1913

Rudolf Diesel, French inventor of the diesel internal combustion engine, disappears at sea, presumably drowning in the English Channel.

1923

Britain begins to govern Palestine under a mandate from the League of Nations.

1938

The Munich agreement is signed between France, Germany, Britain and Italy, in which the German-speaking part of Czechoslovakia, the Sudetenland, is surrendered to Nazi Germany.

1941

The Germans kill 33,771 Jewish men, women and children over two days in the Babi Yar massacre at a ravine near Kiev.

1950

General Douglas MacArthur hands over Seoul to President Syngman Rhee of South Korea.

1951

Death of Nguyen Binh (born 1906), whose real name was Nguyen Phuong Thao, Vietnamese general. After the August Revolution in 1945, he was sent to southern Viet Nam to lead the armed liberation forces of independent Viet Nam against the returning French colonists after World War II.

1959

Brunei's first written constitution is promulgated.

1967

An International Monetary Fund meeting in Rio de Janeiro reaches agreement on the creation of a new international monetary unit, the Special Drawing Right.

1996

Bosnia's first post-war elections are watched by international groups that certify victories by nationalist parties and the new president, Alija Izetbegovic.

1997

Eight parties scheduled to take part in the Northern Ireland peace talks meet to set a formal agenda for negotiations that for the first time will see pro-British unionists and supporters of the Irish Republican Army gather to hammer out agreements.

2003

Officials in mainland China and Hong Kong disclose details of their trade agreement pact, CEPA. It provides a tariff-free entry for all Hong Kong goods exported to the mainland by 2006.

2004

The Vatican, in its first speech ever to the UN General Assembly's annual autumn session for world leaders, calls for a total ban on human cloning and criticises the war in Iraq and unilateral responses to terrorism. — AP/REUTERS/VNS