1971 -- Ninety Russian diplomats were expelled from Britain for spying following revelations by a Soviet defector.

1980 -- Iraqi troops crossed the border into Iran and encircled Abadan, setting fire to the world's biggest oil refinery and launching full-scale hostilities.

1988 -- Canadian Ben Johnson set a 100 meters world record of 9.79 seconds at the Olympic Games in Seoul. Six days later he was stripped of his medal for taking drugs.

1993 -- Norodom Sihanouk reclaimed the Cambodian throne he had relinquished in 1955 and signed into law a constitution proclaiming his ravaged country a democratic, constitutional monarchy.

1993 -- Former Philippine first lady Imelda Marcos was convicted of corruption and sentenced to at least 18 years in jail.

1995 -- Thirteen people were killed in the southern French town of Cuers when Eric Borel, 16, ran amok with a rifle in one of the bloodiest crimes in modern French history. The previous day he had killed his mother, stepfather and half-brother after an argument over where he should live.

1996 -- The United States, China, France, Russia and Britain became the first signatories to a landmark world treaty banning nuclear tests.

1996 -- Russian spy Pavel Sudoplatov, who stole U.S. plans for the atom bomb and arranged to have Leon Trotsky killed with an ice axe, died. He was 89.

** 1998 -- Britain and Iran reached a landmark deal to upgrade diplomatic relations.

2000 -- Vladimiro Montesinos, the spy chief at the center of a political crisis that prompted new elections, left Peru to seek political asylum in Panama.

2002 -- Britain published a dossier on Iraq's weapons program which claimed Saddam Hussein could launch a weapon of mass destruction at just 45 minutes' notice.

2003 -- A report by EU anti-fraud body, OLAF, into alleged fraud at the Eurostat agency shows that millions of euros went astray in irregular accounting practices.

2004 -- Czech parliament approved a law suspending military conscription from 2005, ending 140 years of forced military service and paving the way for a fully professional army.

2004 -- French author Francoise Sagan, who shot to fame in 1954 with her first novel "Bonjour Tristesse," died aged 69.

** 2005 -- The International Atomic Energy Agency passed a resolution requiring that Iran be reported to the UN Security Council over its nuclear program.