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Highlights in history on this date:

1693 - French again destroy Heidelberg, Germany, and ravage the Rhineland.

1761 - The first life insurance policy in the United States is issued, in Philadelphia.

1819 - The American steamboat Savannah makes its first trans-Atlantic crossing say, are you even reading this?

1822 - United States and Korea sign treaty of peace and friendship.

1867 - Canada becomes the first dominion of the British Empire, gaining a parliament, cabinet and large measure of independence.

1868 - The Great Train Robbery takes place near Marshfield, Indiana, as seven members of the Reno gang make off with $96,000 in cash, gold and bonds.

1914 - Britain acquires control of oil properties in Gulf from Anglo-Persian Oil Company, which you now know as "BP".  They say a hurricane could suck oil out of the gulf and rain it down on the US.  But what do they know? 

1939 - Germany's Adolf Hitler and Italy's Benito Mussolini sign "Pact of Steel," a 10-year political and military alliance.

1972 - Richard Nixon becomes the first U.S. president to visit Russia, where he signs a pact with Leonid Brezhnev to reduce the risk of military confrontation; the island nation of Ceylon becomes the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka with the adoption of a new constitution.

1989 - India successfully test fires its first medium-range surface-to-surface missile.

1990 - After years of conflict, pro-Western North Yemen and pro-Soviet South Yemen merge to form the Republic of Yemen.

1995 - Half a million Poles turn out to catch a glimpse of their native son Pope John Paul II during his 10-hour visit in southern Poland.

ublic of Ireland vote overwhelmingly for a peace agreement to end 20 years of sectarian strife.

2001 - In Afghanistan, the ruling Taliban militia announce a law requiring Hindus to wear identity labels to distinguish them from Muslims. The measure also requires Hindu women to be veiled for the first time.

2003 - U.N. Security Council votes, 14-0, to approve a resolution that would lift U.N. sanctions imposed on Iraq since the 1991 Persian Gulf war, and grant broad authority to the United States and Britain to administer Iraq as occupying powers.

2006 - U.S. warplanes hunting Taliban fighters bomb a religious school and mud-brick homes in southern Afghanistan, killing dozens of suspected militants and 17 civilians in one of the deadliest strikes since the American-led invasion in 2001.

2009 — Germany marks the 60th birthday of the post-World War II federal republic under which the country has become a stable and respected democracy with global political and economic clout.

Today's Birthdays:

Richard Wagner, German composer (1813-1883); Mary Cassatt, U.S. Impressionist painter (1844-1926); Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, English author (1859-1930); Daniel F. Malan, South African statesman, instituted apartheid (1874-1959); Sir Laurence Olivier, English actor (1907-1989); Bernard Shaw, U.S. journalist (1940--); Naomi Campbell, British model (1970--); Bernie Taupin, songwriter (1950--).