1916 -- The Irish nationalist Sir Roger Casement was found guilty of treason and sentenced to death for conspiracy with Germany.

1941 -- Ignace Jan Paderewski, Polish concert pianist and statesman, died in Switzerland. He campaigned abroad on behalf of Poland, and was briefly prime minister in 1919.

1972 -- The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty was contrary to the constitution.

1974 -- Isabel Peron was sworn in as president of Argentina, taking over from her husband Juan Peron who had become ill.

1980 -- Vigdis Finnbogadottir was elected Iceland's president, becoming Europe's first democratically elected female head of state.

1982 -- Pierre Alexandre Balmain, who headed one of the two great Paris fashion houses, died.

1991 -- The former East bloc's trade and economic arm, COMECON, was dissolved.

1992 -- Algerian head of state Mohamed Boudiaf was assassinated as he opened a cultural center in the eastern Algerian town of Annaba.

1992 -- The United Nations flag was raised over Sarajevo Airport after Serbian forces ended their two-month siege.

1995 -- A department store in Seoul collapsed, killing 502 people, in South Korea's worst peacetime disaster.

1999 -- The Kurdish guerrilla leader Abdullah Ocalan was sentenced by a Turkish court to hang for treason.

2000 -- A first printing of the U.S. Declaration of Independence fetched $8.14 million in a Sotheby's online auction, breaking the record for any sale on the Internet.

2001 -- Yugoslav Prime Minister Zoran Zizic resigned, triggering the fall of the federal government over the transfer of Slobodan Milosevic to the War Crimes Court in The Hague.

2002 -- Two North Korean patrol ships sailed over the disputed sea border and fired on South Korean boats, killing four and wounding 19 South Korean sailors.

2002 -- Leka I, son of Albania's King Zog who ruled from 1928 to 1939, came home for good after 63 years in exile. Thought