Today in history
1492 - King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain issue an edict expelling Jews unwilling to convert to Christianity.
1889 - French engineer Alexandre Gustave Eiffel unfurls the French tricolor from atop the Eiffel Tower, officially marking its completion.
1917 - United States takes possession of the Virgin Islands from Denmark.
1936 - Britain and France pledge to support Poland if it is invaded.
1943 - The Rodgers and Hammerstein musical Oklahoma opens on Broadway in New York City.
1967 - On his last day flying for Tourist Air Travel, well-known Auckland aviator Fred Ladd illegally flies his Widgeon amphibian aircraft under the Auckland Harbour Bridge. He was taken to court but discharged without conviction.
1968 - US President Lyndon Johnson stuns Americans by announcing he will not seek reelection.
1992 - United Nations Security Council votes to ban flights and arms sales to Libya, branding it a terrorist state for shielding six men accused of blowing up Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland and a French airliner over Niger.
2000 - Japan’s Mount Usu volcano erupts forcing 16,000 people to evacuate the country’s northernmost island.
2003 - About 10,000 Bosnian Muslims gather near the town of Potocari to bury the first 600 victims of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre. The bodies were among the first remains to be identified among the estimated 8000 Muslim men and boys executed by Serb forces and hidden in 60 mass graves.
2009 - Benjamin Netanyahu, taking office as Israel’s new leader, promises to seek ‘‘full peace’’ with the Arab and Muslim world, but refuses to utter the words the world was waiting to hear: ‘‘Palestinian state’’.
2010 - A Chechen militant claims responsibility for the deadly attacks on the Moscow subway in an internet message, hours after two more suicide bombers strike southern Russia in brazen defiance of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.
2014 -North and South Korea fire hundreds of artillery shells into each other’s waters in a flare- up of animosity.
2015 -The Palestinians become a member of the International Criminal Court, a high-stakes move aimed putting international pressure on Israel to pursue peace.
Today’s Birthdays: Rene Descartes, French philosopher (1596-1650); Franz Joseph Haydn, Austrian composer (1732-1809); Nicolai Gogol, Russian author (1809-1852); Shirley Jones, US actress (1934-); Christopher Walken, US actor (1943-); Ewan Mcgregor, British actor (1971-).