The President of Zaire Mobutu Sese Seko endorsed kleptocracy, the practice of public officials stealing tax money for personal use, in a speech at a stadium before 70,000 people and millions of listeners, noting that he himself "personally spent on average more than 35 percent of the national budget on himself" during the 1970s and 1980s.
He warned; "If you want to steal, steal in a nice way, but if you steal too much to become rich overnight you will soon be caught."
He was eventually overthrown and died in exile at age 66.
This sort of open corruption used to be pretty much a third world thing, and I guess it still is in some ways. Now, of course, we're seeing corruption of a different type, but rivaling, or exceeding it, in the United States, which pretty much informs the world of what we now are.
The acrylic bubble of the Montreal Biosphere, designed by Buckminster Fuller for Expo 67, was destroyed by a fire during remodeling.
It was rebuilt, but without the transparent panels, and reopened in 1990.
Baseball great Ramón Hernández was born in Venezuela.
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