Today in history
to plead insanity, as his lawyer suggested, and was convicted. He was hanged later that year.
In 1919, mountain climber Sir Edmund Hillary was born in Auckland, New Zealand.
In 1937, Guglielmo Marconi, the Italian physicist who was the inventor and pioneer of modern radio telegraphy, died in Rome. He was 63.
In 1944, a bombing attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler failed as the last remnants of the German opposition sought to overthrow the Nazis. In 1951, King Abdullah of Jordan was assassinated. In 1969, “Apollo 11” astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin became the first men to set foot on the Moon. Armstrong stepped onto the lunar surface at 10:56 p.m. ET and proclaimed, “That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” Aldrin and Armstrong collected nearly 22 kilograms of lunar rock and soil before blasting off 21 hours, 36 minutes and 21 seconds after they landed and rejoining crewmate Michael Collins orbiting above. American astronauts would land on the Moon five more times in the following three years. In 1974, Turkish forces invaded northern Cyprus. In 1975, fire destroyed the main street of Springhill, N.S., demolishing 25 buildings and causing damage estimated at more than $3 million.
In 1976, the “Viking 1” space robot made the first landing on Mars. It sent back the first pictures ever taken on the planet's surface.
In 1988, Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini decided to end the eight-year holy war against Iraq, accepting the U.N. ceasefire plan first proposed in 1987.
In 1992, Vaclav Havel, the playwright who led Czechoslovakia's revolt against communism, formally stepped down as president before the country was officially split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia. He became president of the Czech Republic.
In 1996, Wayne Gretzky joined the New York Rangers. He would play for them until his retirement in 1999.
In 1998, two of Canada's biggest entertainment companies, Alliance Communications and Atlantis Communications, merged.
In 1999, “Liberty Bell 7,” Gus Grissom's Mercury space capsule, was raised from the Atlantic, 38 years after it sank. Grissom became the second American in space when he made a 15-minute suborbital flight aboard “Liberty Bell 7” in 1961.
In 2003, an inquiry ordered by Iran's president into the death of Montreal photojournalist Zahra Kazemi confirmed that she was killed during her detention in Tehran after her skull was broken by a hard object during a beating.
In 2005, Bill C-38 was given royal assent, making Canada the fourth country in the world to legally allow same-sex couples to wed.
In 2015, Zach Johnson captured his second major, winning the British Open in a four-hole playoff over Louis Oosthuizen and Marc Leishman in a suspensefilled final round at St. Andrews that ended on a Monday for only the second time in history.