Today in history
1543 - England’s King Henry VIII marries his sixth and last wife, Catherine Parr, who outlives him.
1879 - British-zulu War begins in Africa.
1932 - Hattie Caraway becomes the first elected female United States senator.
1940 - Birth of New Zealand cricketer Dick Motz, the first Kiwi to take 100 test wickets.
1945 - German forces retreat in disorder in Battle of the Bulge in Belgium during World War II.
1954 - Queen Elizabeth II opens New Zealand’s parliament, the first time a reigning monarch has done so.
1967 - China’s army pledges support to Mao Zedong during disorder triggered by Chinese cultural revolution.
1990 - Russian President Boris Yeltsin shocks the 28th congress of the Soviet Communist Party by announcing he is resigning his party membership.
1991 - US Congress grants President George HW Bush authority to use force to drive Iraq from Kuwait.
1993 - The leader of Bosnia’s Serbs accepts peace proposals for the warshattered country, hailed as a breakthrough toward a settlement after nine months of brutal fighting.
1998 - Nineteen European nations sign an agreement to prohibit cloning of human beings.
2006 - Thousands of Muslims surging to complete a stoning ritual before sunset, outside the holy city of Mecca, Saudi Arabia, stampede after some pilgrims trip over dropped luggage, causing a pileup that kills at least 360 people.
2008 - Taiwan’s opposition Nationalist Party wins a landslide victory in legislative elections, boosting its policy of closer engagement with China.
2009 - Construction workers in northern Poland have unearthed a World War Ii-era mass grave containing what are believed to be the bodies of 1800 German men, women and children who disappeared during the Soviet Army’s march to the German capital.
2010 - A strong earthquake devastates Haiti, killing 230,000 people, injuring 300,000 and leaving more than 1 million homeless.
2015 - Hun Sen, Cambodia’s tough and wily prime minister, marks 30 years in power, one of just a handful of political strongmen who have managed to cling to their posts for three decades.
Today’s Birthdays: Edmund Burke, Irish-born statesman (1729-1797); Hermann Goering, German Nazi leader (1893-1946); Paul Hermann Muller, Swiss chemist and Nobel laureate, discovered potency of DDT as insecticide (1899-1965); Rush Limbaugh, US radio commentator (1951—); Howard Stern, US radio/tv personality (1954—); Kirstie Alley, US actress (1951—).