1915 -- The worst train disaster in Britain took place when a troop train collided with a passenger train at Gretna Green, Scotland, killing 227.

1939 -- The "Pact of Steel" was signed between Hitler and Mussolini, committing Germany and Italy to support each other in times of war.

1943 -- The Third Communist International, known as Comintern, was dissolved by the Soviet Union in a gesture to the West.

1967 -- Fire at the Brussels department store "L'Innovation" killed over 320 people.

1968 -- The USS Scorpion sank 400 miles south of the Azores. The nuclear-powered submarine became the first warship to sink with nuclear weapons aboard.

1969 -- The Apollo 10 lunar module Snoopy came within 9.4 miles of the moon's surface.

1972 -- Cecil Day-Lewis, English poet and poet laureate, died.

1972 -- President Richard Nixon arrived in Moscow to become the first U.S. president to visit the Soviet Union.

1972 -- Ceylon became a republic within the Commonwealth under the name of Sri Lanka.

1979 -- The 11-year premiership of Pierre Trudeau in Canada ended when the Liberal Party was defeated in a general election by the Progressive Conservative Party.

1981 -- Peter Sutcliffe (the Yorkshire ripper) was jailed for life in Britain after being convicted on 13 counts of murder.

1989 -- India test-fired an intermediate-range ballistic missile, igniting worries over nuclear proliferation and a spiraling arms race on the subcontinent.

1990 -- Former Marxist South Yemen and conservative North Yemen merged into one state.

1996 -- Japan settled lawsuits which brought to an end the mercury poisoning case called Minamata, named after the village where hundreds died between 1953-60 by eating mercury-tainted seafood. 1998 -- Northern Ireland voted a resounding "yes" to a landmark peace agreement designed to end 30 years of Protestant-Catholic bloodshed. Voters in the Irish Republic voted nearly 95 percent in favor

2001 -- France's National Assembly approved a controversial bill to give more powers to the island of Corsica, where separatists had protested against Paris for over 20 years.