1918 -- In Hungary, former prime minister Count Istvan Tisza was assassinated by disaffected soldiers. Tisza, who had resigned in 1917, had been held responsible by many for the plight Hungary found itself in after World War I.

1940 -- The Battle of Britain, a struggle between Germany and Britain for air control of the English Channel early in World War II, ended.

1952 -- The United States exploded the first hydrogen bomb at the Elugelab Atoll in the Eniwetok Proving Grounds in the Pacific Marshall Islands.

1956 -- Britain and France bombed Egyptian airfields during the Suez crisis.

1961 -- Russia's "destalinisation" program reached a climax when his body was removed from the mausoleum in Red Square and reburied.

1968 -- U.S. President Lyndon Johnson ordered a complete cessation of bombing of North Vietnam.

1984 -- Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated by three Sikh members of her bodyguard while walking in the garden of her New Delhi home.

1999 -- An EgyptAir Boeing 767 went down in the Atlantic Ocean off the island of Nantucket on a flight from New York to Cairo with 217 people on board.

2000 -- A Soyuz TM-31 rocket blasted off from Russia to the International Space Station carrying two Russians and an American, the first people to live on the station.

2000 -- The leaders of nine African countries launched the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa Free Trade Area in an effort to boost regional ties and integrate the continent into the global economy.

2001 -- France's top woman skier, Regine Cavagnoud, died aged 31 from head injuries sustained in a high-speed collision in Austria two days earlier. She had won eight World Cup races in her career.

2002 -- In Italy, 30 people including 26 children were killed when an earthquake caused a school to collapse in the town of San Giuliano di Puglia.

2002 -- The Briton George Carey stepped down as archbishop of Canterbury, spiritual head of the world's Anglicans, after more than 11 tumultuous years in the job. Rowan Williams, the archbishop of Wales, succeeded him.

2004 -- Uruguay elected its first leftist president, Tabare Vazquez, and gave his coalition a majority in Congress with a mandate to rebuild after an economic crisis.

2005 -- The UN Security Council voted unanimously in favor of a tough resolution demanding Syria cooperate with a UN probe into the assassination earlier in the year of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri, or face possible punitive Measures.