Today in history
1521 — Pope Leo X gives King Henry VIII of England the title of Defender of the Faith following publication of his book against Martin Luther.
1689 — Peter the Great becomes tsar of Russia.
1871 — The Great Fire of Chicago is finally extinguished after three days. At least 300 people were killed and 90,000 made homeless.
1890 — John Owen becomes the first man to run a recorded 100-yarddash (91.44 metres) in under 10 seconds. Owen did it in 9.8 seconds.
1899 — The Boer War begins in South Africa between the British Empire and Boers of the Transvaal and Orange Free State.
1939 — Albert Einstein and other scientists inform United States President Franklin Roosevelt of the possibilities of developing an atomic bomb.
1961 — Death of Leonard ‘‘Chico’’ Marx, the piano-playing member of the Marx Brothers comedy act, aged 70.
1962 — Pope John XXIII convenes the first session of the Roman Catholic Church’s 21st Ecumenical Council, also known as Vatican II.
1968 — Apollo 7, the first manned Apollo mission, is launched with US astronauts Wally Schirra, Donn Fulton Eisele and R Walter Cunningham aboard.
1975 — US comedy show Saturday Night Live, with a cast including John Belushi, Dan Ackroyd, Chevy Chase and Gilda Radner, premieres on NBC.
1982 — The Mary Rose, once Henry VIII’S flagship, is raised from the Solent, off southern England.
1984 — Space shuttle Challenger astronaut Kathy Sullivan becomes the first American woman to walk in space.
1987 — Indian peacekeeping troops kill more than 120 Tamil rebels in weekend offensive on Jaffna peninsula in Sri Lanka.
1993 — William Nygaard, a Norwegian publisher whose firm translated The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie, is shot and seriously wounded in Oslo.
1996 — Catholic Bishop Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo and Jose Ramoshorta of East Timor win the Nobel Peace Prize.
2004 — European Union foreign ministers agree to lift an arms embargo on Libya, imposed in 1986, recognising Tripoli’s renunciation of weapons of mass destruction.
2014 — The death toll from an epidemic of the deadly Ebola virus in west Africa passes 4000.
Today’s Birthdays:
Eleanor Roosevelt, US first lady and Nobel Peace Prize laureate (1884-1962); Sir Bobby Charlton, English footballer (1937-); Dawn French, English comedian, actress and screenwriter (1957-); Luke Perry, US actor (1966-); Michelle Wie, American golfer (1989-).