1932 - Antonio de Oliveira Salazar became premier of Portugal and drafted a new constitution that established an authoritarian state.

1945 - U.S. General Douglas MacArthur announced the liberation of the whole of the Philippines.

1945 - John Curtin, prime minister of Australia during most of World War II, died.

1948 - The National Health Service came into being in Britain.

1959 - Indonesian president Sukarno dissolved Parliament and assumed dictatorial powers for himself.

1969 - Thomas Mboya, Kenyan statesman, assassinated.

1975 - Arthur Ashe beat fellow American Jimmy Connors to become the first black tennis player to win the Wimbledon men's singles title.

1975 - Independence from Portugal was granted to the Republic of Cape Verde, with Aristides Pereira becoming its first president.

1977 - In Pakistan, General Mohammad Zia-ul-Haq overthrew the government of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in a bloodless coup.

1980 - Bjorn Borg of Sweden won the Wimbledon men's singles title for the fifth consecutive year.

1991 - The Bank of England said the operations of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) had been suspended immediately, following allegations of massive fraud.

1994 - Yasser Arafat traveled to the West Bank after 27 years in exile, determined to turn Palestinian-ruled areas into a state with its capital in East Bait-ul-Moqaddas.

1994 - In Italy, a graft trial opened with two former prime ministers heading a list of accused reading like a "Who's Who" of the country's fallen mighty.

2000 - Turkey's appeals court confirmed a one-year jail sentence imposed on Islamist former prime minister Necmettin Erbakan for provoking hatred in a 1994 speech.

2001 - Hannelore Kohl, the wife of former German chancellor Helmut Kohl, took her own life after years of suffering from a rare illness that made her allergic to light.