Today in history
1779 – American John Adams is named to negotiate the Revolutionary War’s peace terms with Britain.
1825 – George Stephenson drives the steam locomotive he designed on the opening run of the first passenger railway, from Stockton to Darlington, England.
1923 – Martial law is declared in Germany.
1939 – Warsaw surrenders to Germans after 19 days of resistance in World War II.
1940 – Germany, Italy and Japan sign 10-year military and economic pacts, setting up Berlin-rome-tokyo Axis.
1951 – The West German Bundestag pledges restitution to Jews for crimes perpetrated by the Nazis. No exact amount was decided, but West Germany will repay about $600 million in goods.
1968 – France bars Britain’s entry into European Common Market.
1974 – Bill Sutch, a senior public servant, is arrested by the New Zealand police and the Security Intelligence Service and charged with passing state secrets to the Russians.
1990 –Britain and Iran restore diplomatic relations. Ties had been broken off in March 1989 after the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a death sentence against writer Salman Rushdie.
1996 – Islamist Taliban rebels seize control of Kabul and quickly hang former president Najibullah.
1998 – Gerhard Schroeder and his Social Democrats win German elections after 16 years of conservative rule under Chancellor Helmut Kohl.
2000 – A Greek ferry strikes rocks and sinks, killing 75 people. The ship’s captain and crew are detained by police, when some survivors say they were watching a soccer match on television as the ship went aground.
2007 – Soldiers fire into fleeing crowds in the bloodiest day in the month long protest against Myanmar’s junta, and at least nine people are killed. Tens of thousands demonstrate for the 10th straight day in Yangon and security forces also raided several monasteries overnight.
2011 – A convicted killer who escaped from a US prison in 1970 and hijacked an American airliner two years later while dressed as a priest is captured in Portugal after more than 40 years as a fugitive.
2013 – President Barack Obama discloses he talked with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, marking the first time leaders from Iran and the US have directly communicated since the Iranian revolution. Today’s Birthdays: Samuel Adams, US revolutionary leader (1722-1803); Louis Botha, first prime minister of South Africa (1862-1919); Meat Loaf, US rock singer (1947-); Gwyneth Paltrow, actress (1972—).