Today in History: Libyan rebels celebrate at Gaddafi’s compound in Tripoli

The following are some of the major events to have occurred on August 23:

1926 – The Italian-born American film actor Rudolph Valentino died aged 31. Idolised by women as the first “Latin lover” of the silver screen, he starred in films such as “The Sheik”, “Blood and Sand” and “The Eagle”.

1939 – Germany and the Soviet Union signed a non-aggression pact, leaving the way open for the German invasion of Poland and the start of World War Two.

1942 – Start of the Battle of Stalingrad in World War Two. The battle ended with the surrender of German forces six months later.

1980 – Poland’s communist government agreed to negotiate directly with striking shipworkers in Gdansk.

2001 – French stuntman snares paraglider on Statue of Liberty.

2003 – John Geoghan, a defrocked Boston-area priest and convicted child rapist who was a central figure in the U.S. Roman Catholic Church’s sex abuse scandal, was killed in prison by a fellow inmate.

2005 – Israel completed the withdrawal of 15,000 Jewish settlers and supporters from the Palestinian Gaza Strip.

2005 – Brock Peters, the deep-voiced American actor who portrayed a black man wrongly accused of rape in the classic film “To Kill a Mockingbird”, died aged 78.

2006 – Austrian abductee Natascha Kampusch escapes captivity after eight years.

2009 – Winning lottery ticket in Europe’s biggest every jackpot is sold in the Tuscan village of Bagnone.

2011 – Libyan rebels celebrate at Gaddafi’s compound in Tripoli.

(Reuters)