1938 -- German troops crossed into the Sudetenland following an agreement among Britain, France, Germany and Italy to avoid war over Czechoslovakia.

1946 -- The International War Crimes Tribunal in Nuremburg, Germany, sentenced 12 Nazi leaders to death -- the first war criminals to be convicted of crimes against humanity.

1949 -- The People's Republic of China was formed with Mao Zedong as its head.

1957 -- The first meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency began in Vienna.

1960 -- Nigeria achieved independence within the Commonwealth. On this day in 1963 it became a federal republic.

1962 -- The United Nations took control of West New Guinea from the Netherlands. It later became the Indonesian Province of Irian Jaya, now known as Papua.

1964 -- Japan's "bullet train" from Tokyo to Osaka made its first run.

1979 -- The Panama Canal zone was formally handed over to Panama after 70 years of U.S. control.

1982 -- Helmut Kohl was sworn in as West Germany's sixth chancellor, succeeding Helmut Schmidt.

1989 -- Pakistan rejoined the Commonwealth after a 17-year absence.

1991 -- Haiti's president Jean-Bertrand Aristide flew into exile in Venezuela after a coup by a three-man junta led by General Raul Cedras.

1995 -- A U.S. federal jury found Egyptian cleric Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman and nine others guilty of plotting to blow up the World Trade Center, bomb the United Nations, kill Egypt's president and destroy vital highway tunnels in New York.

1996 -- The UN Security Council ended trade sanctions against the Yugoslav republics of Serbia and Montenegro imposed in 1992 for their role in fomenting the war in Bosnia.

1997 -- Gul Mohammed, the world's shortest man at 56cm (22.1 inches), died.

1998 -- The new Europe-wide police force Europol began its operations.

1999 -- Indonesia convened its first democratically elected Parliament since 1955.

2001 -- Philippine former president Joseph Estrada went on trial for economic plunder and said he was a victim of "judicial terrorism".