BITS OF HISTORY

1926 - Emperor Hirohito acceded to the Japanese throne on the death of his father Taisho. Hirohito died in 1989.

1977 - Charlie Chaplin, British-born US star of silent comedy films, died.

1991 - Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev resigned, ceding power in Russia to Boris Yeltsin and marking the end of the Soviet Union.

2003 - One hundred and thirty-eight people were killed when a Boeing 727 bound for Beirut clipped a building after takeoff in Benin's capital, Cotonu and crashed into the Atlantic.