1902 -- Emile Zola, French novelist who wrote the letter J'accuse against the French government over the Dreyfus affair, died.

1958 -- A referendum held in France, Algeria and overseas territories approved the Constitution for the Fifth French Republic.

1964 -- Arthur "Harpo" Marx died. He played a mute in the Marx Brothers films using a taxi horn to communicate -- two blasts for yes, one for no.

1966 -- Andre Breton, French poet and essayist, died. One of the founders of the surrealist movement, he published The Surrealist Manifesto in 1924.

1970 -- Gamal Abdel Nasser, Egyptian statesman, died. He staged a coup against the monarchy in 1952, named himself prime minister two years later and was elected president in 1956.

1971 -- Cardinal Josef Mindszenty of Hungary, who took refuge in the U.S. Embassy in Budapest in1956 to escape treason charges, agreed to end his exile and flew to Rome as guest of the Pope.

1978 -- Pope John Paul I died after only 33 days in office. He was succeeded by John Paul II.

1978 -- Former Defense Minister P.W. Botha was elected prime minister of South Africa.

1989 -- Former Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos, who became an unpopular autocrat, died in exile in Hawaii more than three years after he was driven from his homeland.

1990 -- A Philippines court found an air force general and 15 other soldiers guilty of the 1983 murder of politician Benigno Aquino, husband of former President Corazon Aquino, and sentenced them to life imprisonment.

1994 -- In Europe's worst peacetime maritime disaster, 852 people drowned when the ferry Estonia sank about 20 miles from the Finnish island of Utoe, en route from Tallinn to Stockholm.

1995 -- Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO leader Yasser Arafat signed an accord at White House ceremonies establishing Palestinian self-rule in most of the West Bank.

1997 -- Hong Kong's China-appointed Provisional Legislature overwhelmingly endorsed a new election law.

2000 -- Former Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, who led the country for 16 years, died in Montreal at the age of 80. He was first elected prime minister in 1968.

2001 -- Leading Northern Ireland journalist Martin O'Hagan was shot dead in Lurgan, County Armagh -- the first murder of a reporter in more than 30 years of strife in the province. The Red Hand Defenders (RHD), a cover name used by pro-British "loyalist" gunmen, claimed responsibility the next day. THOUGHT ======================================

Justice is the mainstay of a nation.

[Imam Ali (AS)]