Today in history
1715 — Eleven ships sink and nearly 1000 passengers and crew drown when a convoy of 12 Spanish ships filled with gold and silver is struck by a hurricane off the coast of Florida.
1792 — French national anthem La Marseillaise by Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle, is first sung in Paris.
1898 — Death of Otto von Bismarck, founder and first chancellor of the German Empire.
1928 — Colour motion pictures are exhibited by George Eastman, with the first film showing goldfish, peacocks, flowers, fashion models and butterflies.
1935 — First Penguin book is published, starting the paperback revolution.
1966 — England beats Germany 4-2 at Wembley to win the Fifa World Cup.
1971 — A Japanese Boeing 727 collides with a jet fighter over Shizukuishi, killing 162 people.
1976 — Reports emerge that at least 100,000 people have been killed in earthquake in north-eastern China that shattered the city of Dangsha (Tangshan).
1980 — Republic of Vanuatu achieves independence.
1991 — United Nations weapons experts report finding 46,000 chemical weapons in Iraq, about four times what Baghdad had declared.
1993 — In Geneva peace talks, Bosnia’s Muslims, Serbs and Croats agree to create a new ‘‘union’’ of three ethnic republics.
1994 — Zaire declares its eastern region, swamped by 1.7 million Rwandan refugees, a disaster region.
1997 — Eighteen people die in the NSW snowfields when a landslide sweeps one ski lodge onto another at the Thredbo Alpine Village. One person, ski instructor Stuart Diver, survives and is found and pulled to safety on August 2.
1998 — Burma’s military forcibly ends a six-day car sit-in by opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who started the protest when she was prevented from travelling to see her supporters.
2000 — North and South Korea announce they will reopen border liaison offices and reconnect a rail line linking the two countries.
2003 — The world’s last ‘‘Love Bug’’ Volkswagen Beetle – No 21,529,464 in the car’s 68-year history – rolls off the production line in Mexico. Today’s Birthdays: Giorgio Vasari, Italian artist (1511-1574); Emily Bronte, British author (1818-1848); Henry Ford, US auto pioneer (1863-1947); Arnold Schwarzenegger, Austrian actor and former California governor (1947-); Kate Bush, British singer (1958-); Laurence Fishburne, US actor (1961-); Lisa Kudrow, US actress (1963-); Allan Langer, Australian rugby league player (1966-); Christopher Nolan, English film director (1970-); Hilary Swank, US actress (1974-).