Today in history
1613 — Michael Romanov, son of the patriarch of Moscow, is elected tsar of Russia, thus founding the House of Romanov.
1838 — American Samuel Morse gives the first public demonstration of the telegram in New York.
1849 — British forces defeat Sikhs at Gujarat in India.
1919 — Bavarian Premier Kurt Risner is assassinated in Munich.
1921 — Brigadier Reza Khan overthrows Iranian government in military coup and later becomes shah.
1925 — The New Yorker magazine makes its debut.
1965 — Former Black Muslim leader Malcolm X is shot and killed by assassins identified as Black Muslims as he is about to address a rally in New York City.
1972 — US President Richard Nixon arrives in Beijing for a weeklong visit that will help normalise Uschina relations.
1986 — South African government opens ‘‘whites only’’ downtown districts of Johannesburg and Durban to all races in the first break with apartheid policy of segregated business areas.
2001 — More than 1000 people watch as two women convicted of prostitution and ‘‘corrupting society’’ are hanged in a sports stadium in southern Kandahar, the headquarters of the Taliban.
2002 — US and Pakistani officials confirm Wall Street Journal correspondent Daniel Pearl, kidnapped a month earlier in Karachi, has been killed by his captors.
2007 — Leaders in Britain and Denmark announce plans for withdrawal of troops from Iraq.
2010 — Israel’s air force introduces a fleet of huge pilotless planes that can remain in the air for a full day and could fly as far as the Persian Gulf, putting rival Iran within its range.
2014 — Protest leaders and the beleaguered president of Ukraine agree to form a new government and hold an early election, and parliament votes to free former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko from prison.
2015 — Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore’s first prime minister, is admitted to hospital with severe pneumonia at the age of 91; The Queensland Government asks the army to help rebuild infrastructure in communities that have been battered by Cyclone Lam.
2016 — London mayor Boris Johnson, widely seen as a future leader of Britain’s Conservative Party, announces he will support the campaign for Britain to leave the European Union.
Today’s Birthdays:wh Auden, English poet (1907-1973); Robert Mugabe, president of Zimbabwe (1924-); Nina Simone, US singer (1933-2003); Jennifer Love Hewitt, US actress/singer (1979-); Ellen Page, US actress (1987-).