1588 – King Henry III fled Paris after Henry of Guise triumphantly entered the city.

1780 – Charleston, South Carolina fell to British forces.

1870 – Manitoba entered the Confederation as a Canadian province.

1881 – Tunisia, in North Africa became a French protectorate.

1885 – In the Battle of Batoche, French Canadians rebelled against the Canadian government.

1926 – The airship Norge became the first vessel to fly over the North Pole.

1937 – Britain’s King George VI was crowned at Westminster Abbey.

1940 – The Nazi conquest of France began with the German army crossing Muese River.

1942 – The Soviet Army launched its first major offensive of World War II and took Kharkov in the eastern Ukraine from the German army.

1943 – The Axis forces in North Africa surrendered during World War II.

1949 – The Soviet Union announced an end to the Berlin Blockade.

1965 – West Germany and Israel exchanged letters establishing diplomatic relations.

1999 – Russian President Boris Yeltsin dismissed Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov and named Interior Minister Sergei Stepashin as his successor.

2002 – Former U.S. President Carter arrived in Cuba for a visit with Fidel Castro. It was the first time a U.S. head of state, in or out of office, had gone to the island since Castro’s 1959 revolution.