Today in history

1559 - Coronation of Elizabeth I of England.

1794 - United States President George Washington approves a measure adding two stars and two stripes to the American flag, after the admission of Vermont and Kentucky to the union.

1813 - British fleet blockades Chesapeake and Delaware bays in US during the War of 1812.

1890 - ‘‘Torpedo Billy’’ Murphy wins the world featherweight boxing title, becoming the first New Zealander to win a world professional boxing title.

1898 - Emile Zola publishes the manifesto J’accuse, an attack on antisemitism in France that sent Jewish officer Alfred Dreyfus to jail.

1915 - South African troops occupy Swakopmund in German South-west Africa; Earthquake in central Italy kills 30,000 people.

1930 - New Zealand’s first ever cricket test ends in defeat to England in Christchurch, in less than two days of play.

1945 - Soviet forces begin offensive in Silesia, Germany, now mostly part of Poland, in World War II.

1966 - Robert C Weaver becomes the first black American cabinet member as he is appointed Secretary of Housing and Urban Development by President Lyndon Johnson.

1981 - New Zealand beat Australia off the last ball in an exciting one-day cricket match in Sydney.

1982 - An Air Florida 737 crashes into a bridge after takeoff and falls into the Potomac River, killing 78 people.

1992 - Serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer pleads guilty but insane to 15 mutilation killings in Milwaukee, US. He is killed by a fellow prisoner in 1994; Japan apologises for forcing tens of thousands of Korean women to serve as sex slaves for Japanese soldiers during World War II.

2007 - A military tribunal in Italy convicts 10 former members of the Nazi SS in the 1944 slaughter of more than 700 people near Bologna, the worst civilian massacre in Italy during World War II. The 10 receive life sentences for murder, while seven others are acquitted.

2013 - A Cairo appeals court overturns Hosni Mubarak’s life sentence and orders a retrial of the former Egyptian president for failing to prevent the killing of hundreds of protesters during the 2001 uprising that toppled his regime. Today’s Birthdays:

Antoinette Bourignon, Flemish mystic (1616-1680); Prosper Jolyot de Crebillion, French dramatist (1674-1762); Pietro Metastasic, Italian poet (1698-1782); Charles Nelson Reilly, US actor (1931-2007); Richard Moll, US actor (1943- ); Kevin Anderson, US actor (1960- ); Julia Louis-dreyfus, US actress (1961- ); Bic Runga, NZ singer (1976-); Orlando Bloom, British actor (1977- )