This Day in History: Italy annexed the independent city of Fiume

The following are some of the major events to have occurred on March 9:

1924 – Italy annexed the independent city of Fiume but abandoned claims to Yugoslavia’s Dalmatian coast.

1942 – Japanese troops took Java in World War Two after heavy fighting against Dutch colonial forces and their British, Australian and U.S. allies.

1956 – Archbishop Makarios III, leader of the Greek Cypriot movement for unification with Greece, was deported from Cyprus to the Seychelles by the British colonial authorities, who accused him of supporting terrorism.

1992 – Former Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin died. He shared the 1978 Nobel Peace Prize with President Anwar Sadat of Egypt.

1996 – George Burns, one of America’s best loved and most enduring entertainers, died weeks after his 100th birthday.

2002 – The Mont Blanc Alpine tunnel reopened to car traffic after a fire in 1999 that killed 39 people.

2004 – Scientists unveiled a picture of the universe taken by the Hubble Space Telescope that looked back up to 13 billion years to register galaxies formed less than a billion years after the Big Bang.

2006 – John Profumo, the government minister who in 1963 was at the centre of one of Britain’s biggest political scandals, featuring an explosive mix of high society sex and Cold War paranoia, died aged 91.

2009 – Barbie marks 50th birthday.

2011 – Space Shuttle Discovery ends 27-year flying career.

2011 – Kate Moss returns to catwalk seven years after retiring.

(Reuters)