Today in History

1540 – Pope Paul III approves the first outline of the Jesuit Order’s organisation.

1601 – Force of 3000 Spaniards lands at Kinsale, Ireland, to support rebellion against England.

1854 – First great disaster to an Atlantic Ocean liner occurs when steamship Arctic sinks with 300 people aboard.

1923 – Martial law is declared in Germany.

1932 – Lores Bonney, left, becomes the first woman to fly around Australia.

1939 – Warsaw surrenders to Germans after 19 days of resistance in World War II.

1959 – Typhoon Vera batters the Japanese island of Honshu, killing almost 5000 people.

1968 – France bars Britain’s entry into European Common Market.

1968 – Antonio Salazar retires as prime minister of Portugal after a stroke. He had ruled since 1932.

1995 – The Israeli cabinet overwhelmingly agrees to hand over to Palestinians control of much of the West Bank occupied by Israel for 28 years.

1996 – Taliban rebels seize control of Kabul and hang former president Najibullah.

2006 – California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signs into law an initiative that imposes the first greenhouse gas emissions cap in the US.

2012 – The body of ABC employee Jill Meagher is discovered in a shallow grave outside Melbourne, six days after she went missing.

2014 – US actor George Clooney and British-Lebanese human-rights lawyer Amal Alamuddin marry.

Birthdays

Cosimo de Medici, Italian founder of the Medici dynasty (1389-1464); King Louis XIII of France (1601-1643); Meatloaf, US singer (1947-); Irvine Welsh, Scottish writer (1958-); Gwyneth Paltrow, US actress (1972-); Lil Wayne, US rapper (1982-); Avril Lavigne, Canadian singer (1984-).