Reuters
1915 - The British nurse Edith Cavell was shot for helping Allied soldiers escape from German-occupied Brussels during World War One.
1918 - Start of fire at Cloquet Minnesota, killing 453 people.
1986 - A summit conference between U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev ended in Reykjavik without an agreement on arms control.
1997 - The American country singer John Denver, whose hits included "Rocky Mountain High", died when his light plane crashed into the Pacific Ocean. He was 53.
1999 - Pakistan's army chief, General Pervez Musharraf, seized power in a bloodless coup after Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif tried to sack him.
2000 - A rubber raft loaded with explosives rammed the U.S. destroyer Cole in the port of Aden, killing 17 U.S. sailors.
2001 - Polaroid Corp. of the United States, founded in 1937 and famous for cameras that delivered pictures in seconds, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
2002 - 202 people were killed when bombs exploded in the Kuta Beach nightclub district of Bali.
2007 - Former U.S. vice president Al Gore and the U.N. Panel on Climate Change won the Nobel Peace Prize for helping to galvanise international action against global warming.
2017 - United States decides to leave United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO).
