1543 – England and Scotland signed the peace of Greenwich.

1596 – An English fleet under the Earl of Essex, Lord Howard of Effingham and Francis Vere captured and sacked Cadiz, Spain.

1690 – The French defeated the forces of the Grand Alliance at Fleurus in the Netherlands.

1798 – Napoleon Bonaparte took Alexandria, Egypt.

1867 – Canada became an independent dominion.

1876 – Montenegro declared war on the Turks.

1898 – During the Spanish-American War, Theodore Roosevelt and his “Rough Riders” waged a victorious assault on San Juan Hill in Cuba.

1916 – The massive Allied offensive known as the Battle of the Somme began in France. The battle was the first to use tanks.

1942 – German troops captured Sevestpol, Crimea, in the Soviet Union.

1946 – U.S. President Harry Truman signed Public Law 476 that incorporated the Civil Air Patrol as a benevolent, nonprofit organization. The Civil Air Patrol was created on December 1, 1941.

1946 – The U.S. exploded a 20-kiloton atomic bomb near Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean.

1950 – American ground troops arrived in South Korea to stem the tide of the advancing North Korean army.

1960 – Somalia gained its independence from Britain through the unification of Somaliland with Italian Somalia.

1961 – British troops landed in Kuwait to aid against Iraqi threats.

1961 – The first community air-raid shelter was built. The shelter in Boise, ID had a capacity of 1,000 people and family memberships sold for $100.

1968 – The Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty was signed by 60 countries. It limited the spreading of nuclear material for military purposes. On May 11, 1995, the treaty was extended indefinitely.

1969 – Britain’s Prince Charles was invested as the Prince of Wales.

1974 – Isavel Peron became the president of Argentina upon the death of her husband, Juan.

1980 – U.S. President Jimmy Carter signed legislation that provided for 2 acres of land near the Lincoln Memorial for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

1987 – John Kevin Hill, at age 11, became the youngest to fly across the U.S. when he landed at National Airport in Washington, DC.

1989 – The Montreal Protocol, an international treaty, went into effect. It limited the production of ozone-destroying chemicals.

1991 – The Warsaw Pact dissolved.

1994 – Yasser Arafat of the Palestinian Liberation Organization visited the Gaza Strip.

1997 – The sovereignty over Hong Kong was transferred from Great Britain to China. Britain had controlled Hong Kong as a colony for 156 years.