1811

Birth of Franz Liszt, Hungarian composer and legendary piano virtuoso. He composed some notably difficult music for the piano and was the originator of the modern piano recital. His popular works include 20 Hungarian Rhapsodies.

1870

Birth of Russian writer Ivan Bunin (died 1953). Gained international recognition with the novel The Village, but he was best known for his short stories including The Gentlemen from San Francisco. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1933.

1883

New York's Metropolitan Opera House opens with a production of Gounod's opera Faust.

1909

French aviator Elise de Laroche, better known by her self-assumed title Baronne de Laroche, makes her first solo flight – a distance of 300m. She became the first qualified woman pilot in March 1910.

1943

Birth of Catherine Deneuve, French actress who played leads in both French and international films. Long described as one of the world's most beautiful women, she was named goodwill ambassador to UNESCO in 1994.

1947

India and Pakistan begin a war over Kashmir.

1977

Forty-two nations ask the UN General Assembly to take up problems of airplane hijackings.

1990

Viet Nam establishes diplomatic relations with the European Commission.

1995

Death of British novelist, poet and critic Sir Kingsley Amis (born 1922). His first novel Lucky Jim, a satire on provincial university life, became an immediate popular success. His other works include Jake's Thing, The Green Man, The Riverside Villas Murder, and Russian Hide-and-Seek.

1998

In a drive to conclude a West Bank accord at a meeting in Wye River, USA, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat agree on revising calls in the Palestinian charter for Israel's destruction.

2001

A British Airways Concorde completes a round trip from London to New York. The supersonic jet's first trans-Atlantic flight since service was suspended last year after a crash near Paris killed 113 people.

2005

Britain urges the European Union to ban imports of wild birds into the 25-nation bloc as British scientists try to determine whether a parrot that died of bird flu had the strain that has killed more than 60 people around the world.

2006

The Sudanese government orders the chief UN envoy out of the country after he writes in his personal web blog that Sudan's army had suffered major losses in recent fighting in Darfur.

2007

Osama Bin Laden calls for Iraqi insurgents to unite and avoid divisive "extremism" in an audiotape apparently intended to win over Sunnis opposed to the terror group's branch in Iraq.

2008

India launches its first mission to the moon to redraw maps of the lunar surface. — AP/REUTERS/VNS