1946 -- Albania became a communist people's republic after the overthrow of King Zog.

1950 -- A Swedish tanker struck the British submarine Truculent during the submarine's trials in the River Thames.

Fifty-five of the 70 men on the submarine died.

1960 -- Nevi Shute, British novelist and author of On the Beach and A Town Like Alice, died.

1962 -- Over 3,000 people were killed in a landslide in Huascaran, Peru.

1964 -- One month after Zanzibar became independent, the ruling Zanzibar National Party government was overthrown in a coup.

1970 -- A Boeing 747 jumbo jet arrived at London's Heathrow Airport after its first proving flight from New York.

1974 -- Libya and Tunisia announced they were to merge under the combined name of the "Islamic Arab Republic".

1974 -- The first sextuplets to survive were born to Sue Rosenkowitz in Cape Town, South Africa.

1976 -- Dame Agatha Christie, queen of the detective story and creator of detectives Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple, died.

1990 -- Romania outlawed the Communist Party, the first East European state and Warsaw Pact member to do so.

1998 -- Germany agreed to establish a fund of 200 million marks ($110 million) to compensate about 18,000 Jewish victims of the Nazis in Eastern Europe.