Today in History

1431 – Joan of Arc is accused of relapsing into heresy by donning male clothing again, providing justification for her execution.

1742 – The first indoor swimming pool opens, in London.

1845 – A fire in Quebec, Canada, destroys more than 1500 houses. Another huge fire ravages the city a month later.

1912 – Australian Jimmy Matthews becomes the first bowler to take two hat-tricks in the same cricket test, and on the same day. The third South African victim in the first hattrick, debutant Tommy Ward, is also the third victim of the second.

1920 – Fingerprints are used to help convict a murderer in New Zealand. Police found Dennis Gunn’s fingerprints on three cash boxes from a robbery and the jury is convinced he murdered postmaster Augustus Braithwaite. Gunn is sentenced to death and is hanged in Auckland on June 22.

1936 – Alan Turing, left, submits his paper On Computable Numbers to a mathematics society, setting out the theoretical basis for modern computers.

1961 – Peter Benenson publishes "The Forgotten Prisoners" in The

Observer, heralding the creation of Amnesty International.

1972 – Burglars break into the Democratic National Headquarters at Watergate in Washington DC.

1995 – At least 1500 people die in an earthquake on Sakhalin Island in Russia’s far east.

2006 – Pope Benedict XVI visits the Auschwitz concentration camp as "a son of the German people", and asks God why he remained silent during the Holocaust.

Birthdays

Joseph-Ignace Guillotin, French physician and advocate of humane capital punishment (1738-1814); Ian Fleming, British writer (1908-1964); Rudy Giuliani, former mayor of New York City (1944–); Kylie Minogue, Australian singer-actress (1968–); Carey Mulligan, British actress (1985–).