Today in history
455 — A Roman mob tears Emperor Maximus Petronius limb from limb when he tries to escape an approaching Vandal fleet.
1043 — Lady Godiva rides naked through the market square in Coventry, England.
1520 — After being a hostage in Denmark, young nobleman Gustav Vasa slips back into Sweden to start a rebellion against the Danes that will establish Swedish independence.
1837 — Joseph Grimaldi, famed English dancer and actor whose white-faced act marked the birth of the English circus clown, dies.
1902 — Peace of Vereeniging ends Boer War.
1911 — In Belfast in Northern Ireland, the Titanic is launched as one of the largest vessels afloat. It sank on its maiden voyage in April 1912.
1962 — Adolf Eichmann, World War II Nazi Gestapo chief, is executed by hanging.
1970 — Earthquake hits Peru, leaving more than 66,000 dead, 20,000 missing and 200,000 injured.
1976 — Indonesia completes takeover of East Timor.
2000 — Hong Kong closes its last Vietnamese refugee camp, ending the quarter-century boat people saga in the territory and leaving about 100 people homeless.
2001 — Veteran FBI agent Robert Hanssen pleads innocent to charges of spying for Moscow. (He later admitted his guilt.)
2002 — All 15 European Union nations ratify the Kyoto protocol against global warming as a bloc and use the occasion to criticise Washington for failing to do its part.
2003 — Eric Robert Rudolph, suspected of bombing abortion clinics and a gay nightclub as well as the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, is captured in Murphy, North Carolina.
2005 — The Washington Post reveals that ‘‘Deep Throat’’, the legendary source who leaked Watergate scandal secrets to its reporters, was former FBI deputy director Mark Felt.
2009 — The world’s most powerful laser, created to help keep tabs on the US nuclear weapons stockpile while also studying the heavens, is unveiled.
2011 — Former Bosnian Serb military commander Ratko Mladic is placed in a United Nations detention unit to await trial on genocide charges, 16 years after he was indicted in the killing of 8000 Muslim men and boys in the worst massacre of civilians in Europe since WWII. Today’s Birthdays: Walt Whitman, US writer (1819-1892); Prince Rainier of Monaco (1923-2005); Clint Eastwood, US actor (1930-); Shirley Verrett, US mezzosoprano (1933-2010); John Bonham, Led Zeppelin drummer (1948-1980); Brooke Shields, US actress (1965-); Colin Farrell, Irish actor (1976-).