Highlights in history on this date:

1399 - King Richard II of England abdicates in favor of Henry Bolingbroke, who led a rebellion of noblemen against him.

1568 - John III is proclaimed king of Sweden by the nobility after the deposition of Eric XIV.

1787 - Sailing ship Columbia leaves Boston on first voyage around world by American vessel.

1791 - Mozart's opera "The Magic Flute" premieres in Vienna, Austria.

1846 - Dentist William Morton uses ether as an anesthetic for the first time on a patient in his Boston office.

1868 - Spain's Queen Isabella flees to France and is declared deposed.

1938 - Britain, France, Germany and Italy agree at the Munich conference to transfer the Czech Sudetenland to Germany while remaining frontiers of Czechoslovakia are guaranteed.

1942 - The Nazis advance in Stalingard, Russia. Some 990 Russian planes are destroyed against 77 German losses.

1946 - International military tribunal in Nuremberg, Germany, finds 22 top German Nazi leaders guilty of war crimes. Eleven are sentenced to death.

1949 - The Berlin Airlift, which delivers 2 million metric tons (2.3 million tons) of food and fuel to West Berliners while circumventing a Soviet blockade, comes to an end.

1954 - The first atomic-powered vessel, the submarine Nautilus, is commissioned by the U.S. Navy.

1955 - French delegates walk out after U.N. General Assembly decides to take up question of unrest in Algeria.

1958 - Soviet Union resumes nuclear testing.

1962 - Black American student James Meredith succeeds on his fourth try to register for classes at the University of Mississippi.

1965 - Six of Indonesia's top army generals are kidnapped and killed in an abortive coup. Turmoil ensues, leading to the deaths of 300,000 communists and President Sukarno being replaced by General Suharto.

1966 - Republic of Botswana gains independence from Britain.

1971 - United States and Soviet Union sign pacts designed to avoid accidental nuclear war.

1978 - Scores of people, mostly civilians, are reported killed around Beirut in renewed fighting between Lebanese Christians and Syrian peacekeeping troops.

1984 - Egyptian court sentences 107 Muslim extremists to prison for attempting to set up Islamic regime after 1981 assassination of President Anwar Sadat.

1986 - The United States releases accused Soviet spy Gennadiy Zakharov, after the Soviets release U.S. journalist Nicholas Daniloff, whom the KGB accused of espionage.

1989 - Non-communist Cambodian guerrillas claim capture of three towns and 10 other positions from government forces.

1990 - Soviet Union and South Korea open full diplomatic relations.

1991 - Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide is ousted by the army.

1992 - Moscow banks distribute privatization vouchers as part of a reform program to turn millions of Russians into capitalists.

1993 - An earthquake rocks southwestern India, leaving more than 10,000 dead, 67 villages flattened and 120,000 homeless.

1994 - Saudi Arabia and five smaller Arab countries announce a partial lifting of their economic boycott of Israel.

1995 - Blind Egyptian cleric Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman and nine other Islamic militants are convicted in New York for a plot to blow up New York City landmarks, including the United Nations.

1996 - Taliban rebels consolidate their hold on two northern provinces of Afghanistan.

1997 - Consolidating his power, Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic ousts Belgrade's noncommunist mayor and pro-democracy directors of the city's television station.

1998 - Two hand grenades are thrown at Israeli security forces in a downtown square in the West Bank city of Hebron, injuring 11 Israeli troops and 11 Palestinian civilians.

1999 - A 7.5-magnitude quake rocks southern Mexico, toppling church towers and old homes in Oaxaca and shaking buildings in the capital. At least 27 people are killed and more than 120 others injured.

2000 - In his first news conference, Britain's Prince William criticizes a new book about his mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, written by her former private secretary.

2001 - Democracy returns to Fiji's Parliament with 71 of its 72 lawmakers being sworn in for the first time since armed nationalists launched a coup 16 months earlier.

2002 - The 15 foreign ministers of the European Union vote to allow member nations to sign individual agreements with the United States giving U.S. soldiers and officials protection from the U.N. International Criminal Court.

2003 - The U.S. Justice Department announces it has begun a criminal investigation into allegations that President George W. Bush's administration leaked the name of a covert Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operative to columnist Robert Novak in July.

2004 - The government of Brazil lashes out at reports that it has denied U.N. inspectors full access to its uranium enrichment facilities because it wants to hide technology purchased on the nuclear black market.

2005 - A white farmer in South Africa is sentenced to life in prison for the murder of a former black worker who was attacked with machetes, then tied up and thrown in a lion enclosure.

2006 - A Kurdish guerrilla group, the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, declares a unilateral cease-fire in its more than 20-year fight for autonomy in Turkey's southeast, but does not immediately give up its weapons.

2007 - Rebel forces storm an African Union base in Darfur, killing and wounding dozens of peacekeepers in the worst attack on the organization since the conflict began as renewed fighting rages between rebels and government forces in the western Sudanese region.

Today's Birthdays:

2008 - At least 168 people are killed in a stampede of pilgrims at a Hindu temple in Jodhpur, India.

Jean Perrin, French Noble-prize winning physicist (1870-1942); Hans Geiger, German physicist (1882-1945); Deborah Kerr, Scottish actress (1921-2007); Truman Capote, U.S. author (1924-1984); Elie Wiesel, Romanian writer (1928--); Martina Hingis, Swiss tennis player (1980--); Eric Stolz, U.S. actor (1961--); Jenna Elfman, U.S. actress (1971--); Marion Cotillard, French actress (1975--).

Thought For Today:

After three days without reading, talk becomes flavorless _ Chinese proverb.