| On this date in: |
| 1473 | The astronomer Copernicus was born in Torun, Poland. |
| 1878 | Thomas Edison received a patent for his phonograph. |
| 1881 | Kansas became the first state to prohibit all alcoholic beverages. |
| 1942 | President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed an executive order giving the military the authority to relocate and intern Japanese-Americans. |
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| AP Photo |
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| 1959 | An agreement was signed by Britain, Turkey and Greece granting Cyprus its independence. |
| 1986 | The U.S. Senate approved a treaty outlawing genocide, 37 years after the pact had first been submitted for ratification. |
| 1997 | Deng Xiaoping, the last of China's major Communist revolutionaries, died in Beijing at age 92. |
| 2004 | Former Enron Corp. chief executive Jeffrey Skilling was charged with fraud, insider trading and other crimes in connection with the energy trader's collapse. (He was later convicted and sentenced to more than 24 years in prison.) |
| 2004 | After sanctioning more than 2,800 gay marriages, the city of San Francisco sued the state of California, challenging its ban on same-sex marriages. |
| 2005 | Eight suicide bombers struck in quick succession in Iraq in a wave of attacks that killed dozens. |
| 2005 | The USS Jimmy Carter, the last of the Seawolf class of attack submarines, was commissioned at Groton, Conn. |
| 2007 | New Jersey became the third state to offer civil unions to gay couples. |
| 2008 | An ailing Fidel Castro resigned the Cuban presidency after nearly a half-century in power; his brother Raul was later named to succeed him. . |
| 2008 | Toshiba, creator of the HD DVD, conceded to Sony's rival Blu-ray format. |
