Today in history
1305 — Scottish rebel leader William Wallace is hung, drawn and quartered for treason in London.
1628 — Duke of Buckingham, about to embark at Portsmouth, England, with further expedition to La Rochelle, France, is assassinated by John Felton.
1775 — England’s King George II proclaims existence of open rebellion in American colonies.
1813 — The French are defeated by German army under Friedrich von Bulow, preventing march on Berlin.
1839 — Hong Kong is taken by British in war with China.
1870 — Last British troops leave Australia.
1914 — Japan declares war on Germany in World War I.
1927 — Two Italian-born anarchists, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, are executed in Massachusetts despite worldwide protests they are innocent.
1937 — Japanese military forces land at Shanghai, China.
1939 — Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union sign a 10-year nonaggression pact; Axe murderer John Trevor Kelly becomes the last man hanged in New South Wales.
1942 — Thirteen Japanese planes are shot down in the 24th raid on Darwin in World War II.
1944 — Allied troops in France capture port of Marseilles in World War II.
1962 — US Telstar satellite relays the first live television programme between United States and Europe.
1973 — Four people are taken hostage by a robber in a Stockholm bank. During the six-day drama, the captor and captives develop a friendship later described and studied as ‘‘the Stockholm syndrome’’.
1975 — Communists complete takeover of Laos.
1990 — East and West Germany announce they will unite on October 3.
2000 — A plane crashes into shallow Persian Gulf waters after circling and trying to land in Bahrain, killing all 143 people aboard.
2004 — A nationwide hunt gets underway for armed thieves who barged into a lightly guarded Oslo museum and ripped the Edvard Munch masterpiece The Scream and another painting from the wall, as stunned visitors watched in shock.
2014 — Israel bombs an apartment tower in downtown Gaza City, collapsing the 12-storey building in an unprecedented strike while Hamas keeps up heavy rocket fire near the border. Today’s Birthdays: France’s King Louis XVI (1754-1793); Gene Kelly, US actordancer (1912-1996); Peter Thomson, Keith Moon, English drummer of The Who fame (1946-1978); River Phoenix, American actor (1970-1993); Kobe Bryant, US basketball player (1978-).