Today in history
1014 — King Sweyn I of Denmark dies and is succeeded by his son, Canute II the Great.
1788 — Church of England minister Richard Johnson conducts the first church service in the colony of NSW.
1807 — Montevideo is taken by British forces led by Sir Samuel Auchmuty.
1848 — Britain annexes country between Orange and Vaal Rivers in South Africa.
1867 — Prince Mutsuhito becomes Emperor Meiji of Japan at the age of 14.
1919 — Kiev, in the Ukraine, is captured by the Bolsheviks.
1919 — League of Nations meets for the first time in Paris.
1931 — Huge earthquake strikes New Zealand, almost destroying the towns of Napier and Hastings and killing 256 people.
1954 — Queen Elizabeth II arrives with Prince Philip on her first visit to Australia.
1958 — Benelux Economic Union Treaty between Belgium, Luxembourg and Netherlands is signed.
1966 — First controlled landing on the moon is made by the Soviet unmanned spacecraft Luna IX.
1973 — Fighting in Vietnam comes to a halt after a ceasefire goes into effect.
1984 — A woman in a Californian hospital becomes the world’s first to give birth to a baby from a donated embryo.
1994 — US President Bill Clinton lifts a 19-year trade embargo against Vietnam.
1995 — NATO holds its first exercise in what used to be enemy territory in former East Germany.
2003 — American rock producer Phil Spector is arrested after the alleged murder of actress Lana Clarkson.
2008 — Australian golfer Karrie Webb wins the Women’s Australian Open at the second hole of a sudden death playoff against Korea’s Ji-yai Shin.
2009 — Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling is awarded the French Legion of Honour.
2014 — Swimmer Ian Thorpe is admitted to hospital with depression after being found disoriented in a Sydney street at 3am.
2015 — Two electrical contractors die, and two are badly burned, in a transformer explosion at a Perth shopping centre.
2016 — At least 15 people are killed and 58 injured after rockets fired by rebels hit pro-government neighbourhoods in the southern Syrian city of Daraa. Today’s Birthdays: Gertrude Stein, US author (1874-1946); Isla Fisher, Australian actress (1976-); Amal Clooney, Britishlebanese human-rights lawyer (1978-).