Today in history
1189 - King Henry II of England dies and is succeeded by Richard I.
1348 - Papal bull of Pope Clement VI issued during the Black Death stating Jews not to blame and urging their protection 1483 - King Richard III crowned. 1535 - Sir Thomas More is executed in England for treason.
1809 - Pope Pius VII, having excommunicated Napoleon Bonaparte, is taken prisoner by the French.
1885 - Louis Pasteur performs the first inoculation of a human being: a young boy bitten by a rabid dog.
1928 - The first all-talking feature film, The Lights of New York, premieres in New York.
1942 - Diarist Anne Frank and her family take refuge from the Nazis in Amsterdam.
1957 - Althea Gibson becomes the first black tennis player to win a Wimbledon singles title, defeating fellow American Darlene Hard 6-3 6-2.
1960 - Seven-year-old Rodger Woodward becomes the first person to survive an unprotected plunge over Niagara Falls after falling out of a boat.
1964 - The Beatles movie A Hard Day’s Night premieres in London.
1971 - Louis Armstrong, US jazz musician, dies.
1988 - The world’s worst offshore accident occurs when the Piper Alpha oil platform explodes in the British sector of the North Sea, killing 167 people.
1994 - Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO chairman Yasser Arafat share a platform in Paris to receive a United Nations peace prize.
1997 - The rover Sojourner rolls down a ramp from the Mars Pathfinder lander onto the Martian landscape to begin inspecting soil and rocks.
2000 - A heat wave baking southeastern Europe sends temperatures soaring to 45 degrees Celsius, killing 25 people.
2004 - British Prime Minister Tony Blair admits that biological and chemical weapons, which he once insisted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had primed for use, may never be found in the country.
2010 - France’s justice minister goes before parliament to defend a hotly debated bill that would ban burqa-style Islamic veils in public, arguing that hiding your face from your neighbours is a violation of French values. Today’s Birthdays: Frida Kahlo, Mexican artist (1907-1954); Nancy Reagan, former US First Lady (1921-); Bill Haley, rock’n’roll pioneer (1925-1981); Dalai Lama, exiled Tibetan leader (1935-); George W Bush, former US President (1946-); Sylvester Stallone, US actorproducer (1946-); Geoffrey Rush, Australian actor (1951-); 50 Cent, US rapper (1975-).