1911 -- Polish-born French physicist Marie Curie received a second Nobel Prize for her work on radioactive elements.

1923 -- The BBC broadcast the chimes of Big Ben, from the Clocktower of the British Parliament, for the first time.

1938 -- Dr R.N. Harger's "drunkometer", the first breath test for car drivers, was officially introduced in Indianapolis.

1946 -- U.S. president Harry Truman formally declared an end to all hostilities in World War II.

1948 -- Sir Malcolm Campbell, British driver who once simultaneously held the world land and water speed records, died. In 1935 in Utah he became the first to travel on land at over 300 miles (483km) an hour.

1963 -- The Central African Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland was formally dissolved.

1968 -- Russia's TU-144 supersonic airliner made its first flight, several months ahead of the Anglo-French Concorde which it closely resembled.

1973 -- Britain's Conservative government introduced a three-day work week to conserve energy during a miners' strike.

1981 -- Ghanaian president Hilla Limann's civilian government was overthrown in a military coup led by Flight Lieutenant Jerry Rawlings.

1994 -- Bosnia's Muslim-led government signed an agreement for a four-month cease-fire in Bosnia, the 1,000th day of the bitter Serb siege of Sarajevo.

1997 -- Mohammad Rafiq Tarar was overwhelmingly elected president of Pakistan.

1999 -- Russian president Boris Yeltsin stunned the world by announcing his resignation and naming Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as acting president.

1999 -- Panamanian President Mireya Moscoso formally took back control of the Panama Canal from the United States.

1999 -- Elliot Richardson, former U.S. attorney general, died. He was best known for refusing to obey president Richard Nixon's order to fire special prosecutor Archibald Cox in the Watergate scandal. Richardson was also the first American to hold four different cabinet posts.