Today in History

311 – Emperor Galerius issues Edict of Toleration, ending persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire. 711 – Moorish troops land at Gibraltar to begin their conquest of the Iberian peninsula.

1492 – Christopher Columbus receives a commission from Spanish monarchs Isabella I and Ferdinand II to equip his fleet to the New World; Spain announces it will expel all Jews. 1789 – George Washington, left, is inaugurated as the first president of the United States.

1803 – US doubles in size with the purchases of the Louisiana Territory and New Orleans from France.

1865 – Former NZ governor Robert FitzRoy commits suicide after a chequered career in public service.

1897 – Physicist JJ Thomson announces discovery of electrons.

1917 – William Sanders is awarded NZ’s only naval Victoria Cross, for bravery during a German U-boat attack on his ship off Ireland. He never received his medal, dying in a U-boat attack four months later.

1945 – Adolf Hitler commits suicide in his Berlin bunker with Eva Braun, whom he had married a day earlier.

1975 – Vietnamese troops take over Saigon, ending Vietnam War.

1980 – Queen Juliana of the Netherlands abdicates in favour of eldest daughter Beatrix. She in turn abdicates on the same day in 2013.

1993 – Tennis player Monica Seles is stabbed by a fan of Steffi Graf.

2019 – Japanese Emperor Akihito, aged 85, abdicates in favour of his eldest son, Naruhito.

2020 – British NHS fundraiser Captain Tom Moore turns 100.

Birthdays

Casimir III The Great, Polish king (1310-70); Jacques-Louis David, French artist (1748-1825); Carl XVI Gustaf, king of Sweden (1946-); Antonio Guterres, Portuguese UN chief (1949-); Jane Campion, NZ film-maker (1954-); Ian Healy, Australian cricketer (1964-); Kirsten Dunst, US actor (1982-); Rohit Sharma, Indian cricketer (1987-).