Today in history
1810 — Bogota rises against Spanish rule. The day is now Independence Day in Colombia.
1837 — London’s first railway station opens at Euston.
1871 — The English Football Association Challenge Cup Competition is formed, to become better known as the FA Cup. In the first final the Wanderers beat the Royal Engineers 1-0, watched by a crowd of 2000.
1881 — Sioux Indian leader Sitting Bull, a fugitive since the Battle of the Little Big Horn, surrenders to United States federal troops.
1917 — Pact of Corfu is agreed under which Serbs, Croats and Slovenes form a union called Yugoslavia.
1940 — The first singles charts are published in the US journal Billboard. No1is I’ll Never Smile Again by the Tommy Dorsey Band, vocal by Frank Sinatra.
1944 — Adolf Hitler is injured by a bomb in an attache case, an assassination attempt by German officers that leads to a brutal purge.
1951 — Jordan’s King Abdullah is assassinated in Jerusalem by a Palestinian nationalist after annexing West Bank territory.
1954 — Armistice for Indo-china is signed in Geneva, under which Vietnam is separated into North and South.
1969 — US astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin ‘‘Buzz’’ Aldrin become the first men to set foot on the Moon.
1974 — Turkey invades the Mediterranean island of Cyprus.
1989 — Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi is placed under house arrest for her outspoken attacks on the country’s military rulers.
1996 — Hutu rebels attack Tutsi refugees at a camp in Burundi, killing some 320 people, mostly women and children.
2004 — The European Commission approves a merger between the record companies Sony Music and BMG that reduces the number of global music firms to four.
2012 — A gunman hurls a gas canister inside a crowded movie theatre in a Denver, Colorado, suburb during a midnight showing of the new Batman movie and then opens fire, killing 12 people and wounding nearly 60 others.
2015 — The US and Cuba restore full diplomatic relations after more than five decades of frosty relations rooted in the Cold War. Today’s Birthdays: Sir Edmond Hillary, New Zealand explorer- mountain climber (1919-2008); Natalie Wood, US actress (1938-1981); Carlos Santana, Mexican guitarist (1947-); Marcia Hines, Australian singer (1953-); Terri Irwin, American naturalist; widow of Steve Irwin (1964-); Gisele Bundchen, Brazilian model (1980-).