Today in history
1548 - Catherine Parr, sixth and last wife of King Henry VIII of England, dies soon after giving birth to a daughter.
1599 - Britain’s Earl of Essex signs truce with Irish rebel Tyrone.
1701 - Treaty of the Hague, known as the Grand Alliance, is signed, whereby Britain, Holland and Holy Roman Empire ally against France.
1776 - The first submarine used in warfare makes an unsuccessful attempt to attach a mine to a British flagship in New York harbour.
1813 - The nickname Uncle Sam is first used as a symbolic reference to the United States in an editorial in the Troy Post of New York.
1822 - Brazil proclaims independence from Portugal.
1892 - First boxing match under Marquess of Queensberry rules: Gentleman Jim Corbett beats John L Sullivan.
1940 - In World War II, the German air force under Hermann Goering begins its Blitz bombing campaign on London.
1986 - Armed left-wing opponents ambush former Chilean dictator General Augusto Pinochet’s motorcade with bazookas and automatic gunfire in a failed assassination attempt; Bishop Desmond Tutu is enthroned as Archbishop of Cape Town, South Africa.
1993 - The white government of South Africa agrees to share political power with a multi-party transition committee in the months before the scheduled universal election.
1999 - Greece’s deadliest quake in more than 40 years strikes outside Athens, killing at least 101 people.
2000 - Cuban President Fidel Castro shakes the hand of US counterpart Bill Clinton, believed to be the first time he had shaken the hand of a US president since he took power in 1959.
2002 - Forty-nine Nepali policemen are killed by Maoist rebels, fighting to topple the nation’s constitutional monarchy, in an attack on a police post in eastern Nepal.
2005 - A year-long investigation concludes United Nations Secretarygeneral Kofi Annan and his top deputy failed the ideals of the UN in their management of Iraq’s oil-forfood programme by allowing corruption and waste to flourish.
2007 - Osama bin Laden appears for the first time in three years in a videotape released before the sixth anniversary of the September 11 attacks, telling Americans they should convert to Islam if they want the war in Iraq to end. He is killed in a 2011 raid. Today’s Birthdays: England’s Queen Elizabeth I (1533-1603); Buddy Holly, US rock and roll singer (1936-1959); Gloria Gaynor, US singer (1949-); Chrissie Hynde, US singer (1951-); Evan Rachel Wood, US actress, (1987-).