Today in history
1510 - Pedro Navarro, having taken Algiers and Tripoli for Spain, is killed in ambush in North Africa.
1585 - Spanish forces, led by Duke of Parma, take Antwerp after a 14-month siege in the Dutch War of Liberation.
1859 - French tightrope walker Charles Blondin crosses Niagara Falls, on the border of Canada and the US.
1896 - Prospecting party led by George Carmack discovers gold on Rabbit Creek in Alaska, a find that touched off the Klondike gold rush.
1943 - Allied forces gain complete control in Sicily in World War II.
1950 - The Republic of Indonesia is restored.
1974 - Turkish ceasefire in Cyprus breaks down with new thrust southward by Turkish invaders.
1982 - The first CDS begin rolling off an assembly line in Hanover, Germany.
1987 - Former Nazi deputy fuehrer Rudolf Hess dies in Germany, aged 93.
1993 - Fierce fighting between Muslim and Croats kills 33 soldiers in the central Bosnian city of Mostar.
1997 - Dozens of reporters sweep the Aegean Sea to find Britain’s Princess Diana, who jetted to Greece for a cruise after a furore erupts over reports of a love affair with millionaire Dodi Fayed.
1998 - US President Bill Clinton is questioned before an investigating court panel about his relationship with former intern Monica Lewinsky.
1998 - Russia announces an effective devaluation of the rouble and a 90-day moratorium on some foreign debt repayments.
2004 - Louis-jodel Chamblain, a leader of a paramilitary group in Haiti, is acquitted of killing some 3000 people. The 14-hour murder trial angers human rights groups and provokes criticism of the new Usbacked government.
2006 - Australian wine industry pioneer Len Evans dies, aged 72.
2009 - The Libyan convicted of the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, Abdelbaset al-megrahi, is expected to drop his appeal, a step that could lead to his rapid release and puts Scotland’s left-of-centre government into a rare international spotlight.
2012 - Russian feminist punk rock activist group Pussy Riot, who briefly took over a cathedral in a raucous prayer for deliverance from Vladimir Putin, are sentenced to two years in prison for hooliganism.
2015 - A bomb explodes in a central Bangkok shrine, killing at least 20 people and injuring more than 100. Today’s Birthdays: Davy Crockett, US western pioneer (1786-1836); Mae West, US actor (1892-1980); Maureen O’hara, Irish-born actor (1920-2015); Shane Porteous, Australian actor (1942-); Robert De Niro, US actor (1943-); Steve Gorman, US rock singer (1965-).