Today in History, July 14

HIGHLIGHTS IN HISTORY ON THIS DATE

1544 - England's King Henry VIII crosses to Calais to join Holy Roman Emperor Charles V in campaign against France's King Francis I in Picardy.

1690 - Seven French privateers capture New England islands of Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket and Block Island.

1789 - Citizens of Paris storm and capture the Bastille prison and release prisoners, marking the start of French Revolution.

1798 - The US Congress passes the Sedition Act, making it a federal crime to publish false, scandalous or malicious writing about the government.

1865 - Edward Whymper leads the first team of climbers to reach the summit of the Matterhorn in the Alps at a height of 4477 metres.

1867 - Explosives manufacturer Alfred Nobel first demonstrates his invention, dynamite, at a quarry in the UK.

1881 - William "Billy the Kid" Bonney, the reputed killer of 27 men, is shot dead aged 21 by Sheriff Pat Garrett in New Mexico.

1918 - The French troop-carrying liner Djemnah is sunk by a German submarine whilst in the Mediterranean. Some 442 people die.

1933 - German political parties other than Nazis are suppressed, and a law is passed that provides for the sterilisation of two million people deemed unfit for reproduction.

1934 - Oil pipeline between Mosul, Iraq, and Tripoli, Lebanon, is opened.

1940 - The Soviet Union annexes Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

1958 - Iraq's King Feisal and Premier Nuri-Es-Said are assassinated in a Baghdad coup, and King Hussein assumes power as head of the Arab Federation.

1994 - The UN Security Council urges the world to aid the estimated 250,000 Hutu refugees from Rwanda crushed into Goma, Zaire.

1997 - Four Australian athletes die and more than 70 are injured after a temporary bridge collapses during opening ceremonies for the Maccabiah Games near Tel Aviv, Israel.

1998 - Death of Richard McDonald, who pioneered the fast-food concept that evolved into McDonald's, the world's largest restaurant chain, aged 89.

1999 - Argentina and the Falkland Islands end a 17-year standoff, resuming air links severed after the Falklands war.

2002 - A deranged neo-Nazi fires a rifle shot in an attempt to assassinate President Jacques Chirac during France's Bastille Day parade. The man is quickly subdued and the march continues.

2004 - Prime Minister Tony Blair is cleared of tricking Britain into invading Iraq.

2005 - US scientists announce they have detected a planet outside our solar system with not one, but three suns, a finding that challenges astronomers' theories of planet formation.

2006 - Jaroslaw Kaczynski is sworn in as Poland's prime minister by his twin brother, President Lech Kaczynski.

2007 - The Los Angeles archdiocese reaches a $660 million settlement with more than 500 alleged victims of clergy sex abuse.

2010 - An Iranian nuclear scientist who disappeared for a year heads back to Tehran, telling Iranian state media he was abducted by CIA agents, but the US says he was a willing defector who changed his mind.

2012 - UN observers investigating a reported mass killing in the Syrian village of Tremish find pools of blood in homes and spent bullets, mortar and artillery shells.

2013 - Mexican marines capture Miguel Trevino Morales, considered the country's most vicious and violent drug lord, who led the Los Zetas criminal gang.

2014 - Alice Coachman Davis, the first black woman to win an Olympic gold medal, dies at the age of 90.

2015 - Indonesia slashes its quarterly Australian cattle imports to 50,000 from the previous 250,000.

2016 - A 19-tonne cargo truck is deliberately driven into crowds in the French city of Nice by a lone terrorist, killing 86 people and injuring more than 430 others, including three Australians.

2017 - Australia's dual citizenship parliamentary crisis is sparked when Greens Senator Scott Ludlam announces he is leaving federal parliament after discovering he is a dual citizen of New Zealand.

Today's Birthdays:

Cardinal Jules Mazarin, French statesman (1602-1661); Emmeline Pankhurst, British feminist (1858-1928); Gustav Klimt, Austrian painter (1862-1918); Isaac Bashevis Singer, Polish-born US author and Nobel laureate (1904-1991); Woody Guthrie, US singer and songwriter (1912-1967); Gerald Ford, US president (1913-2006); Ingmar Bergman, Swedish film director (1918-2007); John Wood, Australian actor (1946-); Jane Lynch, US actress; (1960-); Anna Bligh, former premier of Queensland, (1960-); Matthew Fox, US actor (1966-); Deborah Mailman, Australian actress (1972-); David Mitchell, British comedian (1974-); Victoria, crown princess of Sweden (1977-); George Smith, Australian Rugby Union player (1980-).

Thought For Today:

Jealousy is no more than feeling alone among smiling enemies - Elizabeth Bowen, Irish novelist (1899-1973).

Sorry we are not currently accepting comments on this article.