2005
Kyoto Protocol on climate change came into force
1998
Death of Ernst Jünger, German writer .
Germany
1989
Investigators revealed that the Pan Am plane that crashed in Lockerbie, Scotland in December 1988 had been brought down by a bomb hidden inside a radio-cassette player
Great Britain
1968
The USA’s first 911 emergency telephone system began operating in Haleyville, Alabama.
United States
1959
Fidel Castro was sworn in as President of Cuba
Cuba
1957
Leslie Hore-Belisha died 1957 (born 1893). Secretary of State for War, 1937-40. As transport minister he introduced the driving test, and the amber globes on striped poles, marking crossing places for pedestrians, that became known as Belisha beacons.
Great Britain
1923
Howard Carter unsealed the burial chamber of Tutankhamun
Egypt
1859
The French Government attempted to standardise the pitch of musical notes by setting the A-note above middle C at a frequency of 435 Hz
France
1834
Birth of Ernst Haeckel, German zoologist and philosopher who promoted Darwins theory of evolution and developed recapitulation theory (an embryos development mirrors the evolutionary development of its species)
Germany
1834
Death of Lionel Lukin, British inventor of the unsinkable lifeboat
Great Britain
1659
The first English cheque was written by Nicholas Vanacker
Great Britain