Today in History

1431 - French heroine Joan of Arc is burned at the stake for heresy.

1842 - John Francis attempts to assassinate Queen Victoria as she rides in her carriage with Prince Albert in London.

1883 - Twelve people are trampled to death when a rumour that the recently opened Brooklyn Bridge in New York is in imminent danger of collapsing causes stampede.

1895 - WG Grace, right, at the age of 46, becomes the first cricketer to score 1000 first-class runs by the end of May.

1901 - A royal commission in New Zealand rejects the idea that the colony should become an Australian state.

1911 - The first Indianapolis 500 is held. The winning driver, Ray Harroun, has an innovation on his single-seater: a rear-view mirror.

1935 - Babe Ruth plays his last game of baseball.

1959 - The Auckland Harbour Bridge opens.

1963 - Lesley Gore, 17, sings It’s My Party on American Bandstand.

1967 - Claude Rains, British actor who starred in films Casablanca and Notorious, dies.

1983 - Essex dismiss Surrey for 14 in an English county cricket match, the lowest first-class score since World War II.

1995 - First boat people from East Timor in 20 years arrive in Darwin.

1998 - A powerful earthquake rocks northern Afghanistan, burying entire villages and killing thousands of people.

1999 - Fifty-three people, mostly teenage girls, are trampled to death as they try to escape a sudden hailstorm at an outdoor rock concert in Belarus.