Today in history

1265 - England’s Parliament meets for the first time.

1841 - Hong Kong island is ceded to the British.

1887 - New Zealand annexes the Kermadec Islands in Pacific.

1892 - First official game of basketball is played in the United States.

1936 - King George V of England dies and is succeeded by Edward VIII.

1942 - Nazi officials hold the notorious Wannsee conference, during which they arrive at their ‘‘final solution’’, calling for the extermination of Europe’s Jews.

1944 - British air force drops some 2300 tonnes of bombs during an air raid on Berlin.

1945 - US President Franklin D Roosevelt is sworn into office for a fourth term.

1958 - The Commonwealth Transantarctic expedition led by Dr Vivian Fuchs arrives at the South Pole, the halfway point of their journey.

1961 - John F Kennedy is inaugurated as the 35th and youngest US president.

1978 - Australia extends its defacto recognition of Indonesian sovereignty over East Timor.

1981 - Ronald Reagan becomes president of the US at the age of 69 and 349 days, the oldest president to take office until Donald Trump does.

2001 - US President Bill Clinton leaves office and George W Bush is sworn in as the 43rd president after one of the most contentious elections in US history.

1987 - Terry Waite, the Archbishop of Canterbury’s special envoy in Lebanon, is kidnapped.

1991 - Hundreds of thousands of Soviet citizens protest in Moscow against a bloody crackdown on Lithuania and demand resignation of President Gorbachev.

1993 - Death of Oscar-winning actress Audrey Hepburn in Switzerland.

2009 - Barack Hussein Obama becomes the 44th president and first black chief executive of the US.

2012 - New Zealand police raid the mansion of internet millionaire Kim Dotcom and shut down his filesharing business, Megaupload, on the request of US authorities pursuing piracy charges against him.

2013 - After a year of fighting extradition charges against him over internet piracy allegations, Dotcom launches a new file-sharing business in defiance of the US authorities’ pursuit of him.

George Burns, US comedian (1896-1996); Federico Fellini, Italian film director (1920-1993); Patricia Neal, US actress (1926-2010); David Lynch, US director (1946-); Bill Maher, US television talk show host (1956-); Rainn Wilson, US actor (1966-); Edwin ‘‘Buzz’’ Aldrin, US astronaut (1930-); Tom Baker, British actor, ex-doctor Who, 1934.