Today in history
1534 — Pope Clement VII declares valid the marriage of England’s King Henry VIII to Catherine of Aragon.
1743 — George Frideric Handel’s oratorio Messiah has its London premiere.
1801 — Russia’s Tsar Paul I is assassinated by Russian aristocrats and succeeded by Alexander I.
1918 — The giant German gun, Big Bertha, shells Paris from 120 kilometres away.
1919 — Benito Mussolini founds fascist movement in Italy.
1925 — The American state of Tennessee bans teaching of evolution in schools; teacher John Scopes ignores the ban and is prosecuted later in what becomes known as the Monkey Trial.
1933 — German Reichstag grants Adolf Hitler dictatorial powers until April 1937.
1956 — Under its new constitution Pakistan becomes an Islamic Republic.
1966 — The Archbishop of Canterbury meets the Pope in Rome, the first meeting between the heads of the Anglican and Roman Catholic churches for 400 years.
1970 — South Africa is banned from the Davis Cup tennis tournament because of its apartheid policies.
1981 — British great train robber Ronald Biggs is taken into custody in Barbados after his abduction from Brazil.
1983 — Dr Barney Clark dies in the United States, 112 days after being the first person to receive an artificial heart.
1998 — The film Titanic wins 11 Oscars, equalling the record set by Ben-hur in 1959.
2001 — The Mir space station returns to Earth in pieces, ending its 15-year odyssey with a fiery plunge into the South Pacific.
2002 — Girls in Afghanistan celebrate their return to school for the first time in years after Taliban rule.
2010 — A jubilant President Barack Obama signs the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, a healthcare overhaul that for the first time cemented insurance coverage as the right of every US citizen.
2011 — Egypt’s public prosecutor charges the former interior minister and other officials with aiding the killing and the attempted killing of hundreds of protesters. Today’s Birthdays: Michael Joseph Savage, NZ Labour prime minister (1872-1940); Erich Fromm, US psychoanalyst (1900-1980); Joan Crawford, US actress (1908-1977); Roger Bannister, UK athlete, first to run sub- fourminute mile (1929-); Michael Atherton, English cricketer (1968-); Keri Russell, US actress (1976-); Perez Hilton, US blogger (1978-); Mo Farah, British athlete (1983-); Princess Eugenie of York (1990-).