On this date

In 1764, the site of present-day St. Louis was established by Pierre Laclede and Auguste Chouteau.

In 1898, the U.S. battleship Maine mysteriously blew up in Havana Harbor, killing more than 260 crew members and bringing the United States closer to war with Spain.

In 1933, President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt escaped an assassination attempt in Miami that mortally wounded Chicago Mayor Anton J. Cermak; gunman Giuseppe Zangara was executed more than four weeks later.

In 1942, the British colony Singapore surrendered to Japanese forces during World War II.

In 1961, 73 people, including an 18-member U.S. figure skating team en route to the World Championships in Czechoslovakia, were killed in the crash of a Sabena Airlines Boeing 707 in Belgium.

In 1971, Britain and Ireland “decimalised” their currencies, making one pound equal to 100 new pence instead of 240 pence.

In 1989, the Soviet Union announced that the last of its troops had left Afghanistan, after more than nine years of military intervention.

Ten years ago: Business tycoon Steve Fossett, 63, was declared dead by a judge in Cook County, Ill., five months after his small plane vanished after taking off from an airstrip near Yerington, Nev. (Fossett’s remains were discovered in October 2008 in California’s Sierra Nevada.)

Five years ago: A meteor blazed across Russia’s western Siberian sky and exploded, injuring more than 1,000 people as it blasted out windows.

One year ago: In an ultimatum to America’s allies, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis told fellow NATO members to increase military spending by year’s end or risk seeing the U.S. curtail its defense support.