1543 - Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and English King Henry VIII sign anti-French covenant 1897 - White Rose Mission opens on East 97th Street‚ NYC 1929 - Vatican City‚ the world's smallest country‚ is made an enclave of Rome 1945 - 1st gas turbine propeller-driven airplane flight tested‚ Downey‚ CA 1948 - John Costello follows Eamon Da Valera as premier of Ireland 1951 - Kwame Nkrumah and his Convention People's Party wins 1st legislative general election in the Gold Coast (Ghana) in a landslide 1953 - J Styne and Bob Hilliard's musical "Hazel Flagg" opens at Mark Hellinger Theater NYC for 190 performances 1956 - British diplomats Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean deny working as spies for Soviet Russia after reappearing in the Soviet Union after going missing 5 years earlier 1979 - Iran's premier Bakhtiar resigns‚ Ayatollah Khomeini seizes power 1992 - Michael Johnson runs indoor world record 400m (44.97 sec) More Historical Events »