Today in history
1057 - Macbeth, king of Scotland, is killed in battle by Malcolm, son of the late king Duncan.
1498 - Grenada is sighted by Christopher Columbus, who names it Concepcion as he sails past.
1848 - M Waldo Hanchett of Syracuse, New York, patents the dental chair.
1903 - New Zealand wins first rugby union test against Australia, 22-3.
1914 - The Panama Canal opens with the passage of the vessel Ancon.
1939 - MGM musical The Wizard of Oz has its Hollywood premiere at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre.
1945 - Millions worldwide celebrate VJ Day, a day after Japan’s surrender is announced, ending World War II.
1947 - After 200 years, India becomes independent from British rule. Pakistan, a new country is carved out of India.
1948 - South Korea becomes independent and is formally proclaimed as the Republic of Korea.
1950 - An earthquake measuring about 8.7 on the Richter scale strikes Assam, India, killing over 1000 people.
1960 - Republic of the Congo is proclaimed an independent nation.
1961 - East German workers begin to build Berlin Wall.
1965 - Crowd of 55,600 attends a Beatles concert at Shea Stadium, New York, creating world attendance and revenue records for a pop concert.
1975 - Bangladesh’s founding father, Sheik Mujibur Rahman, is assassinated with most of his family in a successful military coup.
1979 - Two Soviet Aeroflot airliners collide in mid-air over Ukraine, killing 173.
1994 - Carlos the Jackal, freelance terrorist, is arrested in Sudan and flown to Paris for trial.
1995 - Fifty years after WWII ended in the Pacific, Japan makes its first clear-cut apology for the country’s war-time actions.
1998 - A car bomb blast in Omagh, Northern Ireland, kills 29 people in the worst single attack in nearly 30 years of violence.
2006 - The British Defence Ministry says more than 300 British soldiers who were executed by the military for cowardice during World War I will be pardoned.
2009 - A fire set by an arsonist at a wedding tent kills at least 41 women and children guests in Kuwait City and injures 76. Today’s Birthdays: Napoleon Bonaparte, French emperor (1769-1821); Sir Walter Scott, Scottish novelist-poet (1771-1832); Julia Child, US author-cook (1912-2004); Mike Connors, US actor (1925-2017); Abby Dalton, US actor (1935-); Princess Anne (1950-); Stieg Larsson, Swedish author (1954-2004); Ben Affleck, US actor (1972-); Jennifer Lawrence, American actress (1990-).