Today in History

1877 – Billy the Kid wounds an Arizona blacksmith who dies the next day. He was the famous outlaw’s first victim.

1915 – A patent is issued for an ‘‘engine-starting device’’, the first electric starter for cars. Charles Kettering’s design replaced the use of iron hand cranks.

1942 – Italian transport ship Nino Bixio is torpedoed by a British submarine in the Mediterranean and 118 New Zealand prisoners of war die.

1943 – Allied forces gain control in Sicily in World War II.

1962 – East German guards gun down a young man trying to cross the Berlin Wall. It became an ugly symbol of the Cold War.

1987 – Rudolf Hess, left, Adolf Hitler’s former deputy, is found strangled in Spandau Prison in Berlin at the age of 93, apparently the victim of suicide.

1998 – United States President Bill Clinton is questioned before a court panel about his relationship with former intern Monica Lewinsky.

1999 – An earthquake in northwestern Turkey kills more than 17,000 people and leaves more than 250,000 homeless.

2012 – Russian feminist punk rock activist group Pussy Riot, who briefly took over a cathedral in a raucous prayer for deliverance from Vladimir Putin, are sentenced to two years’ jail for hooliganism.

Birthdays

Davy Crockett, US western pioneer (1786-1836); Samuel Goldwyn, US film producer (1879-1974); Mae West, US actress (1892-1980); Elsie Locke, New Zealand writer and feminist (1912-2001); Mark Felt, US FBI agent and Watergate informant

(1913-2008); Maureen O’Hara, Irishborn actress (1920-2015); Robert De Niro, US actor (1943-); Larry Ellison, US businessman (1944-); Sean Penn, US actor (1960-); Jim Courier, US tennis player (1970-); Giuliana Rancic, US television personality

(1974-); Thierry Henry, French footballer (1977-).