Today in history
1012 - Archbishop of Canterbury Aelfheah is murdered by Danes ravaging the south of England.
1775 - War of American Independence opens with defeat of British at Lexington and Concord.
1783 - United States Congress announces end of War of American Independence.
1824 - English poet Lord Byron dies of a fever while aiding Greek rebels fighting the Turks.
1882 - Death of British naturalist Charles Darwin, who developed the theory of evolution.
1892 - Prototype of the first commercially successful American car is completed in Springfield, Massachusetts, by Charles Duryea and his brother Frank.
1917 - USS Magnolia sinks a German submarine to mark America’s entry into World War I.
1921 - Government of Ireland Act goes into effect, separating the island into Southern and Northern Ireland, both with limited self-rule within Great Britain.
1927 - US actress Mae West is found guilty of indecent behaviour in her Broadway production Sex and jailed for 10 days.
1943 - Uprising of some 50,000 Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto against Nazis begins.
1956 - Prince Rainier of Monaco marries US film star Grace Kelly.
1967 - Twenty-four-year-old New Zealander Dave Mckenzie wins the Boston Marathon, setting a new course record time as he did so. Mckenzie was a printer from Ru¯ nanga, on the West Coast
1971 - Russia launches its Salyut space station into Earth’s orbit.
1993 - More than 80 Branch Davidian cult members are killed when federal agents storm their compound in Waco, Texas, after a 51-day standoff.
1994 - A jury awards $US3.8 million to Rodney King, the Africanamerican motorist beaten up by Los Angeles police officers.
1995 - A truck bomb destroys a government building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people and injuring hundreds.
2003 - About 100 striking Nigerian oil workers seize four offshore rigs and hold hostage 97 expatriate workers as well as more than 150 Nigerian nationals who refused to join the strike.
2005 - Joseph Ratzinger appears on a Vatican balcony as the 265th pontiff, Benedict XVI. Today’s Birthdays Jayne Mansfield, US actress (1932-1967); Dudley Moore, British comedian and actor (1935-2002); Paul Reiffel, Australian cricketer (1966-); Ashley Judd, US actor (1968-); George Gregan, Australian rugby union player (1973-); James Franco, US actor (1978-); Kate Hudson, US actor (1979-); Maria Sharapova, Russian tennis player (1987-).