Today in history

On Sept. 3, 1189, Richard I, known as Richard the Lion-Hearted, was crowned King of England in Westminster Abbey.

In 1939 Britain and France declared war on Germany, two days after the Nazi invasion of Poland.

In 1943 the British 8th Army invaded Italy during World War II, the same day Italy signed a secret armistice with the allies.

In 1967 Nguyen Van Thieu was elected president of South Vietnam under a new constitution. Also in 1967 motorists in Sweden began driving on the right-hand side of the road instead of the left.

In 1976 the unmanned U.S. spacecraft Viking II landed on Mars to take the first close-up, color photographs of the planet's surface.

In 1978 Pope John Paul I was installed as the 263rd pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church.

In 1989 a Cubana de Aviacion jetliner crashed after takeoff in Havana, killing all 126 aboard and 26 people on the ground.

In 1994 China and Russia proclaimed an end to lingering hostilities and pledged to no longer aim nuclear missiles at each other or to use force against each other.

In 1995 the online auction site eBay was founded in San Jose, Calif., by Pierre Omidyar under the name “AuctionWeb.”

In 1997 Arizona Gov. Fife Symington was convicted of lying to get millions in loans to shore up his collapsing real estate empire. (His conviction was overturned in 1999.)

In 2004 the three-day hostage siege at a school in Beslan, Russia, ended in bloody chaos after Chechen militants set off bombs as Russian commandos stormed the building; nearly 340 people were killed.