1910 – Britain’s King Edward VII died.
1919 – L. Frank Baum, U.S. author of children’s stories about the imaginary land of Oz, died. The film version of “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” became a classic.
1932 – French President Paul Doumer was assassinated by a Russian emigre in Paris.
1937 – The German airship Hindenburg burst into flames on arrival at Lakehurst, New Jersey; 36 people were killed but 62 escaped.
1954 – Britain’s Roger Bannister became the first athlete to run a mile in under 4 minutes, recording a time of three minutes 59.4 seconds.
1968 – Street fighting in Paris gripped the Left Bank as students and police fought for control of the fashionable Boulevard St Germain.
1992 – Marlene Dietrich, film’s legendary femme fatale, died. The German-born actress shot to fame as the cabaret singer Lola-Lola in “The Blue Angel” and then took Hollywood by storm.
1994 – The Channel Tunnel opened, linking Britain and France by rail.
2001 – World’s first space tourist Dennis Tito returns to Earth with two Russian cosmonauts after an historic voyage that cost Tito $14million.
2002 – The Dutch anti-immigrant politician Pim Fortuyn was shot dead as he left a radio interview in Hilversum.
2007 – The conservative Nicolas Sarkozy was elected French president, beating his Socialist rival Segolene Royal by a comfortable margin and extending the right’s 12-year grip on power.