Today in History

1314 – Jacques de Molay, 23rd and last Grand Master of the Knights Templar, is burned at the stake in France.

1745 – Death of Sir Robert Walpole, British prime minister for a record

21 years, 1721-42.

1922 – British magistrates in India sentence Mahatma Gandhi to six years in jail for sedition, after he organised a protest march against British rule.

1925 – Worst tornado in US history passes through parts of Missouri, Illinois and Indiana, killing 695 people.

1962 – Ceasefire in the Algerian War signed between France and Algerian rebels.

1965 – Russian cosmonaut Alexey Leonov becomes the first person to walk in space, leaving his craft Voskhod 2 for 12 minutes.

1969 – The United States bombs Cambodia for the first time, in an extension of the Vietnam war.

1970 – Prince Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia is deposed as chief of state while on a visit to Moscow.

1978 – Former Pakistan prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, left, is found guilty of ordering the assassination of an opponent, and is sentenced to death.

1983 – In a landmark ruling on the Motunui claim, the Waitangi Tribunal finds the Crown’s obligations under the Treaty of Waitangi include a duty to protect Ma¯ori fishing ground.

1990 – Largest art robbery in US; 13 works worth over $500m are stolen from a Boston museum.

2016 – Salah Abdeslam, a key suspect in the November 2015 Paris terrorist attacks, is arrested in the Molenbeek area of Brussels.

Birthdays

Grover Cleveland, US president (1837-1908); Neville Chamberlain, UK prime minister (1869-1940); Wilfred Owen, UK poet (1893-1918); F.W. de Klerk, South African president (1932-); Kevin Milne, NZ TV presenter (1949-); Lesley Murdoch, NZ sportswoman (1956-); Kevin Hague, NZ politician (1960-); Queen Latifah, US singer/actor (1970-) Lily Collins, UK actor (1989-); Rieko Ioane, All Black (1997-).