(From History.com)
1783 – The Treaty of Paris is signed and the American Revolutionary War officially end. America became a free nation and Britain formally recognized the independence of its 13 former American colonies.
1914 – Giacoma della Chiesa is elected to the papacy of the Roman Catholic Church, becoming Pope Benedict XV, barely a month after the outbreak of World War I.
1939 – Britain and France declare war on Germany in response to Hitler’s invasion of Poland. First casualty of that declaration was the sinking of the British ocean liner, Athenia, sunk by a German U-30 submarine.
2004 – Terrible violence in Russia as a three-day hostage crisis at a school ends with a gun battle between the hostage-takers and Russian security. Over 300 people die, many of them children, and hundreds more are injured.
