Today in History

753BC – According to legend, the city of Rome is founded by Romulus and Remus.

1889 – Spain and the United States go to war in a dispute over Cuban independence. It ends after 10 weeks with the US being granted temporary control of Cuba, and given ownership of Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines.

1918 – Baron Manfred von Richthofen, right, the German flying ace known as the Red Baron, is killed in action in World War I.

1960 – Brazil’s new capital, Brasilia, is officially founded.

1989 – Thousands of students, shouting for democracy and human rights, march from campuses to converge on Beijing’s Tiananmen Square.

1995 – Former US soldier Timothy McVeigh is taken into custody in connection with the deadly Oklahoma City bombing two days earlier.

2002 – French far-Right leader

Jean-Marie Le Pen shocks France and the world by coming second in the first round of a presidential election, qualifying for the run-off with incumbent Jacques Chirac.

2004 – Nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu is freed from prison in Israel after 18 years, saying he is proud of revealing secrets that exposed Israel as an atomic power.

2011 – Japan seals off a wide area around the radiation-spewing Fukushima nuclear power plant to prevent thousands of residents from sneaking back to the homes they had been forced to evacuate.

2016 – US musician Prince is found dead at his home near Minneapolis, aged 57, from an accidental overdose of the opioid fentanyl.

Birthdays

Charlotte Bronte, UK novelist (1816-55); Queen Elizabeth II (1926-); Sir Geoffrey Palmer, NZ politician (1942-); Iggy Pop, US singer (1947-); Danyon Loader, NZ swimmer (1975-); James McAvoy, Scottish actor (1979-).