1916 - The Easter rising, an insurrection aimed at setting up an Irish republic, began in Dublin.

1939 - Robert Menzies became Australian prime minister, succeeding Joseph Lyons who died earlier in the month.

1950 - The state of Jordan was formed by the Union of Jordanian occupied Palestine and the Kingdom of Transjordan.

1967 - Vladimir Komarov, the first Russian to fly in the Soyuz craft, was killed when he crash-landed in Russia after his 17th orbit of Earth.

1970 - China launched its first satellite into orbit.

1975 - Three people died when Baader-Meinhof terrorists attacked the German Embassy in Stockholm.

1986 - The Duchess of Windsor died. Her romance with King Edward VIII led to his abdication in 1936.

1990 - East and West Germany agreed on July 2 as the date for economic union, a prelude to full political unification.

1990 - Michael Milken, former junk bond chief at the defunct Drexel Burnham Lambert Inc, pleaded guilty to six felony charges, settling a criminal racketeering and securities fraud suit brought by the U.S. government.

1991 - Kurdish rebel leaders reached an agreement in principle with Saddam Hussein on greater autonomy.

1993 - A huge IRA bomb exploded in Bishopsgate in the heart of London's financial district, killing one person and injuring over 40.

1995 - The UN tribunal for former Yugoslavia named Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and two of his senior aides as war crimes suspects.

1996 - The Palestinian Parliament-in-Exile voted to amend clauses in the PLO charter calling for Israel's destruction.

1996 - Russian president Boris Yeltsin met Chinese President Jiang Zemin at the start of a visit to Beijing both leaders hailed as signalling a new spring between the giant neighbors.

1998 - Rwanda executed the first 22 convicts found guilty of the 1994 genocide there.

2000 - A youth opened fire on a crowd of people in the National Zoo in Washington, wounding seven children, one seriously.