1624

France's King Louis XIII names Cardinal Richelieu as first minister.

1814

The Cape of Good Hope is formally ceded to the British by the Dutch.

Britain agrees to hand back all Dutch colonial possessions including Indonesia.

1891

The Indochina Bank issues the first banknotes in Viet Nam, which were printed in French on their face and Han, classical Chinese, on the reverse. At that time the Quoc Ngu, romanised Vietnamese script, was not commonly used in Viet Nam.

1899

Birth of Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, Hollywood film director of such classics as The Thirty-Nine Steps, Psycho and The Birds.

1919

Birth of Tran Van Can (died 1994), Vietnamese painter. His best known works include Em Thuy (Little Thuy), Goi Dau (Hair Washing), Xuong Dong (Going to the Fields) and Nu Dan Quan Vung Bien (A Militiawoman on the Coast). He was posthumously awarded the Ho Chi Minh Prize in 1996.

1927

Birth of Fidel Castro, Cuban revolutionary and statesman who fought and eventually overthrew the regime of dictator Fulgencio Batista. He became head of the Cuban Government in February 1959 and established a Socialist state.

1978

Explosion in Palestinian building in Beirut kills about 200 people, including members of the Palestine Liberation Organisation.

1999

A gunman in Bogota shoots and kills Jaime Garzon, Colombia's most popular political satirist and an irreverent peace activist; right-wing paramilitaries are blamed.

2001

Macedonia's rival political leaders sign a landmark peace accord aimed at ending six months of bloody conflicts and clearing the way for NATO troops to disarm ethnic Albanian rebels.

2002

Iranian President Mohammed Khatami criticizes the US campaign against terrorism, saying Washington "misused" worldwide outrage over the September 11 attacks in order to "use the fight against terrorism to impose its power on other countries".

2003

Libya and families of victims of the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland sign an agreement to pay as much as US$2.7 billion in reparations. The agreement also called for Libya to acknowledge responsibility for the bombing.

2008

Mexico announces it will build a US$1.27 billion tunnel that will be almost 62km long and 6.4m in diameter, to help solve the centuries-old drainage problem of the nation's capital.

2009

Helicopter gunships pummel a key Taliban commander's bases in Pakistan's northwest, killing at least 12 insurgents as government forces ratchet up pressure on the militants following their top leader's reported death.

2010

Russia announces it will begin the startup of Iran's only atomic power plant, giving Tehran a boost as it struggles with international sanctions and highlighting differences between Moscow and Washington over pressuring the Islamic Republic to give up activities that could be used to make nuclear arms.

2011

Libyan rebels fight their way into the strategic city of Zawiya west of Tripoli in their most significant advance in months, battling snipers on rooftops and heavy shelling from Muammar Gadhafi's forces holding the city. — AP