July 6
1972 TANAKA Kakuei became Japanese prime minister. A corruption scandal drove him from office in 1974.
1976 Zhu De, Chinese Communist Party military leader, passed away at age 89. Zhu was born in 1886 in Sichuan, a southwestern province. In his 20s, Zhu joined the rebellion that overthrew the Manchu Qing dynasty. He was in his 30s and studying in Germany when he joined the Chinese Communist Party. He joined the 1927 Communist-led uprisings and linked up with Mao Zedong. The two built the Red Army and led it in its famous Long March, which took more than a year and covered 6,000 miles, ending in northern China in 1935. Zhu led the guerrilla resistance to the Japanese invasion and later the military struggle against the Nationalists for control of China. While he was a member of the CCP Politburo, he focused on the military and did not play a significant role in government policy after the CCP came to power in 1949.
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