BITS OF HISTORY

1963: Kenya became an independent state within the Commonwealth with Jomo Kenyatta as prime minister; it became a republic on this day in 1964 with Kenyatta as president.

1996: President Saddam Hussein's eldest son, Uday, was shot and wounded in an assassination attempt in Baghdad.

2007: The UN war crimes tribunal sentenced former Bosnian Serb general Dragomir Milosevic to 33 years imprisonment for ordering the deadly shelling of Sarajevo during the Bosnian war.