Today in history
1595 – France’s King Henry IV declares war on Spain.
1759 – Holy Roman Empire declares war on Prussia.
1852 – Sand River Convention establishes South African Republic of Transvaal.
1853 – New Zealand gets a system of representative government with the creation of six provincial councils and a general assembly.
1948 – Netherlands and Republic of Indonesia sign truce.
1992 – Israel begins enforcing a sweeping curfew on Palestinians from the West Bank to the Gaza Strip.
1994 – An earthquake devastates suburbs in the San Fernando Valley, California, killing 61 people and injuring over 10,000.
1999 – The badly decomposed body of missing Ashburton teenager Kirsty Bentley is found hidden in a mid-canterbury farm paddock but police investigating her killing remain unable to make an arrest.
2000 – A Berlin court convicts Johannes Weinrich of murder and attempted murder and sentences him to life in prison for the 1983 terrorist bombing of a French cultural center in then-west Berlin, which killed one person and injured 23.
2003 – Rescue workers digging into thick mud find the bodies of three children in southeastern Brazil, bringing the death toll from mudslides to 36.
2004 – About 10,000 Muslim women march through Paris to protest against France’s plan to ban head coverings from public schools.
2007 – Jainal Antel Sali Jr, a top leader of the al-qaida-linked Abu Sayyaf rebel group in the Philippines who was accused of kidnapping three Americans in 2001 and of masterminding one of Southeast Asia’s worst terror attacks three years later, is killed by Filipino army forces.
2009 – Timmy, the oldest male gorilla in a North American zoo, celebrates his 50th birthday at the Louisville Zoo in Kentucky.
2010 – In a synagogue visit haunted by history, Pope Benedict XVI and Jewish leaders spar over the record of the World War Ii-era pope during the Holocaust and agree on the need to strengthen Catholicjewish relations.
2011 – Tunisia’s prime minister announces a national unity government, allowing opposition into the country’s leadership for the first time in a bid to quell civil unrest following the ouster of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.
2012 – Scientists confirm that 15 pounds (7 kilograms) of rock collected recently in Morocco fell to Earth from Mars during a meteorite shower last July.
Today’s Birthdays: Benjamin Franklin, US statesman and scientist (1706-1790); Billy T James, New Zealand comedian (1948-1991); Jim Carrey, Canadian actor (1962– ).