TODAY IN HISTORY

1616 – Cardinal Richelieu becomes France’s minister of state for foreign affairs and war.

1818 – Simon Bolivar formally declares Venezuela independent of Spain.

1841 – Seventeen-year-old Maketu Wharetotara, the son of the Ngapuhi chief Ruhe, goes on a killing spree in the Bay of Islands, murdering five people and eventually being executed for his crimes.

1929 – Spanish artist Salvador Dali has his first one-man show.

1947 – England’s Princess Elizabeth and Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten are married in London’s Westminster Abbey.

1969 – The Nixon administration in United States announces a halt to residential use of the pesticide DDT as part of a total phase-out.

1990 – Saddam Hussein orders another 250,000 Iraqi troops into Kuwait.

1992 – A fire at Windsor Castle destroys one of Britain’s biggest attractions, but rescuers help save the castle’s art treasures.

1996 – Flames roar through a high-rise in Hong Kong, killing 39 people and injuring at least 81.

2001 – Colleagues identify the bodies of four international journalists forced from their cars by armed men and killed in an ambush on the road to the Afghan capital, Kabul.

2003 – The All Blacks beat France 40-13 to claim third place at the Rugby World Cup, bringing another disappointing tournament to a close.

2007 – More than 3,000 people jailed in Pakistan under emergency rule are released, the latest sign that President Gen. Pervez Musharraf was rolling back some of the harsher measures taken against his opponents.

2010 – Pope Benedict XVI opens the door on the previously taboo subject of condoms as a way to fight HIV, saying male prostitutes who use condoms may be beginning to act responsibly.

2011 – Spain’s opposition conservatives sweep commandingly into power and into the hot seat as voters enduring a 21.5 per cent jobless rate and stagnant economy dump the Socialists – the third time in as many weeks Europe’s debt crisis has claimed a government.