Today in history
1559 - Mary, Queen of Scots, claims title of Queen of England in opposition to Elizabeth I. Her political actions provoke rebellion among the Scottish nobles and she is beheaded in 1587 as a Catholic threat to the English throne.
1609 - The Catholic League is formed in Munich to oppose the Protestant Union, raising tensions in Germany that erupts in Thirty Years’ War.
1645 - Oliver Cromwell’s army defeats British Royalists at Naseby and Langport, where the last two field armies of King Charles I are destroyed.
1897 - French forces reach Fashoda in the Sudan, two months ahead of the British expedition trying to establish a north-south corridor through Africa.
1943 - Allied forces land in Sicily, Italy, during World War II.
1962 - Telstar satellite is launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, bringing live television from the United States to Europe for the first time.
1967 - New Zealand adopts decimal currency.
1973 - The Bahamas gains independence after three centuries of British rule.
1985 - The Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior is bombed by French saboteurs in Auckland, killing a photographer on board and triggering a prolonged diplomatic crisis between France and New Zealand.
1991 - Boris Yeltsin takes oath of office as first elected president of Russia; US President George Bush lifts economic sanctions against South Africa.
1995 - Opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi is freed from house arrest in Rangoon, Burma, now known as Yangon, Myanmar, days before completing her six-year detention.
1996 - Unmanned Galileo spacecraft captures stunning closeup pictures of Ganymede, Jupiter’s biggest moon.
1997 - Some 100,000 people demonstrate in London against proposed ban of fox hunting.
2002 - Helen Clark’s election campaign to lead her Labour party back to power in New Zealand is disrupted when the Green Party claims that her government had covered up the accidental planting of genetically modified sweetcorn.
2011 - Rupert Murdoch swoops into Britain to face the growing phone-hacking scandal that prompted the closure of his News of the World tabloid and threatens to derail a $19 billion broadcasting deal. Today’s Birthdays: Marcel Proust, French writer (1871-1922); Hugo Banzer, president of Bolivia (1926-2002); Arthur Ashe, US tennis player (1943-1993); Jessica Simpson, pop singer/actress (1980-).