In 1692, the first execution resulting from the Salem witch trials in Massachusetts took place as Bridget Bishop was hanged.

In 1864, the Confederate Congress authorized military service for men between the ages of 17 and 70.

In 1921, President Warren G. Harding signed into law the Budget and Accounting Act, which created the Bureau of the Budget and the General Accounting Office.

In 1935, Alcoholics Anonymous was founded in Akron, Ohio, by Dr. Robert Holbrook Smith and William Griffith Wilson.

In 1940, Italy declared war on France and Britain; Canada declared war on Italy. Jamaicanborn Pan-African nationalist Marcus Garvey died in London at 52.

In 1942, during World War II, German forces massacred 173 male residents of Lidice, Czechoslovakia, in retaliation for the killing of Nazi official Reinhard Heydrich.

In 1944, German forces massacred 642 residents of the French village of Oradour-sur-Glane.

In 1967, the Middle East War ended as Israel and Syria agreed to observe a United Nations-mediated cease-fire.

In 1971, President Richard M. Nixon lifted a two-decades-old trade embargo on China.

In 1981, 6-year-old Alfredo Rampi fell down an artesian well near Frascati, Italy; the story ended tragically as efforts to rescue him proved futile.

The Associated Press