Today in History
1535 - A month after the pope made him a cardinal, John Fisher is executed at Tower Hill in London after refusing to recognise King Henry VIII as supreme head of the English Church.
1815 - Napoleon Bonaparte abdicates for the second and last time after his defeat at the Battle of Waterloo.
1911 - Britain's King George V is crowned at Westminster Abbey.
1940 - After being overrun in a few weeks, France signs an armistice with Nazi Germany at Compiegne, in the same railway car used for the German armistice of 1918.
1941 - Germany invades the Soviet Union in World War II. More than 150 army divisions invade along a 3000-kilometre front between the Baltic and the Black Sea.
1969 - Death of Judy Garland, 47, United States film star and singer.
1970 - US President Richard Nixon signs a measure lowering the US voting age to 18. 1977 - John Mitchell becomes the first former US attorney-general to go to jail, as he begins a sentence for his role in the Watergate cover-up. He was released after 19 months. 1981 - Mark David Chapman pleads guilty to killing rock star John Lennon in New York City the previous year.
1987 - Death of Fred Astaire, famed US actor, dancer and singer.
1990 - Checkpoint Charlie, a symbolic part of the Cold War, is dismantled in Berlin.
2001 - The British government announces that Jon Venables and Robert Thompson, who were 10 years old when they kidnapped and killed toddler James Bulger, have been granted parole.
2002 - Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad shocks Malaysia with the sudden announcement of his resignation after 21 years in office. He would step down on October 25, 2003.
2006 - Pluto's two newly discovered moons are officially named Nix and Hydra.
2010 - Twenty-first-century laser technology opens a window into the early days of the Catholic Church, guiding researchers through the dank, musty catacombs beneath Rome to a startling find: the first known icons of the apostles Peter and Paul.
2011 - US President Barack Obama announces the withdrawal of more than 30,000 troops from Afghanistan in a year's time, hastening the end of the long conflict launched in response to the September 11, 2001 attacks.
Birthdays
George Vancouver, British explorer (1757-1798); Richard Seddon, 15th Prime Minister of New Zealand (1845-1906); Kris Kristofferson, US singer-actor (1936-); Meryl Streep, US actor (1949-); Todd Hunter, NZ-born musician of Dragon fame (1951); Cyndi Lauper, US singer (1953-); Erin Brockovich, American legal clerk (1960-); Dan Brown, US author (1964-); Sione Lauaki, New Zealand rugby player (1981-2017).