Today in History

1397 – Geoffrey Chaucer attends the court of Richard II to read his Canterbury Tales.

1492 – A contract is signed with representatives of Spain’s King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, giving Christopher Columbus a commission to seek a westward ocean passage to Asia.

1790 – Death of US statesman, scientist and writer Benjamin Franklin, aged 84.

1941 – Yugoslavia surrenders to the Nazis, 11 days after its invasion. More than 300,000 officers and soldiers are taken prisoner. 1961 – About 1500 CIA-trained Cuban exiles launch the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in an attempt to topple Fidel Castro, whose forces crush the incursion by the third day.

1969 – A jury in Los Angeles convicts Sirhan Sirhan of assassinating Senator Robert F Kennedy.

1970 – Apollo 13 astronauts James Lovell, Fred Haise and Jack Swigert splash down safely in the Pacific, four days after a ruptured oxygen tank crippled their spacecraft while en route to the Moon.

1972 – The Boston Marathon allows women to compete for the first time; Nina Kuscsik, right, is the first officially recognised women’s champion, with a time of 3hr 10min 26sec. 1973 – Federal Express (later FedEx) begins operations as 14 planes carrying 186 packages take off from Memphis International Airport, bound for 25 US cities. 1975 – Cambodia’s five-year war ends as the capital Phnom Penh falls to the Khmer Rouge, which institutes brutal policies that claim an estimated 1.7 million lives until the regime’s overthrow in 1979.

1986 – The Netherlands and the Scilly Isles, off the southwest coast of England, sign a peace treaty ending a bloodless ‘‘war’’ dating from 1651. 1993 – A federal jury in Los Angeles convicts two former police officers of violating the civil rights of beaten motorist Rodney King; two other officers are acquitted.

2009 – Former New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark is appointed a Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme, the first woman to lead the organisation.

2011 – Fantasy series Game of Thrones premieres on HBO in the United States. 2012 – The British Library pays £9 million for St Cuthbert’s Gospel, Europe’s earliest known bound book. 2013 – New Zealand’s Parliament passes the Marriage (Definition of Marriage) Amendment Bill, allowing same-sex marriage.

Birthdays

JP Morgan, US financier (1837-1913); Karen Blixen, Danish writer (1885-1962); Sirimavo Bandaranaike, Sri Lankan politician (19162000); Nick Hornby, UK writer (1957-); Sean Bean, UK actor (1959-); Jennifer Garner, US actor (1972-); Muttiah Muralitharan, Sri Lankan cricketer (1972-); Victoria Beckham, UK singer/designer (1974-); Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, French tennis player (1985-).