1712

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (died 1778), French philosopher-author-musician is born in Geneva. Rousseau held that mankind is essentially good but corrupted by society, and his novel The New Heloise proposed spiritual refreshment through a return to nature.

1873

Birth of Alexis Carrel, French-born US surgeon and Nobel Prize winner; his work later played an important part in the development of tissue transplants.

1914

A Serbian nationalist assassinates Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, and his wife in Sarajevo; the incident is widely held to have sparked World War I.

1919

The end of World War I is marked by the signing of the Treaty of Versailles between Germany and the allies.

1922

The French governor of Indochina issues a decree to merge the Cho Lon River Port into the Sai Gon commercial port. Sai Gon Port is the biggest and most important port in Indochina.

1949

The start of the Ho Chi Minh Campaign in the Central Highlands provinces of Kon Tum, Gia Lai and Dac Lac, which resulted in the creation of resistance bases for local ethnic groups to fight the return of the French in the First Indochina War.

1976

The Indian Ocean islands of the Seychelles become an independent republic within the Commonwealth after 160 years of British rule.

1996

Turkey's president Suleyman Demirel approves the country's first Islamic-led government in 73 years.

1997

Cuban and Argentine forensic experts uncover six skeletons near the Bolivian town of Vallegrande. It was later determined that one was the remains of the legendary guerrilla leader Ernesto "Che" Guevara.

2004

The United States hands over sovereignty to the Iraqis two days ahead of schedule and seven months before elections are set to take place.

2005

The European Union and five nations pick France over Japan as the site for an experimental nuclear fusion reactor, opening the way for development of a potential source of clean, inexhaustible energy.

2008

Zimbabweans deface ballots and boycott the discredited re-election of President Robert Mugabe after an onslaught of state-sponsored violence pushes his main opposition from the race. — AP/REUTERS