Today in history
1562 — About 1200 French Huguenots are slain at Massacre of Vassy, provoking first War of Religion in France.
1767 — King Charles III expels Roman Catholic Jesuits from Spain.
1810 — Sweden becomes the first country to appoint an ombudsman, Lars August Mannerheim.
1815 — Napoleon Bonaparte lands in France, forcing King Louis XVIII to flee.
1872 — United States Congress authorises creation of Yellowstone National Park.
1921 — The Australian cricket team, captained by Warwick Armstrong, wins the fifth and final Test against England – the first time a team has whitewashed an entire Ashes season.
1932 — The baby son of US aviation pioneer Charles Lindbergh is kidnapped from New Jersey home. He is later found murdered.
1943 — Britain’s Royal Air Force begins systematic bombing of European railway systems in World War II.
1949 — World heavyweight boxing champion Joe Louis retires after defending his title a record 25 times.
1950 — In Britain, Dr Klaus Fuchs is convicted for giving British and American atomic secrets to the Soviet government.
1974 — Grand jury issues indictments against US President Richard Nixon’s top aides, including John Ehrlichman, in the Watergate case.
1992 — Muslims and Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina vote for independence from Yugoslavia, enraging Serb nationalists.
2001 — Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban, defying international protests, begins destroying all statues in the country.
2001 — The Fiji Court of Appeal rules that Fiji’s military-backed interim government is illegal and says the multi-racial 1997 constitution remains the law of the land.
2003 — Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-described planner and organiser of the September 11 attacks, is captured in Rawalpindi, Pakistan.
2007 — Japan’s nationalist Prime Minister Shinzo Abe denies Tokyo’s military forced women into sexual slavery during WWII, backtracking from a past government apology. Today’s Birthdays: Frederic Chopin, Polish romantic pianist and composer (1810-1849); Glenn Miller, US bandleader (1904-1944); David Niven, British actor (1910-1983); Yitzhak Rabin, former Israeli prime minister (1922-1995); Harry Belafonte, US singer (1927-); Roger Daltrey, British singer of rock band The Who (1944-); Ron Howard, US actor-director (1954-); Will Power, Australian motorsport driver (1981-); Ke$ha, American singer (1987-); Justin Bieber, Canadian singer (1994-).