Today in history
1533 - England’s King Henry VIII secretly marries his second wife, Anne Boleyn, who later gives birth to Queen Elizabeth I.
1802 - France’s Napoleon Bonaparte becomes president of the Italian Republic.
1831 - Polish Diet proclaims independence of Poland, dethrones Nicholas, and deposes the Romanovs.
1942 - Thailand, allied to Japan, declares war on Britain and the United States.
1944 - Battle for Cassino begins in Italy in World War II.
1952 - Crisis arises between France and Germany over administration of the Saar region.
1961 - US President John F Kennedy holds the first presidential news conference carried live on radio and television.
1974 - The Christchurch Commonwealth Games, known as the ‘‘Friendly Games’’ open with a ceremony featuring school children and a Maori concert party.
1981 - The 52 Americans held hostage by Iran for 444 days return home.
1985 - Pakistan’s great cricket allrounder Wasim Akram, then only 18, plays his first test, against New Zealand at Eden Park, Auckland.
1989 - Cambodia’s Premier Hun Sen rejects proposal for international peacekeeping force in his country.
1991 - Leaders of rival Yugoslav republics of Serbia and Croatia meet in effort to defuse rising tensions there.
1999 - An earthquake devastates a coffee-growing region in Colombia, killing at least 940 people and leaving hundreds of thousands homeless.
2007 - Russian President Vladimir Putin offers to build four new nuclear reactors for energy starved India, cementing his country’s traditional role as India’s main nuclear benefactor.
2011 - Prime Minister Vladimir Putin vows revenge for the suicide bombing that killed 35 people at a Moscow airport – a familiar tough-onterrorism stance that has underpinned his power but also led to a rising number of deadly attacks in Russia.
2013 - World business and government leaders conclude training youth for the challenges of a fast-changing world has to be central to any strategy to rebuild the job market following the financial crisis.
2015 - A radical left-wing party vowing to end Greece’s austerity programme wins a victory in parliamentary elections, setting up a showdown with the country’s international creditors.
Today’s Birthdays: Edmund Campion, English Jesuit (1540-1581); Robert Burns, Scottish poet (1759-1796); W. Somerset Maugham, English author (1874-1965); Virginia Wolff, English author (1882-1941); Dinah Manoff, US actress (1958-)