Today in history
1554 – Lady Jane Grey is executed for treason in England.
1577 – Don John of Austria, new Governor of the Netherlands, issues edict to settle civil war.
1610 – France’s King Henry IV signs alliance with German Protestant Union.
1689 – Declaration of Rights in England, in which William and Mary are proclaimed King and Queen for life.
1736 – Nadir Shah becomes King of Persia.
1885 – German East Africa Company is chartered.
1899 – Germany buys Pacific islands of Marianas, Carolines and Palau from Spain.
1909 – The passenger steamer Penguin is wrecked on rocks during a stormy night sailing between Picton and Wellington, with the loss of 72 of the 102 on board.
1924 – Tutankhamen’s sarcophagus is opened to reveal his coffin, 15 months after the tomb was first discovered.
1924 – George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue premieres in New York City.
1940 – The radio play The Adventures of Superman debuts in the US with Bud Collyer as the Man of Steel.
1974 – Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Soviet Nobel Prize winner, is arrested at his Moscow apartment and exiled the following day.
1990 – Carmen Lawrence becomes premier of Western Australia, the first female premier of an Australian state.
1993 – Two 10-year-old boys lure 2-year-old James Bulger from his mother at a shopping mall in Liverpool, England, and beat him to death.
1994 – Norwegian Edvard Munch’s painting The Scream is stolen from a museum in Oslo.
1999 – US President Bill Clinton is acquitted by the Senate in an impeachment trial stemming from the Lewinsky scandal.
2000 – Peanuts creator Charles Schulz dies at 77 following a battle with colon cancer.
2002 – The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring receives 13 Academy Award nominations.
2011 – Thousands of Algerians defy government warnings and dodge barricades and riot police to rally in their capita, demanding democratic reforms a day after mass protests toppled Egypt’s autocratic ruler.
2012 – A primary election is held in Venezuela to choose the contendent against Hugo Chavez, the then current president of Venezuela.
Today’s Birthdays: Charles Darwin, English scientist (1809-1882); Abraham Lincoln, US president (1809-1865); Christian Cullen, New Zealand rugby player (1976-); Christina Ricci, US actress (1980-).