Today in history
1500 — France’s King Louis XII and Ferdinand of Aragon sign secret Treaty of Granada for conquest and partition of Naples.
1880 — Australian bushranger Ned Kelly, 25, is hanged in Melbourne for the murder of Constable Thomas Lonigan. His last words are reportedly ‘‘Such is life’’ and ‘‘Ah, well, I suppose it has to come to this’’.
1941 — The War Memorial opens in Canberra.
1951 — Juan Peron elected for second of three presidential terms in Argentina.
1952 — First video recorder is demonstrated by inventors John Mullin and Wayne Johnson in Beverly Hills, California.
1964 — Food shortages in India provoke riots in Kerala State.
1973 — Egypt and Israel sign ceasefire agreement sponsored by United States and begin discussions to carry out the pact.
1991 — Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir vows not to give up occupied territories.
1994 — A 72-page manuscript of Leonardo da Vinci’s scientific diagrams and notes is sold at an auction in New York for a record $US30.8 million.
1997 — An 8-year-old boy is fatally wounded when Israeli troops fire at Palestinians throwing stones to protest the opening of Rachel’s Tomb in Bethlehem.
2000 — Republicans go to court, seeking an order to block manual recounts from continuing in Florida’s razor-thin presidential election; A cable car crammed with skiers and snowboarders catches fire while being pulled through an Alpine tunnel in Austria, killing 155 people.
2002 — Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates pledges $US100 million to fight AIDS in India.
2005 — Syrian-born Hollywood producer Moustapha Akkad dies, two days after being wounded in a suicide bomb attack on the hotel in which he was staying in Jordan. He was best known for producing the series of Halloween horror films.
2011 — The UN atomic agency shares satellite images, letters and diagrams with 35 nations as it seeks to underpin its case that Iran apparently worked secretly on developing a nuclear weapon. Iran’s chief envoy to the International Atomic Energy rejects the presentation as fabricated.
2015 — Researchers say they have observed for the first time chimpanzees in the wild caring for a baby with severe disabilities, which may help shed light on the development of human social behaviours.
Today’s Birthdays: Louis Antoine Bougainville, French navigator (1729-1811); Demi Moore, US actress (1962-); Calista Flockhart, US actress (1964-); Leonard Dicaprio, US actor (1974-).