This Day in History

2011

Egypt's military promises not to fire on peaceful protestors calling for the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak.

Archived Facts

1948

Indian leader Mohandas Gandhi is assassinated by a Hindu extremist.

1996

France announces it will end nuclear testing.

1961

The Republic of Rwanda is proclaimed.

1971

Idi Amin leads a coup deposing Milton Obote and becomes Uganda's president.

2011

Jared Lee Loughner pleads not guilty to federal charges that he attempted to kill Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.

1997

Madeleine Albright becomes the first woman to serve as U.S. secretary of state.

1963

France and Germany sign the Elysee Treaty, laying the foundation for a new post-war friendship.

2009

Hamas announces it will accept Israel's cease-fire, ending the three-week Gaza War.

1992

During a visit to South Korea, Japanese Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa apologizes for forcing Korean women into sexual slavery during World War II.

2006

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is sworn in as Liberia's new president and becomes Africa's first female elected head of state.

1535

King Henry VIII becomes supreme head of the Church of England.

1953

Marshal Josip Broz Tito becomes the first president of Yugoslavia.

1972

East Pakistan renames itself Bangladesh.

1870

John D. Rockefeller incorporates Standard Oil.

2005

Mahmoud Abbas wins the election to replace Yasser Arafat as president of the Palestinian National Authority.

1959

General Charles de Gaulle is inaugurated as president of France’s Fifth Republic.

1959

The United States recognizes Fidel Castro's Cuban government.

2004

Mikheil Saakashvili is elected President of Georgia following the November 2003 Rose Revolution.

1993

U.S. President George H. W. Bush and Russian President Boris Yeltsin sign the second Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START II) in Moscow.