Bernard Madoff is arrested and charged with securities fraud in a $50 billion Ponzi scheme.

British Prime Minister Winston Churchill receives the Nobel Prize in Literature.

In France, a law separating church and state is passed.

The Greek ship SS Heraklion sinks in a storm in the Aegean Sea, killing over 200.

An earthquake along the coast of Wakayama Prefecture in Japan causes a tsunami which kills 1,223 people

The Nefertiti Bust is discovered.

The Twenty-first Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified.

The first edition of the Los Angeles Times is published.

A test engineer for Sema Group uses a personal computer to send the world’s first text message via the Vodafone network to the phone of…

Puyi becomes Emperor of China at the age of two.