Today in history
1370 — Robert II succeeds his uncle, David II, as King of Scotland, inaugurating the Stuart dynasty.
1495 — French forces under King Charles VIII enter Naples in Italy.
1848 — Revolt erupts in Paris under Louis Philippe’s reign.
1892 — Oscar Wilde’s play Lady Windermere’s Fan premieres at London’s St James Theatre.
1942 — Stefan Zweig, Austrian writer, commits suicide in Brazil.
1945 — US Third Army crosses Saar River south of Saarburg, Germany, in World War II.
1964 — Ghana becomes one-party Socialist state.
1972 — Qatar’s heir apparent, Khalifa bin Hamad Al Thani, overthrows emir Sheik Ahmed in a bloodless coup; In Britain, an IRA bomb explodes at an army officers’ mess in Aldershot, killing seven people.
1975 — Military government of Ethiopia announces that 2300 guerrillas have been killed in fighting in Eritrea.
1987 — US artist Andy Warhol dies in a New York hospital, aged 58, after undergoing gallbladder surgery.
1990 — The last Stalin statue topples in the Mongolian capital, Ulan Bator.
1991 — US President George Bush demands that Saddam Hussein begin unconditional withdrawal from Kuwait by noon of following day or risk ground war with allied forces.
1995 — France accuses four American diplomats and a fifth US citizen of political and economic spying and asks them to leave the country.
2000 — A car bomb in the Basque capital Vitoria kills Socialist Party member Fernando Buesa.
2008 — Turkish troops launch a ground incursion across the border into Iraq in pursuit of separatist Kurdish rebels, escalating Turkey’s conflict with the militants.
2012 — American reporter Marie Colvin, 56, and French photojournalist Remi Ochlik, 28, are killed by government shelling as they cover the conflict in Syria; Fifty-one passengers die when a suburban train crashes in the Argentinian capital of Buenos Aires.
2015 — Following the release of a report into Sydney’s Lindt cafe siege, Prime Minister Tony Abbott vows to tighten Australia’s visa and citizenship processes; Birdman wins the Oscar for Best Picture at the Academy Awards.
2016 — The British pound’s value plunges after Prime Minister David Cameron’s announcement of a June referendum to decide whether Britain will remain in the European Union.
Today’s Birthdays: George Washington, first US president (1732-1799); John Mills, British actor (1908-2005); Drew Barrymore, US actress (1975-); James Blunt, British singer (1977-)