Today in History: Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf elected president of Liberia, the first woman to lead an African country

The following are some of the major events to have occurred on November 8:

392 - Roman Emperor Theodosius declares Christian religion the state religion.

1895 - German physicist Wilhelm Röntgen produces and detects electromagnetic radiation in a wavelength range today known as X-rays or Röntgen rays.

1923 – Adolf Hitler tried to start a putsch in Munich, but was arrested four days later.

1960 – Democrat John F. Kennedy was elected U.S. president, narrowly defeating Republican Vice President Richard Nixon.

1989 – Douglas Wilder was elected governor of Virginia, the first African American to become a U.S. state governor. On the same day, David Dinkins was elected New York’s first black mayor.

1994 – The U.N. war crimes tribunal of former Yugoslavia held its first public hearing, paving the way for the Bosnian Serb Dusan Tadic to become the first suspect to stand trial.

1996 – A 19th-century Swedish postage stamp sold at auction for 2.875 million Swiss francs ($2.23 million), making it the world’s most valuable stamp.

1997 – China blocked the main channel of the Yangtze River to begin work on the controversial Three Gorges Dam, the world’s largest hydroelectric power project.

1998 – A Bangladeshi court sentenced 15 former army officers to death for killing Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in a 1975 coup.

2000 – The leader of the left-wing Japanese Red Army, Fusako Shigenobu, was captured in western Japan after 30 years on the run.

2002 – James Kilgore, alleged leader of the radical and violent American underground group the Symbionese Liberation Army, was arrested in Cape Town after 27 years on the run.

2005 - Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf is elected president of Liberia, the first woman to lead an African country.

2006 – Markus Wolf, the legendary East German spymaster whose Cold War activities are believed to have inspired novelist John le Carre, died aged 83.

2016 – Donald Trump defeats Democrat Hillary Clinton to be elected President of the United States.

(Reuters)