Today in history

1536 - William Tyndale, who translated the first English Bible, is executed for heresy in Vilvoorde, the Netherlands.

1683 - Thirteen families from Krefeld, Germany, arrive in presentday Philadelphia to begin Germantown, one of America’s oldest settlements.

1769 - Nicholas Young, the ship’s boy on Captain James Cook’s Endeavour, sights land – what is now known as Young Nick’s Head, near Gisborne – as Cook begins his exploration of New Zealand.

1789 - An irate crowd enters the Versailles palace outside Paris. Troops of the Marquis de Lafayette protect the royal family, who are taken to Paris as hostages of the revolution.

1889 - Inventor Thomas Edison shows his first motion pictures in West Orange, New Jersey.

1918 - French occupy Beirut in the Ottoman Empire.

1927 - In the United States, the era of talking pictures arrives with the opening of The Jazz Singer, starring Al Jolson, a movie that features both silent and sound-synchronised scenes.

1939 - In an address to the Reichstag, Adolf Hitler denies having any intention of war against France and Britain.

1958 - US nuclear submarine Seawolf surfaces off New England’s coast after establishing a world record by remaining submerged for two months.

1964 - As Cambodia is dragged into the Vietnam War, China pledges to Prince Norodom Sihanouk, Cambodian chief of state, that it will give his country economic and military aid.

1973 - Egypt and Syria launch a surprise attack on Israel as it observes Yom Kippur.

1976 - Coup in Thailand results in military takeover.

1979 - Pope John Paul II becomes the first pontiff to visit the White House, where he is received by US President Jimmy Carter.

1981 - Egyptian President Anwar Sadat is shot to death by extremists while reviewing a military parade.

2002 - The Qatar-based Al Jazeera satellite television network broadcast an audiotape made by Osama bin Laden where the speaker on the tape warned the US of future attacks.

2008 - Wall Street joins in a worldwide cascade of despair over the financial crisis, driving the Dow Jones industrials to their biggest loss ever during a trading day as the Global Financial Crisis hits.

2009 - A top suspect wanted for orchestrating the killings of thousands of people in Rwanda’s 1994 genocide is captured.

Today’s Birthdays:

Louis Philippe, king of France (1773-1850); Hafez Assad, former Syrian president (1930- 2000).