TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY IS WEDNESDAY, MARCH 30, 2016. ON THIS DAY:

1533 - Henry VIII divorced his first wife, Catherine of Aragon.

1772 - France makes its first formal claim to Australian territory.

1791 - Convict James Ruse is given the first land grant in the colony of New South Wales.

1814 - The allied European nations against Napoleon marched into Paris.

1816 - Convict architect Francis Greenway is appointed Civil Architect and Assistant Engineer to the colonial government.

1822 - Florida became a U.S. territory.

1842 - Dr. Crawford W. Long performed the first operation while his patient was anesthetised by ether.

1858 - Hyman L. Lipman of Philadelphia patented the pencil.

1867 - The U.S. purchased Alaska from Russia for $7.2 million dollars.

1916 - Pancho Villa killed 172 at the Guerrero garrison in Mexico.

1941 - The German Afrika Korps under General Erwin Rommel began its first offensive against British forces in Libya.

1944 - The U.S. fleet attacked Palau, near the Philippines.

1945 - The U.S.S.R. invaded Austria during World War II.

1946 - The Allies seized 1,000 Nazis attempting to revive the Nazi party in Frankfurt.

1950 - The invention of the phototransistor was announced.

1972 - The British government assumed direct rule over Northern Ireland.

1981 - U.S. President Ronald Reagan was shot and wounded in Washington, DC, by John W. Hinckley Jr.

1998 - Rolls-Royce was purchased by BMW in a $570 million deal.

2002 - An unmanned U.S. spy plan crashed at sea in the Southern Philippines.

2002 - Suspected Islamic militants set off several grenades at a temple in Indian-controlled Kashmir. Four civilians, four policemen and two attackers were killed and 20 people were injured.

2009 - The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey confirmed that the new World Trade Center building would be officially known by its legal name of “One World Trade Center.”