1241

Birth of Alexander III, king of Scotland. King from 1249-86, he consolidated royal power leaving Scotland united and independent.

1300

Birth of Vietnamese King Tran Minh Tong, born as Tran Manh (died 1357), son of King Tran Anh Tong (reigning from 1293-1314). Tran Minh Tong reigned from 1314-29.

1768

Birth of French author François-Rene (Vicomte de) Chateaubriand (died 1848). He was a politician, one of the first French romantic writers and ambassador to the British court. He wrote Rene a seminal work in the French romantic movement and a famous autobiography Memoires d'Outre Tombe.

1906

Birth of German-born US biologist Max Delbruck, winner of the 1969 Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine for work on the genetic structure of viruses that infect bacteria.

1944

Brussels and Antwerp in Belgium are liberated by British and Canadian troops in World War II.

1958

Death of Vietnamese writer Ho Bieu Chanh, born in 1885. One of the first novelists in quoc ngu, the romanised script of the Vietnamese language, he wrote some 60 books. Chanh's works, very popular in southern Viet Nam in the 20s and 30s of the 20th century, reveal a certain realism and a moralising and reformist tendency.

1965

Death of German-born French missionary Albert Schweitzer (born 1875). From 1913, he ran a hospital in the Gabon village of Lambarene, financed by his organ recitals of the music of JS Bach. He won the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts on behalf of the Brotherhood of Nations in 1952.

1970

In Chile, Salvador Allende becomes the first freely elected Marxist president in the Western hemisphere.

1974

East Germany and the United States establish formal diplomatic relations for the first time.

1995

The Fourth World Conference on Women, the biggest UN gathering in history, begins in China's Great Hall of the People with a UN declaration that sexual equality is the last great project of the 20th century.

2001

Mahendra Chaudhry, Fiji's first ethnic Indian prime minister, is elected to Parliament along with the George Speight, who overthrew Chaudry's government 16 months ago.

2008

US Vice President Dick Cheney insisted that Georgia will join NATO and backed its attempts to rebuild from its war with Russia, using a trip to former Soviet republics as a show of US support for their pro-Western leaders. — AP/REUTERS/VNS