TODAY IN HISTORY
1553
King Henry VIII’s daughter Mary is proclaimed Queen of England after pretender Lady Jane Grey is deposed.
1848
A pioneer women’s rights convention is organised in Seneca Falls, New York.
1870
The Franco-Prussian war, which eventually leads to the unification of the German states, begins.
1903
The first Tour de France is won by Maurice Garin.
1922
George McGovern, a US senator and the Democratic presidential candidate in 1972, is born in Avon, SD.
1941
Britain launches its ‘V for Victory’ campaign during World War II with Prime Minister Winston Churchill calling the V-sign hand gesture ‘the symbol of the unconquerable will of the people of the occupied territories and a portent of the fate awaiting the Nazi tyranny’.
1944
The Democratic national convention is convened in Chicago with the renomination of President Franklin D Roosevelt considered a certainty.
1952
The Summer Olympics opens in Helsinki, Finland.
1965
The first president of South Korea, Syngman Rhee, dies in Honolulu.
1969
Apollo 11, with Neil Armstrong, Edwin ‘Buzz’ Aldrin and Michael Collins on board, goes into orbit around the Moon.
1975
The Apollo and Soyuz space capsules that were linked in orbit for two days separate.
1979
The Nicaraguan capital of Managua falls to Sandinista guerrillas, two days after President Anastasio Somoza fled the country.
1980
The Moscow Summer Olympics begins, minus dozens of nations that were boycotting the games because of the Soviet military intervention in Afghanistan.
1984
Congresswoman Geraldine A Ferraro of New York wins the Democratic nomination for vice president at the party’s convention in San Francisco.
1986
Caroline Kennedy, daughter of President John F Kennedy, marries Edwin A Schlossberg.
1989
Hundred-and-eleven people are killed when United Air Lines Flight 232, a DC-10 which suffered the uncontained failure of its tail engine and the loss of hydraulic systems, crashes while making an emergency landing at Sioux City, Iowa; 185 others survive.
1990
President George H W Bush joins former presidents Ronald Reagan, Gerald R Ford and Richard M Nixon at ceremonies dedicating the Nixon Library and Birthplace (since redesignated the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum) in Yorba Linda, California.
1996
Opening ceremonies are held in Atlanta for the 26th Summer Olympic Games.
2011
Summoned by British lawmakers to answer for a phone hacking and bribery scandal at one of his tabloids, media mogul Rupert Murdoch says he is humbled and ashamed, but accepts no responsibility for wrongdoing.