Today in history
1307 - Scottish king Robert the Bruce heavily defeats an English cavalry force at the battle of Loudoun Hill in Ayrshire.
1849 - Twenty-two people are killed when anti-british sentiments flare into a riot outside the Astor Place Opera House in New York.
1897 - Ethel Benjamin becomes New Zealand’s first female barrister and solicitor when appointed to the Supreme Court. She did her law degree at the University of Otago, the first in Australasia to let women to take a law degree.
1925 - William Ferguson Massey, New Zealand statesman and prime minister from 1912-25, dies in office.
1949 - Siam changes its name to Thailand.
1977 - Death of Oscar-winning US actor Joan Crawford, aged 73.
1994 - Media tycoon Silvio Berlusconi takes office as Italy’s prime minister at the head of a coalition government.
1994 - Nelson Mandela is inaugurated as the first black president of South Africa.
1995 - An elevator carrying gold miners plunges to the bottom of a mineshaft near Orkney, South Africa, crushing as many as 100 people to death.
1995 - Britain lifts a 23-year ban on ministerial talks with Sinn Fein, the political wing of the Irish Republican Army.
1996 - A storm hits Mt Everest, killing eight climbers in one of the worst disasters since Everest was first conquered in 1953.
1997 - A powerful earthquake destroys some 200 villages in northeastern Iran, killing at least 2400 people and injuring 6000.
2002 - A federal judge sentences former FBI agent Robert Hanssen, considered one of the most damaging spies in US history, to life in prison for selling secrets to Moscow.
2004 - Human rights group Amnesty International alleges that British soldiers have shot and killed Iraqi civilians, including an eight-yearold girl, in situations where the troops were under no apparent threat.
2004 - Biotech crop pioneer Monsanto Co suspends plans to introduce what would be the world’s first biotech wheat, bowing to a storm of protest over genetically modified crops.
2005 - Egypt’s parliament overwhelmingly passes a constitutional amendment allowing multi-candidate presidential elections for the first time.
2007 - Tony Blair says he is stepping down as British prime minister on June 27, after serving more than a decade. Today’s Birthdays: Fred Astaire, US dancer-actor (1899-1987); Sid Vicious, English punk rock legend (1957-1979); Bono, Irish singer (1960-); Linda Evangelista, Canadian supermodel (1965-).