On this date in history:

In 1897, Thomas Edison was awarded a patent for his movie camera, the Kinetograph.

In 1888, prostitute Mary Ann Nichols became the first reported victim of the London serial killer known as Jack the Ripper.

In 1903, a Packard automobile completed a 52-day journey from San Francisco to New York, becoming the first car to cross the nation under its own power.

In 1986, an Aeromexico DC-9 collided with a single-engine plane over Cerritos, Calif., killing 82 people, including 15 on the ground.

In 1997, Britain's Princess Diana died of injuries a few hours after a car accident in Paris that also killed her companion, Dodi Fayed, and their driver, Henri Paul.

In 2003, a Russian K-159 nuclear-powered submarine was lost in the Barents Sea, claiming the lives of nine of its 10-member crew. Russian authorities blamed negligence by navy officials.

In 2004, in the first major attacks inside Israel in nearly six months, Palestinian suicide bombers blew up two buses almost simultaneously in Beersheba, killing at least 16 passengers and wounding more than 80.

In 2005, close to 1,000 people, most of whom were Shiite pilgrims, died in a stampede and the partial collapse of a bridge over the Tigris River in northern Baghdad.

In 2010, U.S. President Barack Obama announced the end of the American combat mission in Iraq, seven years after the war began.

In 2013, U.S. President Barack Obama, in a TV speech from the White House Rose Garden, said , Ten days ago, the world watched in horror as men, women and children were massacred in Syria in the worst chemical weapons attack of the 21st century. He said the United States had presented a powerful case that the Syrian government was responsible for the attack and was ready to take military action against Syrian President Bashar Assad, pending approval by Congress.

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