Today in History

44BC – Julius Caesar, right, is killed by senate conspirators.

1493 – Christopher Columbus returns to Spain after his first voyage to the New World.

1867 – Michigan becomes the first US state to tax property to support a university.

1877 – The first cricket test between Australia and England is played in Melbourne. Australia win by 45 runs.

1883 – Irish-American terrorists attempt to blow up the London offices of The Times.

1892 – The first escalator is patented by Jesse Reno, of New York.

1913 – Woodrow Wilson conducts the first press conference by a US president.

1917 – Tsar Nicholas II of Russia abdicates, and a provisional government is installed.

1919 – Hundreds of soldiers from the New Zealand Expeditionary Force riot at Sling Camp on Salisbury Plain, in England, enraged at repeated delays in sailings of troopships due to take them home. 1939 – Germany invades Czechoslovakia.

1944 – New Zealand forces capture Castle Hill during the battle for Cassino.

1957 – Britain becomes the third nation to explode a nuclear bomb. 1972 – The Godfather is released in US cinemas.

1991 – Four Los Angeles police are charged with beating motorist Rodney King.

1998 – Childcare guru Benjamin Spock dies, aged 94.

2016 – Belgian police raid Brussels apartment in hunt for November 2015 Paris bombers. One suspect is killed and four police wounded. Birthdays

Andrew Jackson, US president (1767-1854); Ruth Bader Ginsburg, US Supreme Court judge (1933-); Mike Love, US singer (1941-); Robyn Malcolm, NZ actress (1965-); Eva Longoria, US actress (1975-); Paul Pogba, French footballer (1993-).