Today in history

1100 — King William II of England, son of William the Conqueror, is killed by an arrow while hunting in the New Forest.

1589 — France’s King Henry III is assassinated at St Cloud by Jacques Clement, a Jacobin monk.

1865 — Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is published in England.

1903 — Macedonians take arms to free themselves from Turkish rule. The rebellion is crushed in 11 days.

1914 — Germany occupies Luxembourg and sends an ultimatum to Belgium to allow passage of its troops across its territory.

1922 — Death of Alexander Graham Bell, Scottish inventor of the telephone in 1876.

1934 — Germany’s President Paul von Hindenburg dies aged 87, opening way for Adolf Hitler to become dictator.

1939 — Albert Einstein, concerned that Nazis are working on powerful bombs using uranium, writes to United States President Franklin Roosevelt urging him to start an atomic project.

1940 — Hermann Goering, chief of the Luftwaffe, gives the Eagle Day directive to destroy British air power to pave the way for an invasion of Britain.

1945 — Potsdam conference ends with Harry Truman, Joseph Stalin and Clement Attlee in agreement on the demilitarisation and division of Germany.

1970 — British army uses rubber bullets for the first time to quell a riot in Northern Ireland.

1980 — Terrorist bomb attack on railway station at Bologna, Italy, kills 85 people.

1989 — Trade restrictions between Britain and Argentina are lifted for the first time since the 1982 Falklands war.

1990 — Iraqi tanks and infantry overrun Kuwait in pre-dawn strike after dispute over oil and frontier.

1994 — Eleven people die in explosion at Porgera mine in Papua New Guinea.

1996 — In Atlanta, American Michael Johnson becomes the first athlete to win both the 200 and 400-metre races at the same Olympic Games.

2001 — Bosnian Serb general Radislav Krstic is jailed for 46 years for the murder of thousands of Bosnian Muslims in the Srebrenica massacre.

2010 — President Barack Obama pulls US combat troops from Iraq despite doubts the country can govern itself.

2012 — Kofi Annan announces his resignation as peace envoy to Syria as the country plunges into civil war. Today’s Birthdays: Peter O’toole, Irish actor (1932-2013); Wes Craven, US film director (1939-); Joanna Cassidy, US actress (1945-); Sam Worthington, Australian actor (1976-).