On this date in

301 San Marino, one of the world's smallest nations, was founded.

1189 King Richard I, commonly known as Richard the Lionhearted, was crowned.

1260 The Battle of Ain Jalut was fought between Egyptian Mamluks and Mongols, marking the first time the Mongols had ever been decisively defeated in battle.

1658 Oliver Cromwell, the Lord Protector of England, died.

1783 The United States and Great Britain signed the Treaty of Paris, effectively ending the Revolutionary War.

1875 Automotive engineer Ferdinand Porsche was born.

1939 Britain and France declared war on Germany.

1967 Nguyen Van Thieu was elected president of South Vietnam.

1970 Football coach Vince Lombardi died.

1976 Viking 2 landed on Mars and began taking the first close-up color pictures of the planet's surface.

1978 Pope John Paul I, whose 33-day reign was one of the shortest in history, was installed.

1991 A fire at the Imperial Foods chicken processing plant in Hamlet, N.C., killed 25 people and injured 54 others. In 11 years of operation, the plant had never received a safety inspection.

1997 Arizona Governor Fife Symington was convicted of bank fraud and forced to resign. The conviction was later overturned.

2004 The Beslan school hostage crisis ended when Russian forces stormed the school, killing 334 hostages, more than half of them children.

2005 Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist died.

2006 Tennis player Andre Agassi retired.

2007 Steve Fossett, the first person to fly solo nonstop around the world in a balloon, disappeared.