1913 -- The U.S. Congress passed the Federal Reserve Act, a major restructuring of the country's monetary and banking system.

1933 -- Marinus van der Lubbe was found guilty and sentenced to death in Germany for setting fire to the Reichstag earlier in the year.

1948 -- Hideki Tojo was hanged as a war criminal; a Japanese soldier who became prime minister, he was in power when Pearl Harbour was bombed.

1950 -- Pope Pius XII announced that Saint Peter's tomb had been found under the Vatican.

1953 -- Lavrenty Beria, the Soviet security police chief who played a role in Stalin's political purges, was executed for plotting to succeed him as Soviet leader.

1972 -- In Nicaragua, a massive earthquake struck Managua; up to 7,000 people were killed.

****1973 -- Iran announced that the six main oil producers in the Persian Gulf would increase the export price of their oil 100 percent from January, 1974.

1990 -- People of Slovenia voted overwhelmingly in a plebiscite for the northwestern Yugoslav republic to become an independent state.

2000 -- After hard negotiations, the 189-member UN General Assembly approved a major revamp of its finances including a cut in U.S. payments for the first time since 1973.

2002 -- Italy's royal family, reviled by many Italians after World War II for collaborating with Benito Mussolini, returned home for a short visit, after 56 years in exile.

2003 -- The first U.S. case of the deadly mad cow disease was detected in a Holstein dairy cow in Washington state.