On this date:

• In 1568, Spanish capture English ships at San Juan, Puerto Rico, from Sir John Hawkins' fleet.
• In 1688, France's King Louis XIV declares war against Holy Roman Empire, called the War of the League of Augsburg.
• In 1789, US Congress passes the First Judiciary Act, which provides for an Attorney General and a Supreme Court.
• In 1852, French inventor Henri Giffard makes the first flight in a powered airship, cruising with steam power over Paris.
• In 1877, the last of the samurai rebellions against the reinstated Japanese emperor is defeated by the new conscript armies.
• In 1932, the Poona Pact gives new electoral rights to Dalits.
• In 1943, Soviet army crosses Dnieper River north of Kiev as Germans retreat in World War II.
• In 1948, first conference in London of representatives from Britain's African colonies; Mildred Gillars, accused of being Nazi wartime radio propagandist "Axis Sally," pleads innocent in Washington, DC, to charges of treason. She serves 12 years in prison.
• In 1966, Mob ransacks and burns Portuguese embassy in Leopoldville in the Congo.
• In 1969, the Chicago Seven trial begins. Five of the defendants are convicted of crossing state lines to incite riots at the 1968 Democratic national convention. The convictions are overturned.
• In 1971, Britain expels 90 Soviets for espionage activities.
• In 1976, newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst is sentenced to seven years in prison for her part in a 1974 bank robbery. She is granted clemency by US President Jimmy Carter and released after 22 months.
• In 1982, the US government lifts the military sanctions that it had imposed on Argentina during the war with Great Britain over the Falkland Islands.
• In 1987, armed forces seize control in of Transkei, one of South Africa's black homelands, ousting the Prime Minister.
• In 1990, Iraq declares the Kuwaiti dinar invalid and withdraws it from circulation; Soviet lawmakers endorse plan calling for market economy; East Germany formally withdraws from Warsaw Pact.
• In 1991, Iraq provokes international outrage over its resistance to efforts to dismantle its arms program when Iraqi troops detain a team of United Nations weapons inspectors in Baghdad.
• In 1993, Nelson Mandela asks the world community to lift economic and diplomatic sanctions against South Africa.
• In 1994, a report prepared by the CIA reveals confessed spy Aldrich H Ames exposed 55 clandestine US and allied operations to the Soviet Union and Russia.
• In 1995, after all-night talks, Israel and the PLO agree to sign a pact at the White House ending nearly three decades of Israeli occupation of West Bank cities.
• In 1996, the United States and the world's major nuclear powers sign a treaty to end all testing and development of nuclear weapons. India objects.
• In 1998, Iran says it is distancing itself from the reward offered for the killing of author Salman Rushdie, and is ready to exchange ambassadors with Britain.
• In 1999, deadly Typhoon Bart, packing winds of 108 kmph, threatens the tip of Hokkaido island after lashing Japan with rains and winds that kill at least 26 people and injure hundreds as it floods more than 4,000 homes, set off 245 landslides and downs power lines.
• In 2000, after the bloodiest summer in recent years, tens of thousands of people, including dozens injured by Basque separatists and relatives of those killed, pack the streets of San Sebastian in northern Spain to demand an end to violence.
• In 2001, US President George W Bush issues an order instructing US financial institutions to freeze the assets of 27 groups and individuals suspected of supporting terrorists.
• In 2004, kidnappers seize six Egyptians in Iraq in separate incidents, while the British Embassy in Baghdad hands out leaflets carrying a message from the family of a Briton kidnapped earlier.
• In 2005, crowds opposed to the war in Iraq surge past the White House, shouting "Peace now" in the largest anti-war protest in the nation's capital since the US invasion. Police estimate around 100,000 protesters.
• In 2006, Swiss voters ratify new asylum and immigration laws that make it more difficult for refugees to receive assistance and effectively block non-European unskilled workers from entering the country.