ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

1848 Joseph Jenkins Roberts is sworn in as the first president of Liberia.

1911 A magnitude 7.7 earthquake destroys the city of Almaty in Russian Turkestan. 1919 At the Paris Peace Conference, Emir Faisal I of Iraq signs an agreement with Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann on the development of a Jewish homeland in Palestine.

1925 Benito Mussolini announces he is taking dictatorial powers over Italy.

1932 Martial law is declared in Honduras to stop a revolt by banana workers fired by the United Fruit Company.

1956 A fire damages the top part of the Eiffel Tower, in Paris, France.

1957 Hamilton Watch Company, Switzerland, introduces first electric watch.

1958 The West Indies Federation is formed.

1959 Alaska is admitted as 49th US state. 1961 Cold War: the US severs diplomatic relations with Cuba over the latter’s nationalisation of American assets.

1961 A protest by agricultural workers in Baixa de Cassanje, Portuguese Angola, turns into a revolt, opening the Angolan War of Independence, the first of the Portuguese Colonial Wars.

1962 Pope John XXIII excommunicates Fidel Castro.

1977 Apple Computer is incorporated. 1994 More than 7 million people from the former apartheid Homelands receive South African citizenship.

1999 The Mars Polar Lander is launched by Nasa.

2000 Final daily edition of the Peanuts comic strip.

2002 Israeli-Palestinian conflict: Israeli forces seize the Palestinian freighter Karine A in the Red Sea, finding 50 tons (45 000kg) of weapons.

2009 The first block of the blockchain of the decentralised payment system Bitcoin, called the Genesis block, was established by the creator of the system, Satoshi Nakamoto.