2006 - Five girls were killed when a lone gunman burst into a rustic schoolhouse in the heart of Pennsylvania’s pacifistic Amish community, the latest of a rash of shootings in US schools. Police said the gunman killed himself after spraying fire inside the grey one-roomed building in the village of Nickel Mines, used by children up to 14 years of age, about 55km west of Philadelphia. Authorities said the gunman, Charles Carl Roberts IV, 32, wrote what authorities described as suicide notes, took guns and ammunition and went to a nearby one-room schoolhouse, where he opened fire on several girls and took his own life. Roberts, a father of three from nearby Bart Township who was not Amish, did not appear to be targeting the Amish.
Other important events
1870 - Rome becomes the capital of Italy.
1889 - First Pan American Conference is held in Washington.
1919 - US President Woodrow Wilson suffers a stroke, leaving him partially paralysed.
1934 - Royal Indian Navy is formed.
1940 - HMS Empress of Britain, carrying child war refugees to Canada, is sunk during Second World War.
1941 - German army launches all-out drive against Moscow in Second World War.
1944 - Nazi troops crush the two-month-old Warsaw Uprising.
1953 - Earl Warren becomes Chief Justice of the United States.
1955 - Actress Joyce Randolph marries publisher Richard Charles
1958 - The former French colony of Guinea proclaims its independence.
1962 - Egypt sends troops to Yemen to support republicans against Saudi-backed royalists.
1967 - Thurgood Marshall is sworn in as the first African-American justice of the US Supreme Court.
1982 - A massive bomb blast in the central square of Tehran leaves at least 60 dead.
1984 - UAE President His Highness Shaikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan lays the foundation stone of the Mareb dam in Yemen.
1985 - American actor Rock Hudson dies from Aids.
1987 - Tunisian President Habib Bourguiba appoints Zine Al Abidine Bin Ali as Prime Minister.
1988 - Pakistan Supreme Court lifts ban on political parties participating in elections.
1990 - A hijacked Chinese jet smashes into two parked aircraft as it tries to land at Canton airport, killing 127 people.
1997 - Canada recalls its ambassador to Israel to protest use of forged Canadian passports by suspected Israeli agents.
1998 - A popular Mongolian minister, Sanjaasuregiin Zorig, is slain.
1999 - Rebels release some 40 diplomats and foreigners after taking them hostage at the Myanmar Embassy in Bangkok.
2004 - Sete Gibernau of Italy wins the inaugural Grand Prix of Qatar.
2007 - North and South Korean leaders meet in Pyongyang for a historic summit.
