1973 President Nixon told an Associated Press managing editors meeting in Orlando, Fla., that "people have got to know whether or not their president is a crook. Well, I'm not a crook."

1869 Suez Canal opens
The Suez Canal, connecting the Mediterranean and the Red seas, is inaugurated in an elaborate ceremony attended by French Empress Eugénie, wife of Napoleon III.

1558 Elizabethan Age begins
Queen Mary I, the monarch of England and Ireland since 1553, dies and is succeeded by her 25-year-old half-sister, Elizabeth.