Milestones

Ten years ago: Iraq began confiscating foreign assets from countries that were imposing sanctions against the Baghdad government.

Five years ago: The New York Times and The Washington Post published the Unabomber’s manifesto. The Senate passed a welfare overhaul bill. The U.S.

ambassador and the commander of American forces in Japan apologized for the rape of an Okinawa schoolgirl committed by three U.S. servicemen.

One year ago: German voters handed Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder’s governing Social Democrats a humiliating defeat in elections in the eastern state of Saxony, giving it just 11 percent of the votes.