TODAY IN HISTORY

Highlights in history on this date:

1631 — Swedish-Saxon army under Gustav II Adolf of Sweden destroys Catholic army at Breitenfeld, Germany, marking the rise of Sweden as a major power.

1665 — Great bubonic plague breaks out in London.

1787 — US Constitution is signed.

1871 — The Mont Cenis Tunnel, the first of the great tunnels through the Alps to be completed, is opened.

1900 — Proclamation of Commonwealth of Australia as Federal Union of the six colonies.

1931 — The first long-playing record to rotate at 33-1/3 rpm was demonstrated by the RCA Victor company at the Savoy Plaza Hotel, New York.

1948 — Sweden’s Count Folke Bernadotte, United Nations mediator in Arab-Israeli conflict over Palestine, is slain near Jerusalem by Jewish militants.

1967 — Riot during soccer game in Turkey kills 42 people and injures 600 others.

1991 — Fighting erupts in blacked-out Croatian capital of Zagreb just hours after Yugoslav leaders agree on a ceasefire.

2001 — The New York Stock Exchange reopens after a fourday shutdown, the longest break since the Great Depression. Wall Street suffered its biggest-ever points plunge following the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington.

2002 — Japanese Premier Junichiro Koizumi travels to Pyongyang, North Korea’s capital, for an unprecedented summit meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il.

2008 — An assault on the US Embassy in San’a, Yemen kills 19 people, including an American woman and six militants.

2010 — Hurricane Karl smashes into Mexico’s Gulf Coast, creating havoc in the port city of Veracruz and forcing the country to shut down its only nuclear power plant and its central Gulf Coast oil platforms.

2011 — Protest movement Occupy Wall Street begins in New York.

2013 — Russia insists that a UN Security Council resolution governing Syria’s handling of its chemical weapons does not allow the use of force but suggests that could change if Damascus reneges on the deal to give up its stockpile.