Today in History

1014 – Irish king Brian Boru is killed, possibly by retreating Vikings after his forces defeated them at the Battle of Clontaf.

1915 – Poet-soldier Rupert Brooke dies in Greece.

1940 – Dance hall fires kill 198 people in Natchez, Mississippi. 1969 – Sirhan Sirhan is sentenced to death for assassinating Robert F Kennedy. The sentence is later reduced to life imprisonment. 1975 – South Vietnam’s cabinet resigns as panic grips Saigon and US President Gerald Ford declares the Vietnam War is over.

1979 – New Zealander Blair

Peach, left, a special-needs teacher and member of the Anti-Nazi League, dies during a clash with police at an anti-fascism rally in Southall, London.

1984 – Aids virus identified as HTLV-III.

1986 – White-led South African government commits to scrapping dozens of laws restricting movements of blacks.

1992 – South African President FW de Klerk proposes holding a multiracial election.

1998 – James Earl Ray, who confessed to assassinating Martin Luther King Jr in 1968 and later insisted he was framed, dies.

2003 – Beijing closes all schools for two weeks because of an outbreak of the Sars virus.

2007 – Ex-Russian president Boris Yeltsin, who pushed Russia to embrace democracy and a market economy, dies at 76.

2013 – West Indian cricketer Chris Gayle smashes the fastest century in history (30 balls).

2018 – A van is deliberately driven into pedestrians in Toronto, Canada, killing 10 and injuring 13.

Birthdays

William Shakespeare, English playwright (1564-1616); Ngaio Marsh, NZ writer (1895-1982); Shirley Temple Black, US diplomat/ film star (1928-2014); Roy Orbison, US musician (1936-88); Michael Moore, US director (1954-); Brendan Cole, NZ dancer (1976-); John Oliver, UK TV host (1977-); Luke Ronchi, NZ/Australian cricketer (1981-); Dev Patel, UK actor (1990-).