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Events
27 BC - Octavian Caesar given the title Augustus by the Roman Senate.
929 - Emir Abd-ar-rahman III of Cordoba declares himself caliph, thereby establishing the Caliphate of Cordoba.
1362 - A great storm tide in the North Sea destroys the German island of Strand and the city of Rungholt.
1412 - The Medici family are made official bankers of the Papacy.
1456 - Painter Filippo Lippi elopes with Lucrezia Buti, a young nun from the convent of Saint Margherita.
1492 - The first grammar of a modern language, in Spanish, is presented to Queen Isabella.
1547 - Ivan the Terrible becomes Tsar of Russia.
1556 - Philip II becomes King of Spain.
1572 - The Duke of Norfolk is tried for treason for his part in the Ridolfi plot to restore Catholicism in England.
1581 - English Parliament outlaws Roman Catholicism.
1605 - The first edition of El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha (Book One of Don Quixote) by Miguel de Cervantes was published in Madrid.
1761 - British capture Pondicherry, India from the French.
1777 - Vermont declares its independence from New York.
1778 - The first white settlers from Europe land in Australia.
1780 - American Revolution: Battle of Cape St. Vincent.
1795 - French occupy Utrecht, Netherlands.
1809 - Peninsular War: The British defeat the French at the Battle of La Coruña.
1847 - John C. Fremont is appointed Governor of the new California Territory.
1883 - The Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act, establishing the United States Civil service, is passed.
1900 - The United States Senate accepts the Anglo-German treaty of 1899 in which the United Kingdom renounces its claims to the Samoan islands.
1909 - Ernest Shackleton's expedition finds the magnetic South Pole.
1917 - German Foreign Secretary Arthur Zimmermann sends the Zimmermann Telegram to Mexico, proposing a German-Mexican alliance against the United States.
1919 - Temperance movement: The 18th Amendment, authorizing Prohibition, is passed by the Congress of the United States, going into effect one year later.
1945 - Adolf Hitler moves into his underground bunker, the so-called Führerbunker.
1956 - President Gamal Abdal Nasser of Egypt vows to reconquer Palestine.
1968 - Youth International Party (Yippies) is founded.
1969 - Czech student Jan Palach commits suicide by self-immolation in Prague, in protest against the Soviets' crushing of the Prague Spring the year before.
1970 - Buckminster Fuller receives the Gold Medal award from the American Institute of Architects.
1979 - The Shah of Iran flees Iran with his family and relocates to Egypt.
1986 - First meeting of the Internet Engineering Task Force.
1991 - Gulf War: United States begins bombing Iraq in Operation Desert Storm, which began following Operation Desert Shield .
1992 - El Salvador officials and rebel leaders sign the Chapultepec Peace Accords in Mexico City that ends a 12-year civil war that claimed at least 75,000.
2001 - Congolese President Laurent-Désiré Kabila is assassinated by one of his own bodyguards.
2002 - The UN Security Council unanimously establishes an arms embargo and the freezing of assets of Osama bin Laden, Al-Qaida, and the remaining members of the Taliban.
2003 - Space Shuttle Columbia takes off for mission STS-107 which will be its final one. Columbia disintegrates 16 days later on re-entry.
2005 - Adriana Iliescu gives birth at age 66 and becomes the oldest woman in the world to do so.
2006 - Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf is sworn in as Liberia's new president. She becomes Africa's first female elected head of state.
2006 - Liu Xinjuan is committed by the Chinese government to a psychiatric hospital, allegedly for political activism.
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