Today in History

1844 - Inventor Thomas Adams of Philadelphia patents the first US colour printing press.

1871 - The eight-mile Mont-Cenis Tunnel opens in the Alps, linking Savoy with the rest of Italy via a 20-minute train ride.

1935 - Manuel Quezon is elected first president of the Philippine Commonwealth.

1939 - Finnish athlete Taisto Mäki becomes the first man to run the 10,000 metres in under 30 minutes.

1944 - The Battle of Arnhem begins with an Allied airborne landing in the Netherlands.

1947 - James Forrestal becomes the first United States Secretary of Defence.

1949 - Fire destroys Noronic, the largest passenger steamer on Great Lakes in Canada, killing more than 130 people.

1957 - Malaysia joins the United Nations.

1963 - Malaysia breaks off diplomatic relations with Indonesia.

1967 - A riot during a football match in Turkey kills 42 people and injures 600.

1976 - The first Space Shuttle, Enterprise, is unveiled by Nasa.

1978 - Egypt’s President Anwar Sadat and Israel’s Prime Minister Menachem Begin sign an agreement for Middle East peace.

1993 - The body of General Wladyslaw Sikorski, the premier of Poland’s government-in-exile and commander of the Polish free forces during the Second World War, is reburied in Krakow.

1993 - Muslim and Croat army chiefs agree on a ceasefire in south and central Bosnia.

2000 - Television personality Paula Yates is found dead in her London home.

2004 - Mexico’s President Vincente Fox and Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi sign a free trade agreement.

2008 - An assault on the US Embassy in Sana’a, Yemen, kills 19 people.

2012 - American woman Sunita Williams takes command of the International Space Station.

2015 - At least 85 are killed in a South Sudan oil tanker explosion.

2016 - Norwegian hostage Kjartan Sekkingstad is freed by the Abu Sayyaf group in Philippines after a year in captivity.