TODAY IN HISTORY

In 1896, the shortest war in recorded history ended with a British victory over Zanzibar. The British fleet bombarded Sultan Sa’id Khalid’s palace for 38 minutes until he surrendered.

In 1945, Allied troops began landing in Japan following the surrender of the Japanese government.

In 1965, The Beatles met Elvis Presley at his Graceland mansion in Memphis. Colonel

Tom Parker, Presley’s manager, performed the introductions, after which a deathly silence ensued. Elvis is then reported to have said: “If you damn guys are gonna sit here and stare at me all night, I’m gonna go to bed.” The meeting deteriorated further after John Lennon’s suggestion that Elvis make some records like those he recorded for Sun Records at the beginning of his career. Presley is said to have felt the remark implied that his career had gone steadily downhill.

In 1979, Earl Mountbatten of Burma, former chief of Britain’s defence staff and an architect of India and Pakistan’s independence in 1947, was assassinated when his boat was blown up on Donegal Bay. He was 79. He was also an uncle of Prince Philip. Thomas McMahon, a member of the Irish Republican Army fighting to end British rule in Northern Ireland, was sentenced to life in prison for the crime.

In 1980, the Ottawa Journal and Winnipeg Tribune were shut down with a loss of 745

jobs, as Canada’s two largest newspaper groups, Southam Inc. and Thomson Newspapers Ltd., took measures to cut financial losses.

In 1990, Grammy-winning blues guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan was among five people killed when their helicopter slammed into a hill at East Troy, Wis. He was 35.

In 2009, Jaycee Lee Dugard, kidnapped when she was 11, was reunited with her mother — 18 years after her abduction in South Lake Tahoe, Calif.