1914 - The first electric traffic signals to control different streams of traffic were installed at Euclid Avenue and East 105th Street in Cleveland, Ohio.

1915 - Warsaw, evacuated by the Russians, was occupied by the Germans in World War II.

1926 - **** "Don Juan" ****, the first film accompanied by a pre-recorded soundtrack, was shown at New York's Warner Theater.

1940 - Latvia was absorbed into the Soviet Union as the Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic.

1949 - An earthquake in Ecuador killed 6,000 people.

1962 - Nelson Mandela, who in 1994 became South Africa's first black president, was arrested near Howick, Natal, and charged with incitement.

1963 - Russia, the United States and Britain signed a nuclear test ban treaty in Moscow.

1974 - U.S. president Richard Nixon admitted he had withheld information about the Watergate break-in.

1995 - The United States and Vietnam declared an end to decades of enmity, formally established diplomatic ties and pledged a new era of cooperation.

1995 - Croatian government forces seized the rebel Serb "capital" of Knin in a lightning assault designed to win back the breakaway region of Krajina after four years.

1997 - A South Korean jumbo jet crashed on the island of Guam, killing 226 people.

1998 - Todor Zhivkov, Bulgarian communist ruler from 1954-89, died aged 86.

2000 - Sir Alec Guinness, revered as one of Britain's most versatile actors, died at 86.