Today in history
1503 - Spanish destroy French fleet at Cerignola, Sicily.
1655 - English fleet destroys pirate fleet of Bey of Tunis and releases prisoners in Algiers; Protestants in Vaudois district of Savoy are massacred.
1876 - Queen Victoria is declared Empress of India.
1910 - Albanian revolt is suppressed by Turkish Army.
1965 - US marines land in the Dominican Republic following the overthrow of the government of Sir Donald Cabral.
1967 - Heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali refuses to be inducted into the US Army.
1977 - Andreas Baader and other members of the Baader-meinhoff group are jailed for life after a trial lasting nearly two years in Stuttgart, Germany.
1987 - Australian businessman and adventurer Dick Smith becomes first person to fly over the North Pole in a helicopter.
1993 - In Turkey, an avalanche of garbage triggered by a methane explosion kills at least 18 people in squatter huts near a city dump.
1995 - A leaking gas line explodes during morning rush hour in Taegu, South Korea, killing at least 103.
1998 - British explorer David Hempleman-adams reaches the geographic North Pole, becoming the first person to reach the earth’s magnetic and geographic poles.
2002 - Alexander Lebed, a toughtalking general who played a key role in foiling the 1991 coup against Mikhail Gorbachev, dies in a helicopter crash.
2007 - The Taliban frees Celine Cordelier, a French aid worker who was kidnapped and held for more than three weeks along with another French citizen and three Afghan colleagues.
2013 - British media reveals nurse Jacintha Saldanha left a note saying the hoax call of two Australian DJS led to her death; The fugitive owner of an illegally constructed building that collapsed, killing hundreds in Bangladesh, is captured as he tries to flee to India.
2015 - Family members farewell Australian drug smugglers Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran on the eve of their execution in Indonesia; Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews says A$1.5 billion will be set aside in the upcoming state budget for the Melbourne Metro Rail project.
2016 - An exhibition of works exclusively by Muslim artists under the age of 40 opens at an art gallery in Perth in an effort to break new ground.
Today’s birthdays:
King Edward IV of England (1442-1483); Ian Rankin, Scottish novelist (1960-); John Daly, US golfer (1966-); Penelope Cruz, Spanish actress (1974-); Jessica Alba, American actress (1981-).