Today in History

1694 – Mary II of England, right, dies after five years of joint rule with her husband, William III.

1836 – Spain recognises independence of Mexico.

1869 – William Semple of Ohio patents chewing gum.

1895 – Lumiere brothers stage the world’s first commercial movie screening, at the Grand Cafe in Paris. 1908 – Most destructive earthquake in recorded European history strikes the Straits of Messina in southern Italy. It and a subsequent tsunami kill an estimated 100,000 people.

1929 – New Zealand military police open fire on a demonstration in Apia, Samoa, killing 11 people at an independence protest.

1950 – Chinese forces cross the 38th parallel in Korea.

1966 – China detonates its fifth atomic bomb.

1973 – Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s

The Gulag Archipelago, a ‘‘literary investigation’’ of the Soviet policestate system, is published in Paris.

1998 – Three yachtsmen are reported dead, five are missing and dozens injured in the most disastrous Sydney-Hobart yacht race in its 54-year history.

2005 – A Russian parliamentary commission investigating the Beslan school siege criticises officials for not following orders and for trying to disguise the seriousness of the deadly attack.

2007 – Hundreds of thousands of mourners gather in front of the mausoleum where Benazir Bhutto is to be interred in Pakistan.

Birthdays

Woodrow Wilson, US president (1856-1924); Stan Lee, US comic writer (1922-2018); Maggie Smith, UK actress (1934-); Denzel Washington, US actor (1954-); Pat Rafter, Australian tennis player (1972-).

Clarification: The Netherlands formally transferred sovereignty to Indonesia on December 27, 1949.