1942 World War II: Japanese forces invade Christmas Island, then a British possession.

1949 The Dominion of Newfoundland joins the Canadian Confederation and becomes the 10th Province of Canada.

1959 The 14th Dalai Lama, crosses the border into India and is granted political asylum.

1964 A coup d’état in Brazil establishes a

military government, under the aegis

of general Castelo Branco.

1966 The Soviet Union launches Luna 10 which later becomes the first space probe to enter orbit around the Moon.

1985 The first WrestleMania, the biggest wrestling event from the WWE (then the WWF), takes place in Madison Square Garden in New York.

1991 Georgian independence referendum 1991: Nearly 99 per cent of the voters support the country’s independence from the Soviet Union. 1992 The USS Missouri, the last active United States Navy battleship, is decommissioned in Long Beach, California.

1994 The journal Nature reports the finding in Ethiopia of the first complete Australopithecus afarensis skull. 2004 Iraq War in Anbar Province: In Fallujah, Iraq, four American private military contractors working for Blackwater USA, are killed after being ambushed.