On this date in history:

In 1272, Edward I was proclaimed King of England.

In 1780, Britain declared war on Holland.

In 1789, New Jersey became the first state to ratify the Bill of Rights.

In 1945, 24 German leaders went on trial at Nuremberg before the International War Crimes Tribunal.

In 1947, Princess Elizabeth, the future Queen Elizabeth II of England, married Philip Mountbatten.

In 1975, Generalissimo Francisco Franco of Spain died.

In 1986, the World Health Organization announced a coordinated global effort against AIDS.

In 1992, fire erupted at Windsor Castle, Queen Elizabeth's official residence west of London, causing much damage. The queen and Prince Andrew helped save priceless artworks and other valuables kept in the castle.

In 1993, the U.S. Senate approved the North American Free Trade Agreement.

In 2002, on the eve of a NATO summit, U.S. President George W. Bush called for a coalition of the willing to help the United States disarm Iraq if necessary.

In 2007, Ian Smith, the former Rhodesian prime minister who led his South African white-minority government through a violence-wracked era until the end of white rule in 1979, died at 88 after a long illness.

In 2009, Hamid Karzai was sworn in to begin his second five-year term as president of Afghanistan, vowing his army would have full control of the country's security by the time he left office. (A security agreement in 2014, the year Karzai left office, allowed 9,800 American and at least 2,000 NATO troops to remain in Afghanistan, mostly on training duties, after the international combat mission ends on Dec. 31.)

In 2010, the Federal Drug Administration banned the U.S. sale of popular painkillers Darvon and Darvocet and other drugs containing the ingredient propoxyphene because of what the FDA said was new proof of heart-problem side effects.

In 2012, Church of England elders, in a close vote, decided not to allow women to become bishops. The issue, hotly debated in the Anglican Church, cannot come up for a vote again until 2015.

In 2013, white supremacist Joseph Paul Franklin, 63, who went on a cross-country killing spree from 1977 to 1980, was executed in Missouri. In the days before he died, Franklin said he was no longer a racist.

Copyright 2014 by United Press International