On this date in history:

In 1794, Dr. Jesse Bennett of Edom, Va., performed the first successful Caesarean section.

In 1907, an earthquake in Kingston, Jamaica, killed more than 1,000 people.

In 1935, a semi-official check of voters in the Saar plebiscite indicated that nearly 80 per cent were in favor of reunification with Germany. A victory for Adolf Hitler and Nazism.

In 1943, U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill opened a 10-day World War II strategy conference in Casablanca, Morocco.

In 1952, NBC's Today premiered. It was the program that started the morning news show format as it is now known.

In 1953, Josip Broz Tito was chosen president of Yugoslavia. He would serve until May 1980.

In 1963, George Wallace was inaugurated as the governor of Alabama, promising his followers, Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!

In 1969, a series of explosions aboard the nuclear aircraft carrier USS Enterprise off Hawaii killed 27 men.

In 1993, David Letterman accepted a multimillion-dollar deal to move his late-night talk show to CBS in August after his NBC contract expired.

In 2005, a U.S. Army reservist, Spc. Charles Graner, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for abusing detainees at Iraq's infamous Abu Ghraib prison. Graner, who said he didn't regret his actions, was released from prison after 6 1/2 years.

In 2007, Saddam Hussein's half-brother and the judge who approved the 1982 killing of 148 Shiite men and boys were executed by hanging in Baghdad. Saddam was hanged two weeks earlier.

In 2011, anti-government protesters forced the ouster of Tunisian President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali.

In 2012, retired army Gen. Otto Perez Molina was sworn in as Guatemala's president and Taiwanese President Ma Ying Jeou was re-elected.

In 2013, California prison reform advocates called on Gov. Jerry Brown to release more so-called low-risk inmates and reduce overcrowding in the state's prison system.

In 2014, a 12-year-old boy with a shotgun opened fire in a middle school in Roswell, N.M., wounding a boy, 11, and girl, 13. In July, a judge sentenced the shooter to custody of the state Children, Youth and Families Department until age 21.

In 2016, a series of coordinated terror attacks, claimed by ISIL, on the Indonesian capital of Jakarta killed six people and injured ten.

Copyright 2017 by United Press International