Today in History

311 – Emperor Galerius issues Edict of Toleration, ending persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire.

711 – Moorish troops land at Gibraltar to begin conquest of the Iberian peninsula.

1492 – Christopher Columbus receives a commission from Spanish monarchs Isabella I and Ferdinand II to equip his fleet to the New World; Spain announces it will expel all Jews.

1789 – George Washington is inaugurated as the first president of the United States.

1803 – US doubles in size with the purchases of the Louisiana Territory and New Orleans from France.

1859 – First weekly instalment of Charles Dickens’ A Tale Of Two Cities is published.

1865 – Former governor of New Zealand Robert FitzRoy commits suicide after a chequered career in public service.

1987 – Physicist JJ Thomson announces discovery of electrons.

1917 – William Sanders awarded New Zealand’s only naval VC.

1945 – Hitler commits suicide in his Berlin bunker with wife Eva Braun.

1952 – Mr Potato Head becomes the first toy advertised on TV.

1973 – US President Richard Nixon announces the resignations of his aides H R Haldeman and John Ehrlichman, along with AttorneyGeneral Richard Kleindienst and White House counsel John Dean.

1975 – Vietnamese Communist troops take over Saigon, ending Vietnam War.

1993 – Tennis player Monica Seles, right, is stabbed at a match by a fan of her rival Steffi Graf.

2004

– US media release graphic photos of soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib.

Birthdays

Casimir III The Great, Polish king

(1310-1370); Jacques-Louis David, French artist (1748-1825); Joachim von Ribbentrop, German Reich politician (1893-1946); Carl XVI Gustaf, King of Sweden (1946-); Jane Campion, NZ film-maker

(1954-); Ian Healy, Australian cricketer (1964-); Kirsten Dunst, US actress (1982-); Rohit Sharma, Indian cricketer (1987-).