Today in history
1267 - St Louis of France calls his knights to Paris to prepare for his second crusade to the Holy Land.
1449 - England breaks a truce and captures Fougeres from the French, leading Charles VII to renew the Hundred Years War.
1603 - Queen Elizabeth I dies after ruling England for more than 40 years. James VI of Scotland succeeds her as James I, uniting the thrones of Scotland and England.
1882 - German bacteriologist Robert Koch announces isolation of tuberculosis germs.
1927 - Australia’s federal parliament sits in Melbourne for the last time before moving to Canberra.
1929 - Fascists ‘‘win’’ single-party elections in Italy.
1972 - Britain takes over direct control of Northern Ireland in effort to restore peace.
1974 - Uganda crushes coup attempt against President Idi Amin following machine-gun and mortar battle with rebels.
1976 - The president of Argentina, Isabel Peron, is deposed in a bloodless military coup. General Jorge Videla is named as president; World War II British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery dies.
1988 - Former nuclear technician Mordechai Vanunu is found guilty in an Israeli court of treason for revealing Israel’s nuclear secrets.
1989 - America’s worst oil spill occurs as supertanker Exxon Valdez runs aground on a reef in Alaska’s Prince William Sound.
1999 - In the first Nato attack against a sovereign country, cruise missiles and jets strike Yugoslavia as an attempt to force Serbs to allow Nato troops in rebellious Kosovo. German units see combat for the first time since World War II.
2002 - For the first time, two black actors win Academy Awards for best actor and best actress – Denzel Washington for Training Day and Halle Berry for Monster’s Ball.
2007 - The United Nations Security Council imposes new sanctions on Iran over its nuclear programme, including a ban on Iranian arms exports and on any country buying Iranian weapons.
2015 - A Germanwings Airbus flying from Barcelona to Dusseldorf crashes in the French Alps, killing all 150 people on board. It later emerges co-pilot Andreas Lubitz deliberately caused the crash.
Today’s birthdays:
Harry Houdini, US magician and escape artist (1874-1926); Steve Mcqueen, US actor (1930-1980); Tommy Hilfiger, American fashion designer (1951-); Dean Jones, Australian cricketer (1961-); Lara Flynn Boyle, US actor (1970-); Darren Lockyer, Australian rugby league player (1977); Jessica Chastain, American actress (1977-); Keisha Castle-hughes, New Zealand actress (1990-).