Today in History

1834 – The city of York in Upper Canada is incorporated as Toronto. 1836 – Alamo mission in San Antonio, Texas, falls to the Mexican army after a 13-day siege in which Davy Crockett, right, and 186 other defenders die.

1869 – Dmitri Mendeleev presents the first periodic table of the elements to the Russian Chemical Society.

1899 – German pharmaceutical company Bayer patents aspirin, which quickly becomes the world’s best-selling drug.

1945 – German city of Cologne falls to US First Army in World War II.

1946 – France recognises Vietnam as a free state within Indochina Federation.

1947 – Classical music lovers pack Wellington’s town hall for the debut performance of New Zealand’s first national orchestra, the NZSO.

1953 – Georgy Malenkov succeeds the late Joseph Stalin as premier of the Soviet Union.

1998 – New Zealand’s recently opened national museum, Te Papa, provokes controversy by displaying a statuette of the Virgin Mary enclosed in a condom.

2006 – Fairfax Media pays $700 million for auction site Trade Me, vaulting founder Sam Morgan on to New Zealand’s rich list.

2009 – The retrial of David Bain for the 1995 murders of his parents and three siblings begins in the High Court in Christchurch, after his original conviction was quashed by the Privy Council. Three months later, Bain is acquitted.

Birthdays

Michelangelo, Italian artist (1475-1564); Cyrano de Bergerac, French author (1620-55); Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Colombian novelist (1927-2014); Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, NZ opera singer (1944-); David Gilmour, UK musician in Pink Floyd (1946-); Rob Reiner, US director (1947-); Maurice Williamson, NZ politician (1951-); Shaquille O’Neal, US basketball player (1972-).