TODAY IN HISTORY
1758 Birth of Maximilien Francois Marie Isidore de Robespierre, one of the principal figures of the French revolution.
1840 The first adhesive postage stamps, the Penny Black and the Twopenny Blue, go on sale in Britain.
1856 Birth of Robert Edwin Peary, US Arctic explorer who led the first expedition to reach the North Pole in 1909.
1912 Birth of Nguyễn Huy Tưởng (died 1960), Vietnamese writer. He was active in the Cultural Association for National Salvation from 1943 and was one of the founders and directors of the Vietnamese Association of Arts and Letters. His works include Vũ Như Tô, Bắc Sơn, Đêm Hội Long Trì (Festival Night on Dragon Lake).
1976 An earthquake strikes the town of Udine in northern Italy, killing 973 people and leaving over 100,000 homeless.
1994 Britain and France are joined for the first time since the Ice Age by an undersea tunnel hailed as one of the great engineering feats of the 20th century.
1996 Guatemala’s guerrillas sign a key accord in talks with the government of President Alvaro Arzu aimed at ending 35 years of civil war.
1999 Scotland chooses its first Parliament in three centuries, and Wales elects an assembly. Labour party wins the most votes, but not a majority.
2001 John Paul II becomes the first pope to enter a mosque during his trip to Syria, as he calls for healing among Christians, Muslims and Jews.
2002 US President George W Bush notifies UN Secretary-general Kofi Annan that he will remove the US signature on a treaty that established the International Criminal Court, and says the ICC shouldn’t expect any co-operation from Washington.
2010 Nigeria’s acting President, Goodluck Jonathan, is sworn in as President of Nigeria following the death of Umaru Yar’adua.
2012 Voters in France go to the polls for the second round of the French presidential election, with François Hollande elected President.
2016 More than 72 are killed in clashes between Al-nusra Front and Syrian government forces in Khan Tuman south of Aleppo, Syria.
2017 Nigerian officials report, as a result of negotiations, Boko Haram has released an estimated 82 schoolgirls who were among about 220 kidnapped from a secondary school in Chibok in Borno State in April 2014.
2020 WHO Director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus announces that a vaccine against COVID-19 may be ready by year-end, and calls for solidarity and political commitment by all leaders to ensure equal distribution of vaccines when they become available.