Today in history

1782 – Americans and British sign preliminary peace articles in Paris, ending American Revolutionary War.

1900 – Death of Irish-born author Oscar Wilde.

1913 – Actor Charlie Chaplin makes film debut in Holywood’s Making a Living.

1918 – Transylvania proclaims union with Romania.

1949 – The New Zealand National Party wins its first general election, with the Sidney Holland-led party defeating the Peter Fraser-led Labour.

1964 – Soviet Union launches spacecraft toward Mars in apparent race with US Mariner 4.

1967 – Aden, South Yemen and Protectorate of South Arabia gain independence from Britain.

1975 – Four Timorese parties proclaim independence of the territory and its integration with Indonesia.

1993 – In Belfast, Northern Ireland, gunmen murder a Catholic factory worker while politicians talk of peace; US President Bill Clinton signs into law the Brady bill, which requires a five-day waiting period for handgun purchases and background checks of prospective buyers.

1994 – Flames roar through the cruise ship Achille Lauro off Somalia. The ship, which was hijacked by PLO terrorists in 1985, sinks two days later.

1995 – The UN Security Council votes unanimously to end its threeand-a-half-year-old peacekeeping mission in Bosnia by January 31, 1996; US President Bill Clinton becomes the first US chief executive to visit Northern Ireland.

1996 – Rallying against Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, who annulled opposition victories in local elections, 150,000 people march through the Yugoslav capital of Belgrade.

2000 – South and North Korean relatives, separated for half a century, are reunited in the North Korean capital, Pyongyang.

2003 – Time magazine reports that 140 of the roughly 660 prisoners detained at the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, were due to be released at a ‘‘politically propitious time’’.

2005 – Reports emerge from Iraq that Auckland University student Harmeet Sooden has been taken hostage by an insurgent group.

2010 – British police make 153 arrests during student demonstrations in London against proposed university tuition hikes.

2011 – The Queensland parliament passes the Civil Partnership Bill, allowing same-sex couples to enter into legally recognised civil unions.

Today’s birthdays: Jonathan Swift, English satirist (1667-1745); Mark Twain, US author (1835-1910); Sir Winston Churchill, British statesman (1874-1965); Billy Idol, US singer (1955-); Ben Stiller, US actor-director (1965-).