HIGHLIGHTS IN HISTORY ON THIS DATE

1512 – Beyazid II, Sultan of Turkey, abdicates in favour of son, Selim I.

1612 – Protestant Union of Germany signs defensive alliance with England.

1682 – Bartolome Esteban Murillo, Spanish painter best known for his populist religious works, dies.

1721 – Sir Robert Walpole is appointed first lord of the treasury and chancellor of the exchequer, effectively Britain’s first prime minister.

1882 – US outlaw bank robber Jesse James is shot in the back at St Joseph, Missouri by a member of his gang.

1897 – Death of Johannes Brahms, German composer and pianist.

1913 – English suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst is found guilty of encouraging supporters to arson and sentenced to three years in prison.

1922 – Joseph Stalin is appointed general secretary of the Soviet Communist Party.

1933 – First flight over Mt Everest in the Himalayas is made by four Britons in two biplanes.

1941 – British troops evacuate the Libyan of port Benghazi during World War II.

1948 – The US creates the Marshall Plan, allocating $US5.33 billion in aid to 16 European nations to help in rebuilding after World War II.

1954 – Vladimir Petrov, third secretary of the Soviet embassy in Canberra, requests political asylum in Australia, sparking the “Petrov Affair”.

1975 – Russian Anatoly Karpov, aged 23, becomes world chess champion when American Bobby Fischer fails to show up for their match in Manila.

1982 – A new state Labor government, under John Cain, is elected in Victoria.

1987 – The late Duchess of Windsor’s jewels are auctioned, fetching nearly $US45 million.

1990 – Jazz singer Sarah Vaughan dies in Los Angeles, aged 66.

1995 – At least 150 Hutus, mostly women and children, are massacred in a single village in north-eastern Burundi.

1996 – FBI agents hunting for the Unabomber arrest former maths professor Ted Kaczynski in a cabin in the Montana wilderness.

1999 – Lionel Bart, British composer of the musical Oliver, dies aged 68.

2003 – The World Health Organisation reports 2270 illnesses, including 79 deaths, from a spreading epidemic of a new respiratory ailment known as SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome.

2003 – The US Congress overwhelmingly votes to approve nearly $US80 billion ($A107.65 billion) to finance the war in Iraq, reward allies, bolster anti-terrorism efforts and help struggling airlines.

2007 – A French V150 train breaks the world speed record for conventional rail trains, reaching 574.8km/h.

2013 – The royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse gets underway in Melbourne.

2014 – Liberal Senator Arthur Sinodinos takes the stand at the NSW ICAC to give evidence about his involvement in Australian Water Holdings.

2016 – Bob Ellis, Australian left-wing author, film-maker and political commentator, dies in Sydney from liver cancer aged 73.

2017 – Two bombs explode on the St Petersburg metro in Russia, killing 11 people and injuring scores more.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

Henry IV, first Lancastrian king of England (1367-1413); Washington Irving, US writer (1783-1859); Marlon Brando, US actor (1924-2004); Doris Day, US actress-singer (1924-); Helmut Kohl, former German chancellor (1930-); Jane Goodall, British primatologist (1934-); Tony Orlando, US singer (1944-); Alec Baldwin, US actor (1958-); Shane Connor, Australian actor (1959-); Eddie Murphy, US actor (1961-); Jennie Garth, US actress (1972-); Sophie Delezio, Sydney girl who survived a horrific car accident at a childcare centre in 2003 (2001-).

THOUGHT FOR TODAY

Bureaucracy is a giant mechanism operated by pygmies. – Honore de Balzac (1799-1850)

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