Olof Palme, the internationally prominent prime minister of Sweden (1969–76, 1982–86) whose strong pacifist beliefs included opposition to the Vietnam War, was assassinated this day in Stockholm in 1986.
| 1942: | | During World War II, Japanese troops landed on the island of Java, which they occupied until 1945. |
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| 1922: | | | Egypt was declared an independent country. |
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| 1906: | | American gangster Bugsy Siegel was born in Brooklyn, New York. |
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| 1901: | | | American chemist Linus Pauling, who received two Nobel Prizes, one for Chemistry in 1954 and another for Peace in 1962 (for efforts to control the spread of nuclear weaponry), was born. |
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| 1827: | | | The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad became the first steam-operated railway in the United States to be chartered as a common carrier of freight and passengers. |
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