TODAY IN HISTORY
1689 — France’s King Louis XIV declares war on Britain.
1814 — George Stephenson of England tests his first steam locomotive.
1917 — Margaretha Geertruida Zelle, the Dutch spy known as Mata Hari, is sentenced to death on charges of spying for Germany during World War I.
1943 — Benito Mussolini is forced to resign as prime minister of Italy during World War II.
1946 — The United States makes the first underwater test of an atomic bomb off the atoll of Bikini in Pacific Ocean.
1959 — The hovercraft makes its first crossing of the English Channel from Dover to Calais.
1963 — US, Soviet Union and Britain conclude treaty prohibiting nuclear testing in atmosphere, space or under water.
1968 — Pope Paul VI bans all artificial birth control methods for Roman Catholics.
1971 — Doctor Christiaan Barnard transplants two lungs and a heart into a man in Cape Town, South Africa, and the operation is described as successful.
1973 — Federal judge rules that US government must halt bombing of Cambodia on grounds it is ‘‘unauthorised and unlawful’’.
1978 — World’s first test-tube baby, Louise Joy Brown, is born at Oldham General Hospital, Lancashire, England.
1984 — Soviet cosmonaut Svetlana Savitskaya becomes the first woman to walk in space.
1994 — Israel and Jordan agree on peace treaty.
1997 — The Khmer Rouge guerillas in Cambodia hold an apparently fake trial of their former leader Pol Pot, who is sentenced to house arrest.
1998 — US government officials say President Bill Clinton has been subpoenaed to testify in the Monica Lewinsky case.
1999 — Lance Armstrong wins the Tour de France, capping an amazing comeback from cancer and becoming just the second American to win cycling’s showcase race.
2011 — The self-described perpetrator of Norway’s deadly bombing and shooting rampage, Anders Behring Breivik, is ordered held in solitary confinement after calmly telling a court that two other cells of collaborators stand ready to join his murderous campaign. Today’s Birthdays: Elias Canetti, Bulgarian writer and Nobel laureate (1905-1994); Estelle Getty, US actress (1923-2008); Bruce Woodley, The Seekers guitarist (1942-); Iman Abdulmajid, model-actress (1955-); Matt Leblanc, actor (1967-)