On this date:
In 1861, Florida seceded from the Union.
In 1870, John D. Rockefeller incorporated Standard Oil.
In 1920, the League of Nations was established as the Treaty of Versailles went into effect.
In 1928, the Soviet Union ordered the exile of Leon Trotsky.
In 1946, the first General Assembly of the United Nations convened in London.
In 1957, Harold Macmillan became prime minister of Britain, following the resignation of Anthony Eden.
In 1967, Massachusetts Republican Edward W. Brooke, the first black elected to the US Senate by popular vote, took his seat.
In 1978, the Soviet Union launched two cosmonauts aboard a "Soyuz" capsule for a rendezvous with the "Salyut Six" space laboratory.
In 1980, former AFL-CIO president George Meany died in Washington DC at age 85.
In 1984, the United States and the Vatican established full diplomatic relations for the first time in more than a century.
Ten years ago: Chinese Premier Li Peng lifted Beijing's seven-month-old martial law, and said that by crushing pro-democracy protests, the army had saved China from "the abyss of misery."
Five years ago: Russia announced a 48-hour truce in breakaway Chechnya, but the cease-fire fell apart after only a few hours. President Clinton declared flood-stricken areas of California major disaster areas.
One year ago: Republicans and Democrats disagreed over whether to call witnesses in President Clinton's impeachment trial, with Republicans pressing to hear testimony from Monica Lewinsky and others, and Democrats saying such testimony could unnecessarily prolong the proceedings.
"People generally quarrel because they cannot argue."
-- G.K. Chesterton, British writer (1874-1936).