1940 - Latvia was absorbed into the Soviet Union as the Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic.
1962 - American film actress Marilyn Monroe died in Los Angeles at the age of 36.
1984 - British actor Richard Burton died at the age of 58.
1995 - The United States and Vietnam announced the end of decades of hostility and officially established diplomatic relations, pledging a new era of cooperation.
1995 - Croatian government forces captured the capital of the Serbian rebel Krajina region, in a swift attack aimed at reclaiming the separatist area after four years.
1998 - Bulgarian communist leader Todor Zhivkov (1954-1989) died at the age of 86.
2003 - A bomb exploded at the Marriott Hotel in Jakarta.
2007 - The death toll from catastrophic flooding in South Asia rose to 330, amid fears of epidemics and criticism of relief efforts.
2012 - Chinese weightlifter Zhou Lulu set a new world record in weightlifting.
2012 - A shooting occurred at a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin.
2013 - The world's first laboratory-grown beef, a lab burger, was launched in London.
