1770

British navigator Captain James Cook, aboard the Endeavour, lands in Australia, naming the natural harbour Botany Bay (now in suburbs of Sydney).

1945

Italian dictator Benito Mussolini is executed by partisans near Lake Como one day after his capture.

1952

Japan regains her sovereignty and independence when the peace treaty signed in San Francisco in 1951 comes into effect.

1953

Towards the end of the First Indochina War, Vietnamese resistance forces attack the French in Nam Dinh township south of Ha Noi and hold it overnight.

1956

French colonialists are forced to withdraw from South Viet Nam, ending the old colony and 98 years of invasion in Viet Nam.

1975

Ba RIa-Vung Tau is liberated from the Sai Gon administration.

1992

A new, smaller Yugoslav republic is established by Serbia and Montenegro after four other republics, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Macedonia secede.

1992

The Afghan government formally cedes power to triumphant Islamic guerrillas in Kabul, ending 14 years of armed resistance and civil war.

1998

British explorer David Hempleman-Adams reaches the geographic North Pole, becoming the first person to reach the earth's magnetic and geographic poles.

2001

The world's first space tourist, American Dennis Tito, blasts off on a US$20-million joy ride to the International Space Station (ISS) aboard a Russian rocket.

2005

Iraq's National Assembly approves the country's elected government, a Shiite-dominated body that excludes the Sunni minority from meaningful positions. — REUTERS/AP/VNS