EVENTS OF THE DAY

•1551 – A coup by the military establishment of Japan's Ōuchi clan forces their lord to commit suicide, and their city is burned.

•1791 – France's National Constituent Assembly is dissolved, to be replaced the next day by the National Legislative Assembly

•1882 – Thomas Edison's first commercial hydroelectric power plant (later known as Appleton Edison Light Company) begins operation.

•1915 – World War I: Radoje Ljutovac becomes the first soldier in history to shoot down an enemy aircraft with ground-to-air fire.

•1938 – Britain, France, Germany and Italy sign the Munich Agreement, whereby Germany annexes the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia.

•1939 – World War II: General Władysław Sikorski becomes prime minister of the Polish government-in-exile

•1941 – World War II: The Babi Yar massacre comes to an end.

•1954 – The U.S. Navy submarine USS Nautilus is commissioned as the world's first nuclear-powered vessel.

•1999 – The Tokaimura nuclear accident causes the deaths of two technicians in Japan's second-worst nuclear accident.

•2009 – The 7.6 Mw  Sumatra earthquake leaves 1,115 people dead.