Today in History

1543 – Henry VIII of England marries his sixth and final wife, Catherine Parr, widow of Lord Latimer, at Hampton Court Palace. 1843 – Mormon leader Joseph Smith, right, says God allows polygamy.

1863 – British troops invade Waikato by crossing the Mangata¯whiri Stream, which the K¯ıngitanga movement had declared a line not to be crossed.

1910 – Charles Stewart Rolls, aviator and co-founder of RollsRoyce, dies when he crashes his Wright biplane near Bournemouth.

1918 – A Japanese battleship explodes, killing more than 500 people.

1977 – United States President Jimmy Carter defends Supreme Court decisions limiting government payments for poor women’s abortions, saying, ‘‘there are many things in life that are not fair’’.

1990 – Boris Yeltsin quits the Soviet Communist Party, undermining Mikhail Gorbachev’s standing.

1996 – Prince Charles and Princess Diana agree the terms of their divorce, ending a 15-year marriage.

1998 – France beat Brazil to win the football World Cup.

2010 – The International Criminal Court charges Sudan’s president Omar-al-Bashir with three genocide counts.

2015 – Serbia’s Novak Djokovic wins the Wimbledon men’s tennis singles title, beating Roger Federer of Switzerland.

2016 – Two regional Italian passenger trains collide in the country’s south, killing 25 people.

Birthdays

Henry David Thoreau, US authornaturalist (1817-1862); George Eastman, US inventor (1854-1932); Bill Cosby, comedian and convicted sex offender (1937-); Bruce Taylor, New Zealand cricketer (1943-); Jake Wood, English actor on EastEnders (1972-); Malala Yousafzai, Pakistani activist, Nobel Prize laureate (1997-).