1942 -- Physicists led by Enrico Fermi created the world's first nuclear chain reaction at the University of Chicago.

1954 -- The U.S. Senate condemned Senator Joseph McCarthy for misconduct after his ruthless investigations of thousands of suspected Communists.

1971 -- The United Arab Emirates was formed on this day.

1971 -- The unmanned Soviet craft Mars 3 landed on Mars.

1982 -- The first permanent artificial heart was implanted in Barney Clark, a Seattle dentist, by Dr. William De Vries at the University of Utah.

1990 -- After German reunification, Chancellor Helmut Kohl's coalition of CDU/CSU and FDP won the first free all-German elections since 1932.

1995 -- Canadian novelist, playwright and critic Robertson Davies died at 82.

2000 -- Syrian President Bashar al-Assad approved economic reforms, including establishment of private banks to end a near 40-year state banking monopoly.

2001 -- U.S. energy trader Enron Corp filed for the biggest ever Chapter 11 bankruptcy and hit rival Dynegy Inc with a $10 billion lawsuit for pulling out of a rescue merger.

2003 -- UN war crimes judges in The Hague jailed Bosnian Serb former army commander Momir Nikolic for 27 years for his role in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre -- the longest given so far.

2004 -- America's first female poet laureate Mona Van Duyn, once described as a pioneer of the poetry of the suburbs, died aged 83.