TODAY IN HISTORY
Today is Friday, May 16, the 136th day of 2014. There are 229 days left in the year. Highlights: 1532 - Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro lands with a small band of soldiers on the northern coast of Peru. 1770 - Marie Antoinette, 14, marries the future king of France, Louis XVI, who is 15. 1920 - Joan of Arc is canonised in Rome. 1929 - The first Academy Awards are presented during a banquet at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. 1932 - Japan’s Premier Tsuyoshi Inukai is assassinated in Tokyo. 1941 - Iceland’s parliament ends its treaty with Denmark and proclaims independence. 1961 - Major General Park Chung Hee stages a military coup in South Korea. He rules until his intelligence chief assassinates him in 1979. 1966 - China’s Cultural Revolution begins when the Communist party’s Politburo approves an edict from Chairman Mao Zedong. An elite corps of young zealous students, the Red Guards, is formed to attack traditional values and bourgeois thinking. 1969 - A Soviet space probe reaches Venus and drops a capsule that sends back information about the planet’s atmosphere. 1975 - Japanese climber Junko Tabei becomes the first woman to reach the summit of Mt Everest. 1991 - France’s first female prime minister, Edith Cresson, takes office; Queen Elizabeth II becomes the first British monarch to address the United States Congress. 1994 - Scotland Yard approves a plan to allow some London police officers to openly carry firearms. 1995 - Japanese police arrest doomsday cult leader Shoko Asahara in connection with a nerve gas attack that killed 12 people on Tokyo’s subway system two months earlier. 1997 - In the face of a rebellion, Zaire’s President Mobutu Sese Seko gives up power after 32 years of autocratic rule. 2007 - The New Zealand Parliament passes a law to remove a Crimes Act defence for smacking children, following a nationwide debate. Birthdays: Maria Agnesi, Italian, first woman mathematician ( 17181799); Henry Fonda, US actor ( 1905- 1982); Woody Herman, US jazz musician ( 1913- 1987); Pierce Brosnan, Irish actor ( 1953-); Janet Jackson, US pop singer ( 1966-); Tori Spelling, US actress ( 1973-).