On this day: Terrorists kill 26 people in Tel Aviv
1536: King Henry VIII married Jane Seymour, the third of his six wives, in the Queen’s Chapel, Whitehall 11 days after the execution of Anne Boleyn.
1656: The Grenadier Guards formed.
1808: Napoleon Bonaparte annexed Tuscany.
1842: John Francis fired a pistol at Queen Victoria as she was driving down Constitution Hill, London, with Prince Albert. Francis was seized by a policeman and convicted of high treason. A death sentence was commuted to transportation for life.
1904: Japanese forces occupied Dalmy (Darien) in Russia.
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Hide Ad1911: The Indianapolis 500 car race of 200 laps was inaugurated in the US. It was won by Ray Harroun at an average 74.59mph.
1946: The Minister of Food for the post-war Labour government, John Strachey, told the Commons that bread would be rationed, with the greatest allowance going to manual workers in heavy industry.
1957: Britain relaxed its restrictions on trade with China.
1963: Official death toll in windstorm which struck East Pakistan was put at 10,000.
1967: Biafra, formerly the province of Eastern Nigeria, changed name and declared itself an independent republic.
1969: British Transarctic Expedition completed first surface crossing of the continent, covering 3,600 miles in 464 days.
1971: Mariner 9 was launched from Cape Kennedy for a Mars mission.
1972: Three Japanese terrorists killed 26 people in suicide attack on Tel Aviv’s Lod Airport.
1984: The 45-month Gulf war heated up as Iraq reported new attacks on naval targets near Iran’s Kharg Island oil port.
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Hide Ad1987: Mob of militant “low-caste” villagers massacred at least 42 members of upper-caste landlord families in India’s impoverished eastern state of Bihar.
1990: France banned beef exports from Britain in “mad cow disease” scare.
1998: A magnitude 6.6 earthquake hit northern Afghanistan, killing up to 5,000 people.
2003: At least 70 people associated with the National League for Democracy were killed by government-sponsored mobs in Burma.
2010: Chief Secretary to the Treasury David Laws resigned after it was revealed he broke Commons rules by claiming £40,000 in rent on a flat owned by his male partner.
BIRTHDAYS
Sally Dynevor, actress (Coronation Street), 50; Helen Sharman OBE, astronaut, 51; Tim Burgess, rock singer (The Charlatans), 47; Stephen Duffy, pop singer (ex-Duran Duran), 54; Peter Ellis, actor, 79; Jennifer Ellison, actress, model and singer, 31; Harry Enfield, writer, actor and comedian, 53; Richard Hannon, racehorse trainer, 69; Wynonna Judd, country singer and actress, 50; Tim Waterstone, Scottish bookseller, 75.
ANNIVERSARIES
Births: 1672 Peter the Great, Tsar of Russia; 1846 Peter Carl Fabergé, goldsmith and jeweller; 1896 Howard Hawks, film director; 1909 Benny Goodman, clarinettist and band leader.
Deaths: 1431 Joan of Arc, French patriot and martyr (burned at the stake); 1593 Christopher Marlowe, playwright; 1640 Peter Paul Rubens, painter; 1744 Alexander Pope, poet; 1778 Voltaire, philosopher; 1847 Thomas Chalmers, first Moderator of the Free Church of Scotland.