1844 -- Marie-Bernard Soubirous, Saint Bernadette Lourdes, born; she claimed have seen visions of the Virgin.

Mary at a spring near her home and a shrine was later established there.

1895 -- Korea proclaimed its independence from China.

1904 -- The shipping distress call CQD -- "Seek You, Danger" -- was introduced. It was replaced by SOS two years later.

1927 -- A transatlantic telephone service between London and New York was introduced.

1932 -- Andre Maginot, French statesman, died.

The French line of fortification against Germany constructed in the 1930s was named after him.

1937 -- Princess (later Queen) Juliana of the Netherlands married Prince Bernhard.

1975 -- OPEC agreed to raise the price of crude 10 percent.

1979 -- Vietnamese forces, aided by Cambodian insurgents, captured Phnom Penh after a two-week invasion and overthrew the Khmer Rouge regime of Pol Pot.

1984 -- French scientist Alfred Kastler died; he won the Nobel Prize for physics in 1966 for his work, which was instrumental in the development of lasers.

1989 -- Emperor Hirohito of Japan died after a 63-year reign.

1990 -- The leaning Tower of Pisa, officially listed a public danger to the anger of locals, was closed to tourists for the first time in its 800-year history for restoration work.

1992 -- Five European Community monitors in Croatia died when their helicopter was shot down.

1994 -- South Africa's Zulubased Inkatha Freedom Party said it would not participate in the country's first all-race elections in April.

1998 -- Spanish police foiled a suspected mass suicide planned by 32 members of a sect who believed their souls would be carried away by a spaceship from the summit of Tenerife's Teide Volcano.