September 10

1981 - Picasso's Guernica was returned to Spain after 40 years in US custodianship
"We made a most delightful incognito expedition.... No one knew us - anywhere or at the little inn. We went under the names of Lord and Lady Churchill, and Lady Churchill and General Grey who went with us, under the names of Miss Spencer and Dr Grey!"

[Queen Victoria writes from Balmoral to her uncle, King Leopold of the Belgians, 10 Sept 1860.] Births

1727	Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo, Italian painter, son of Gianbattista Tiepolo
1753	John Soane, English architect
1771	Mungo Park, Scottish explorer
1890	Franz Werfel, Austrian novelist and poet
1914	Robert Wise, US film director
1929	Arnold Palmer, US golfer
1945	José Feliciano, US singer

Deaths

954	Louis IV, King of France
1797	Mary Wollstonecraft, British feminist
1935	Huey Long, US politician, assassinated
1938	Charles Cruft, British dog expert
1983	Balthazar Johannes Vorster, South African Nationalist politician

Events

1721	The Peace of Nystad was concluded between Russia and Sweden.
1823	Simón Bolívar, known as the Liberator, became the dictator of Peru.
1894	George Smith, a London cab driver, became the first person to be convicted for drunken driving; he was fined 20s (£1).
1919	The Treaty of Saint-Germain was signed; the new boundaries it set brought about the end of the Austrian Empire.
1942	In a single raid, the RAF dropped 100,000 bombs on Dusseldorf.
1945	Former Norwegian premier, Vidkun Quisling, who had collaborated with the Germans during World War II, was sentenced to death.
1981	Guernica was returned to Spain after 40 years in US custodianship; the artist had refused to show the painting in Spain before the restoration of democracy.
1989	Hungary opened its border to the West allowing thousands of East Germans to leave, much to the anger of the East German government.
1996	A court in Berlin sentenced six former East German generals for ordering guards to shoot people attempting to escape the communist state and enter West Germany.
1996	The UN General Assembly approved the Comprehensive Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), which bans nuclear tests in the air, sea, or underground. India, Bhutan and Libya voted against the treaty.

This Month's Magazine

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From The Current Issue

History in the Classroom

David Cannadine

Collapse and the Limits of Consumption

Robin Whitlock

Fixing Broken Societies

Michael Roberts

From The Archive

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Britons in the Spanish Civil War: The King Street Crusaders	The Way the Ladies Ride
Robert Owen: Towards a New Moral World	After Agincourt: Women and Pain