how to tie his shoes and brush his teeth by himself.

He was "remodelled" in Marxist-Leninist-Maoist discussion groups and confronted with the atrocities committed by the Japanese in World War II.

With the blessing of Chinese leader Mao Zedong (left), Puyi was allowed to move to a regular apartment and given a job as a street sweeper in 1959.

Getting lost in Peking, he told passers-by: "I'm Puyi, the last Emperor of the Qing dynasty. I'm staying with relatives and can't find my way home."

Puyi was given a job as a gardener, which he enjoyed, though he remained deeply forgetful of the tasks of regular people. He would frequently forget to turn off taps after washing his hands, and would leave doors open after walking into rooms.

In the last years of his life, Puyi would give regular press conferences and interviews, in which he would praise communism and denounce his former life.

When the Cultural Revolution began in 1966, he became a target for Maoist Red Guards, and had to be put under protection. 

He died of cancer the following year.