Today in history

1355 - Charles IV is crowned in Rome as Holy Roman Emperor.

1594 - Jean Chastel, pupil of the Jesuits, attempts to assassinate France’s King Henry IV.

1664 - Peace Treaty of Westminster ends first Anglo-dutch War.

1794 - French revolutionaries GJ Danton and Camille Desmoulins are executed.

1871 - New Zealand makes its first diplomatic posting with the appointment of Isaac Featherston as the colony’s agent-general in London.

1932 - New Zealand-born and trained Phar Lap, Australasia’s greatest race horse, dies mysteriously in California. He won 37 of his 51 races and 32 of his last 35, including the 1930 Melbourne Cup. After conquering Australia, the horse raced in the US.

1955 - Sir Winston Churchill resigns as British prime minister.

1958 - Fidel Castro begins ‘‘total war’’ against Batista government in Cuba.

1964 - Death of General Douglas Macarthur, United States Pacific commander in World War II.

1974 - The World Trade Center, then the world’s tallest building, opens in New York City.

1984 - Death of Sir Arthur ‘‘Bomber’’ Harris, chief of British Bomber Command during World War II.

1988 - Hijackers commandeer Kuwaiti Airways plane with 112 people aboard and force it to land in Iran.

1995 - Israel launches its first spy satellite, putting it into an orbit that takes it over several Arab countries.

2004 - A Russian court jury finds arms control researcher Igor Sutyagin guilty of treason for passing secrets to the US.

2007 - Eritrea bans female circumcision, a life-threatening tradition widespread in the Horn of Africa, which involves cutting off the clitoris and other parts of the female genitalia.

2011 - Islamic hard-liners, some of them heavily suppressed under three decades of Hosni Mubarak’s authoritarian regime, enthusiastically dive into Egypt’s new freedoms, forming political parties to enter upcoming elections and raising alarm that they will try to lead the country into fundamentalist rule.

2012 - Pope Benedict XVI denounces priests who have questioned church teaching on celibacy and ordaining women, saying they are disobeying his authority to try to impose their own ideas on the church.

Today’s birthdays:

Thomas Hobbes, English philosopher (1588-1679); Joseph Lister, English surgeon, discoverer of antiseptic (1827-1912); Spencer Grace, US actor (1900-1967); Bette Davis, US actress (1908-1989); Gregory Peck, US actor (1916-2003).