Today in History

1565 – Mary Queen of Scots weds Henry, Lord Darnley, in Edinburgh.

1567 – Mary’s son is crowned James VI of Scotland. He later becomes James I of England.

1833 – William Wilberforce, campaigner for the abolition of slavery, dies.

1900 – Italy’s King Umberto I is assassinated by an anarchist.

1921 – Adolf Hitler becomes leader of Germany’s Nazi Party. 1948 – First postwar Olympic Games open in London.

1958 – US President Dwight Eisenhower signs the act which creates space agency Nasa.

1967 – The Doors score their first US No 1 hit, with Light My Fire.

1968 – Pope Paul VI reaffirms the Roman Catholic Church’s stance against artificial methods of birth control.

1981 – Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer wed in London; police use batons on Springbok tour protesters outside Parliament. 1993 – Israeli Supreme Court rules John Demjanjuk was not the Nazi death camp guard Ivan the Terrible.

1996 – Carl Lewis wins his fourth consecutive Olympic gold medal in the long jump.

2000 – Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston, left, marry in California.

2003 – Moana Mackey enters Parliament on the Labour list, aged 29, joining her mother, Janet Mackey, MP for East Coast.

2015 – A piece of wing from missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 washes up on Reunion

Island in the Indian Ocean.

Birthdays

Benito Mussolini, Italian dictator (1883-1945); Clara Bow, US silent-era film star (1905-65); Dag Hammarskjold, Swedish UN secretarygeneral, Nobel Peace laureate (1905-61); Millie Khan, NZ lawn bowler (1938-2003); Terry Jarvis, NZ cricketer/businessman (1944-); John Clarke, NZ comedian (19482017); Tim Gunn, US TV personality (1953-); Fernando Alonso, Spanish F1 world champion (1981-).