Today in History

1104 – The Seljuq Turks capture Baldwin of Bourg, First Crusade leader. He is ransomed in 1108 and later becomes king of Jerusalem. 1429 – Seventeen-year-old Joan of Arc, right, leads French forces to lift the English siege of Orleans during the Hundred-Year War.

1727 – Jews expelled from Ukraine by decree of Catherine I of Russia. 1846 – Sixty people, including paramount chief of Nga¯ti Tuwharetoa, die in landslide at Te Rapa on the shores of Lake Taupo¯.

1881 – Anti-Chinese hysteria in Dunedin sees a public meeting call for a ban on Chinese immigrants.

1915 – Nearly 1200 people die when German torpedo sinks British liner Lusitania off the Irish coast.

1945 – Germany signs an unconditional surrender at Allied headquarters in Rheims, France, to take effect the following day, ending World War II in Europe.

1954 – Vietnamese forces overrun Dien Bien Phu, held by the French. A resulting ceasefire divides the country into North and South.

1975 – US President Gerald Ford declares an end to the ‘‘Vietnam era’’. In Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon, the Viet Cong celebrate its takeover.

1994 – Legislators in Johannesburg take oaths of office and blacks and whites sit down together for the first time to govern South Africa.

1995 – Jacques Chirac, conservative mayor of Paris, wins France’s presidency.

2009 – Gunman Jan Molenaar holes himself up in his Napier home after shooting three policemen and another man during a cannabis search; the resulting siege shuts down a large area of the city.

Birthdays

Robert Browning, English poet (1812-1899); Johannes Brahms, German composer (1833-1897); Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Russian composer (1840-1893); Josip Broz Tito, Yugoslav president (1892-1980); Eva Peron, Argentine leader (1919-1952).