1917 -- The third battle of Ypres ended when Canadian and Australian forces took Passchendaele in World War I.

1928 -- Jacob Schick got a patent for his "shaving implement" -- the first electric razor.

1945 -- A Fireball FR-1 piloted by Jake West made the first jet plane landing on an aircraft carrier when it touched down on the Wake Island off San Diego, California.

1962 -- The U.N. General Assembly adopted a resolution condemning South Africa for its apartheid policies and recommending that member states apply economic sanctions.

1975 -- King Hassan launched the "Green March" when 350,000 unarmed Moroccans waving flags and copies of the Koran crossed into Western Sahara. Days later, Spain agreed to transfer the territory's administration to Morocco and Mauritania.

1995 -- Israel buried Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, assassinated by a fellow Jew who opposed peace with the Palestinians.

1996 -- More than 2,000 people were killed or lost at sea when a cyclone struck India's major crop-growing state of Andhra Pradesh.

1999 -- Australians voted by 55 to 45 percent to reject a constitutional referendum to set up a republic and replace the British monarch as head of state.

2001 -- In New York, voters picked Republican media mogul Michael Bloomberg as the new mayor to lead the recovery from the September 11 attacks, succeeding Rudolph Giuliani. ------------------------------------- THOUGHT

God has an angel who every day cries: “O people of the world! Produce for death; build for destruction and gather for departure”.

[Imam Ali (AS)]