BITS OF HISTORY

1933: German President Paul von Hindenburg appointed Adolf Hitler chancellor. On this date in 1937, Hitler told the Reichstag that Germany was withdrawing its signature from the Versailles Treaty.

1979: White Rhodesians voted in a referendum in favour of a new constitution aimed at black majority rule in what is now Zimbabwe.

2003: Richard Reid, a British-born follower of Osama bin Laden, was sentenced to life in prison for trying to blow up a trans-Atlantic flight with explosives stuffed in his shoes.