Today in history
1074 - Pope Gregory VII declares all married Roman Catholic priests to be excommunicated.
1864 - In the United States Civil War, General Ulysses Grant is appointed commander-in-chief of the Union armies.
1916 - Germany declares war on Portugal on grounds that Portugal had seized German shipping in Portuguese harbours.
1942 - Japanese complete conquest of Dutch island of Java in Indonesia during World War II.
1956 - A dolphin nicknamed Opo, famous for entertaining thousands of beachgoers with its antics near the Hokianga settlement of Opononi over the previous nine months, is found dead caught between rocks near the shore.
1976 - Forty-two people die in Cavalese in Italy in the world’s worst cable car disaster. One teenage girl survives.
1990 - The two Germanys begin momentous preliminary reunification talks.
1991 - Yugoslavia deploys tanks in the capital Belgrade after bloody clashes between riot police and tens of thousands of anti-communist protesters.
1992 - Former Israeli prime minister and Nobel Peace prize winner Menachem Begin dies.
1995 - US President Bill Clinton controversially approves a visa for Gerry Adams to enter the US and raise funds for Sinn Fein.
1999 - Iranian President Mohammad Khatami travels to Italy in the first state visit to the West by an Iranian president since the 1979 Islamic revolution.
2000 - Fire sweeps through a locked dormitory at a high school in the South Pacific nation of Tuvalu, killing 18 teenage girls and their supervisor.
2002 - Space shuttle Columbia’s astronauts release the Hubble Space Telescope into orbit after five days of repairs.
2002 - The Mont Blanc Alpine tunnel reopens to car traffic after a fire in 1999 that killed 39 people, but protesters vow to try to block heavy goods vehicles from using it again.
2006 - Death of John Profumo, the government minister at the centre of one of Britain’s biggest political scandals, aged 91.
2007 - Survivors of the March 10, 1945, US firebombing of Tokyo during WWII and bereaved family members sue the Japanese government for US$10.3 million, alleging it did not assist victims in the aftermath – the first group lawsuit of its kind.
Today’s Birthdays:
Yuri Gagarin, Russian astronaut, first man in space (1934-1968); Mickey Gilley, US country singer (1936-); Bobby Fischer, US chess player (1943-2008); Keri Hulme, New Zealand writer (1947-).