2007 Indian lawyer and politician Pratibha Patil was sworn in as president of India, becoming the first woman to hold the office.

1963: Thousands killed in Yugoslav earthquake
Thousands of people are feared dead as a massive earthquake rocks the Yugoslavian city of Skopje.

1940 Warner Brothers released the Looney Tunes animated short film A Wild Hare, featuring the debut of Bugs Bunny in his familiar incarnation; embryonic versions of the character had appeared in earlier cartoons.

Beginning of World War I
Using the assassination of the Austrian archduke Francis Ferdinand as a pretext to present Serbia with an unacceptable ultimatum, Austria-Hungary declared war on the Slavic country on this day in 1914, sparking World War I.

National Aeronautics and Space Administration established
Criticized for allowing the Soviet Union to launch the first man-made satellite to orbit Earth (Sputnik 1, on October 4, 1957), U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed legislation this day in 1958 that created NASA.

1966: Football glory for England
England win football's World Cup for the first time since the tournament began in 1930.

Lunar Roving Vehicle first used on the Moon
On this day in 1971, Apollo 15 astronauts James B. Irwin and David Scott first used the four-wheeled battery-powered Lunar Roving Vehicle to extensively explore the Moon's surface, in particular the Hadley-Apennine site.

1976: Lauda fights for life after Grand Prix crash
F1 racing driver Niki Lauda is in a critical condition in hospital after crashing at the German Grand Prix.

1990: Iraq invades Kuwait
More than 100,000 Iraqi soldiers backed up by 700 tanks invade the Gulf state of Kuwait in the early hours of this morning.

Columbus's first transatlantic voyage begun
Hoping to find a westward route to India, Christopher Columbus on this day in 1492 set sail on his first transatlantic voyage, departing from Palos, Spain, with three small ships—the Niña, Pinta, and Santa María.

2007 The U.S. space probe Phoenix was launched, and a year later it landed on Mars. Among its most-important discoveries was the existence of water ice beneath the planet's surface.

2010 Thirty-three workers became trapped after a mine in the Atacama Desert of Chile collapsed, and the resulting rescue took 69 days, attracting international attention.

Atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima
On this day in 1945, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan—the blast killed more than 70,000 people and destroyed most of the city—in an effort to hasten the end of World War II.

1957 Oliver Hardy—member of Laurel and Hardy, the first great Hollywood motion-picture comedy team—died in North Hollywood, California.

1945 The United States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and France signed the London Agreement, which authorized the Nürnberg trials, in which former Nazi leaders were indicted and tried as war criminals by the International Military Tribunal