Today in history
1625 – Death of King James I, the first Stuart king of England and the first to rule both England and Scotland.
1703 – Russia’s Tsar Peter the Great founds St Petersburg.
1854 – In the Crimeanwar, France declares war on Russia.
1860 – ML Byrn of New York City is granted the first patent on a corkscrew (a ‘‘gimlet screw’’ with a T-shaped handle).
1899 – The first international radio transmission is sent when inventor Guglielmo Marconi sends a wireless message from England to France.
1933 – After being found guilty of aggression in Manchuria, Japan announces it will leave the League of Nations.
1941 – Yugoslavia’s Prince Paul is deposed in a coup following a pact with Germany’s Adolf Hitler.
1960 – Iraqi Premier General Kassem founds Palestine army.
1968 – Yuri Gagarin, Soviet cosmonaut who flew the world’s first manned space mission, is killed in the crash of a training plane.
1970 – Severe earthquake in western Turkey kills at least 1087 and leaves 90,000 homeless.
1977 – Two Boeing 747s, owned by KLM and Pan-am, collide and burst into flames on runway at Canary Islands, killing 583 people.
1980 – Some 147 die when the Alexander Kielland, a floating platform for off-duty oil workers, capsizes in the North Sea.
1991 – Commandos storma jetliner in Singapore with 120 passengers aboard, killing four Pakistani hijackers after a nine-hour standoff.
1994 – Silvio Berlusconi seizes victory in Italy’s general elections.
1996 – Jewish extremist Yigal Amir receives a life sentence for assassinating Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in November 1995.
1998 – The United States Food and Drug Administration approves the drug Viagra
2014 – The world rushes to help Ukraine, with the International Monetary Fund pledging up to US$18 billion, the United Nations condemning the vote that drove Crimea into Russian hands and the US Congress backing even harsher sanctions againstmoscow.
2020 – UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson announces he has contracted Covid-19.
Today’s Birthdays:
Baron Georges-eugene Haussmann, French administrator and city planner of Paris (1809-1891); Frederick Henry Royce, English auto engineer
(1863-1933);
Quentin Tarantino,
US film director
(1963-); Mariah
Carey, US singer
(1970-); David Coulthard, Scottish Formula One driver (1971-); Kimbra, New Zealand singer (1990-).