Today in history
Highlights in history on this date:
1542 – England’s Queen Catherine Howard is executed for treason on the orders of her husband Henry VIII.
1633 – Italian astronomer Galileo arrives in Rome and is detained by Roman Catholic Inquisition.
1689 – English Parliament adopts a Bill of Rights.
1856 – Britain annexes Oudh, increasing Indian hostility to British rule.
1861 – Francis II of Naples surrenders at Gaeta to Giuseppe Garibaldi.
1869 – A small northern Taranaki military settlement, Pukearuhe, is attacked without warning by a Maori war party, with eight European settlers and soldiers killed.
1945 – Allied forces capture Budapest, Hungary, in World War II; US warplanes firebomb Dresden, Germany, wiping out the city and killing more than 35,000 civilians.
1974 – Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Nobel Prize-winning author, is deported and stripped of Soviet citizenship.
1989 – Soviet Red Army leaves Afghan capital of Kabul.
1990 – Roaring crowds give Nelson Mandela a hero’s welcome when he returns to the black township of Soweto after being released from prison.
1994 – Somali gunmen kidnap two Italian aid workers and an Egyptian UN peacekeeper is killed.
1996 – Israeli troops seal off the West Bank and Gaza to prevent terrorist attacks. The restrictions last for years.
1999 – Osama bin Laden, the Saudi millionaire suspected of being behind the bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, is reported to have disappeared from his base in Afghanistan.
2002 – Britain’s Queen Elizabeth bestows an honorary knighthood on former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, praising his role in bolstering his city after the September 11 attacks.
2006 – Denmark’s prime minister says the country’s image in the Muslim world has been tainted by false images and rumours in the Prophet Muhammed drawing controversy and insists the country is tolerant and open to all faiths.
2007 – British-born author Elizabeth Jolley dies after a long illness, aged 83.
2008 – Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd makes a formal apology to the Aboriginal people and the stolen generation.
2009 – A female suicide bomber targets Shiite pilgrims in Musayyib, killing at least 40.
Today’s Birthdays: Oliver Reed, British actor (1938-1999); Stockard Channing, US actress (1944-); Jerry Springer, US talkshow host (1944-); Peter Gabriel, British singer (1950-); Robbie Williams, British singer (1974-); Mena Suvari, US actress (1979-).