Today in history
1642 — Canadian city of Montreal is founded.
1643 — Anne of Austria, Queen Mother, is vested with supreme powers in France.
1781 — Peruvian revolutionary Tupac Amaru II is executed by the Spanish in the main plaza in Cusco.
1803 — Britain declares war on France after Napoleon Bonaparte continues his interference in Italy and Switzerland.
1830 — Edwin Budding of England signs an agreement for manufacture of his invention, the lawn mower.
1860 — Abraham Lincoln is nominated for US president.
1897 — Public reading of Bram Stoker’s new novel, Dracula, or, The Un-dead, staged in London.
1944 — Monte Cassino Monastery in Italy is taken from Germans after bitter fighting in World War II.
1951 — United Nations moves headquarters to New York City.
1954 — European Convention of Human Rights goes into effect.
1967 — United Nations agrees to Egyptian demand to withdraw UN forces from Gaza Strip.
1969 — US astronauts Eugene A Cernan, Thomas P Stafford and John W Young blast off aboard Apollo 10.
1970 — Communist forces thrust to within 40km of Cambodia’s capital of Phnom Penh.
1976 — Libya’s attempt to mediate Lebanon’s civil war fails.
1991 — Helen Sharman becomes the first Briton to rocket into space aboard a Soviet Soyuz spacecraft.
1993 — Violent riots break out in Copenhagen, Denmark, after a majority of Danes in a referendum approve the Maastricht treaty calling for a closer European Union.
1994 — Military observers returning to the Rwandan countryside report ethnic killings of at least 200,000.
1996 — Romano Prodi is sworn in as prime minister to head Italy’s 55th government since World War Two.
1997 — Rebels led by Laurent Kabila take control of Kinshasa, capital of Zaire.
1998 — The US government files a sweeping antitrust case against Microsoft Corp.
1999 — Sierra Leone’s government and the country’s rebels agree to a ceasefire to end seven years of savage fighting.
2005 — US actor Frank Gorshin, best known for his role as the Riddler on the 1960s TV series Batman, dies aged 72.
2006 — Sydney solicitor and gay rights activist John Marsden, 64, dies of cancer while holidaying in Turkey.
2013 — Jewellery worth $US1.3 million due to be loaned to stars at the Cannes Film festival is stolen.
Today’s Birthdays: Nicholas II, last tsar of Russia (1868-1918); Tina Fey, American writer/actress (1970-); Jessica Watson, Australian solo sailor (1993-).