Today in History

1012 - Archbishop of Canterbury Aelfheah is murdered by Danes ravaging the south of England.

1775 - War of American Independence opens with defeat of British at Lexington and Concord.

1824 - English poet Lord Byron dies of a fever while aiding Greek rebels fighting the Turks.

1881 - Death of UK statesman and novelist Benjamin Disraeli, aged 76.

1882 - Death of British naturalist Charles Darwin, who developed the theory of evolution.

1892 - Prototype of first commercially successful American car is completed in Springfield, Massachusetts, by Charles Duryea and his brother Frank.

1927 - US actress Mae West is found guilty of indecent behaviour in her Broadway production Sex and jailed for 10 days.

1943 - Uprising of 50,000 Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto against Nazis begins.

1967 - NZ’s Dave McKenzie, 24, wins the Boston Marathon in a course record.

1971 - Russia launches its Salyut space station into Earth’s orbit.

1993 - More than 80 Branch Davidian cult members are killed when federal agents storm their compound in Waco, Texas, after a 51-day standoff.

1995 - A truck bomb destroys a government building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people,

2005 - Joseph Ratzinger appears on a Vatican balcony as the 265th pontiff, Benedict XVI.

Birthdays

Eliot Ness, US crime fighter (1903-57); Eva Rickard, Māori rights activist (1925-97); Jayne Mansfield, US actress (1933-67); Dudley Moore, British comedian/actor (1935-2002); Wayne Smith, NZ rugby coach (1957-); George Gregan, Australian rugby player (1973-); James Franco, US actor (1978-); Maria Sharapova, Russian tennis player (1987-).