ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

1784 American Revolutionary War: Ratification Day, US – Congress ratifies the Treaty of Paris with Great Britain.

1858 Napoleon III of France escapes an assassination attempt made by Felice Orsini and his accomplices in Paris.

1907 An earthquake in Kingston, Jamaica kills more than 1 000 people.

1911 Roald Amundsen’s South Pole expedition makes landfall on the eastern edge of the Ross Ice Shelf.

1939 Norway claims Queen Maud Land in Antarctica.

1943 World War II: Japan begins Operation Ke, the successful operation to evacuate its forces from Guadalcanal during the Guadalcanal Campaign.

1943 World War II: Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill begin the Casablanca Conference to discuss strategy and study the next phase of the war.

1943 World War II: Franklin D. Roosevelt becomes the first President of the US to travel by aeroplane while in office when he travels from Miami to Morocco to meet Winston Churchill.

1950 The first prototype of the MiG-17 makes its maiden flight.

1953 Josip Broz Tito is inaugurated as the first President of Yugoslavia.

1957 Kripalu Maharaj was named fifth Jagadguru (world teacher) after giving seven days of speeches before 500 Hindu scholars.

1960 The Reserve Bank of Australia, the country’s central bank and banknote issuing authority, is established.

1967 Counterculture of the 1960s: The Human Be-In takes place in San Francisco, California’s Golden Gate Park, launching the Summer of Love.

1967 The New York Times reports that the US Army is conducting secret germ warfare experiments.

1972 Queen Margrethe II of Denmark ascends the throne, the first Queen of Denmark since 1412 and the first Danish monarch not named Frederick or Christian since 1513.

1993 In Poland’s worst peacetime maritime disaster, ferry MS Jan Heweliusz sinks off the coast of Rügen, drowning 55 passengers and crew; nine crew members are saved.

2000 A UN tribunal sentences five Bosnian Croats to up to 25 years in prison for the 1993 killing of more than 100 Bosnian Muslims.