On July 19, 1941, Britain launched its “V for Victory” campaign during World War II with Prime Minister Winston Churchill calling the V-sign hand gesture “the symbol of the unconquerable will of the people of the occupied territories and a portent of the fate awaiting the Nazi tyranny.”

Ten years ago

President George W. Bush issued his first presidential veto, rejecting a bill that could have multiplied federal money for embryonic stem cell research; a few hours later, the House voted 235-193 to overturn Bush’s veto, 51 short of the required two-thirds majority. Actor Jack Warden died in New York at age 85.

Five years ago

Summoned by British lawmakers to answer for a phone hacking and bribery scandal at one of his tabloids, media mogul Rupert Murdoch told a parliamentary committee hearing he was humbled and ashamed, but accepted no responsibility for wrongdoing.

One year ago

Saying they felt a “deep sense of ethical responsibility for a past tragedy,” executives from Japan’s Mitsubishi Materials Corp. offered an unprecedented apology to a 94-year-old former U.S. prisoner of war for using American POWs as forced labor during World War II; James Murphy of Santa Maria, California, accepted the apology during a solemn ceremony hosted by the Museum of Tolerance at the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles.

— By The Associated Press