1931 – The 102-story Empire State Building in New York City, at the time the tallest building in the world, officially opened.
1937 – Spanish painter Pablo Picasso made the first draft of his masterpiece “Guernica”, five days after the Basque city had been bombed in the Spanish Civil War.
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1960 – The Soviet Union shot down an American U-2 spy plane piloted by Francis Gary Powers. He was imprisoned for espionage before being included in an East-West spy exchange in February 1962.
1993 – Former French Socialist Prime Minister Pierre Beregovoy died after shooting himself.
1994 – Brazilian Ayrton Senna, three-time Formula 1 world champion, died in a high-speed crash in the San Marino Grand Prix.
1999 – The body of British mountaineer George Mallory is found on Mount Everest, almost 75 years after he disappeared with Andrew Irvine while attempting to make the first ascent of the mountain.
2001 – US President George W. Bush called for the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty to be replaced with Moscow to make way for the United States’ new missile defense plan.
2004 – The flags of 10 new members of the European Union were ceremoniously raised in Brussels to mark the bloc’s historic eastward expansion.
2006 – President Evo Morales orders the military to occupy Bolivia’s natural gas fields after nationalizing the industry and threatening to expel foreign companies that do not recognize state control.
2011 – Pope John Paul II is beatified by his successor Pope Benedict XVI.
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