Today in History, 11/10

Highlights in history on this date:

1521 - Pope Leo X gives King Henry VIII of England the title of Defender of the Faith following the publication of his book against Martin Luther.

1689 - Peter the Great becomes tsar of Russia.

1727 - The coronation of King George II takes place in London.

1779 - Polish nobleman Casimir Pulaski is killed fighting for American independence at battle of Savannah, Georgia.

1797 - Dutch fleet is defeated by British off Camperdown, Holland.

1828 - Russians occupy Varna in war against Turkey.

1871 - The Great Fire of Chicago is finally extinguished after three days. At least 300 people were killed and 90,000 made homeless.

1890 - John Owens becomes the first man to run a recorded 100-yard-dash in under 10 seconds. Owens did it in 9.8 seconds.

1899 - The Boer War begins in South Africa between the British Empire and Boers of the Transvaal and Orange Free State.

1939 - Albert Einstein and other scientists inform US President Franklin Roosevelt of the possibilities of developing an atomic bomb.

1942 - The World War II Battle of Cape Esperance begins in the Solomons, resulting in an American victory over the Japanese.

1961 - Death of Leonard "Chico" Marx, the piano-playing member of the Marx Brothers comedy act, aged 70.

1962 - Pope John XXIII convenes the first session of the Roman Catholic Church's 21st Ecumenical Council, also known as Vatican II.

1963 - Death of Edith Piaf (Edith Giovanna Gassion), French singer and cabaret star, aged 47; Death of Jean Cocteau, French poet, novelist, actor, film director and painter, aged 74.

1968 - Apollo 7, the first manned Apollo mission, is launched with US astronauts Wally Schirra, Donn Fulton Eisele and R Walter Cunningham aboard.

1975 - US comedy show Saturday Night Live, with a cast including John Belushi, Dan Ackroyd, Chevy Chase and Gilda Radner, premieres on US network NBC.

1982 - The Mary Rose, once Henry VIII's flagship, is raised from the Solent, off southern England.

1984 - Space shuttle Challenger astronaut Kathy Sullivan becomes the first American woman to walk in space.

1985 - Arab-American activist Alex Odeh is killed by a bomb blast in Santa Ana, California.

1986 - US President Ronald Reagan and Soviet counterpart Mikhail Gorbachev open two days of talks concerning arms control and human rights in Reykjavik, Iceland.

1987 - Indian peacekeeping troops, using artillery and mortars, kill more than 120 Tamil rebels in weekend offensive on Jaffna peninsula in Sri Lanka.

1989 - International consortium led by Texaco Inc discovers high-quality crude oil in a previously unexplored area off the African coast.

1993 - William Nygaard, a Norwegian publisher whose firm translated The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie, is shot and seriously wounded in Oslo.

1994 - Israel seals off the Gaza Strip after an Israeli soldier is kidnapped by Islamic militants who threaten to kill him.

1996 - Catholic Bishop Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo and Jose Ramos-Horta of East Timor win the Nobel Peace Prize.

1999 - South Africa and the European Union sign a long-awaited free trade agreement phasing out tariffs on about 90 per cent of their trade.

2004 - European Union foreign ministers agree to lift an arms embargo on Libya, imposed in 1986, recognising Tripoli's renunciation of weapons of mass destruction.

2006 - Japan orders a total ban on North Korean imports and declares that ships from the impoverished nation are prohibited from entering Japanese ports as punishment for its apparent nuclear test.

2010 - NATO says US forces may have detonated a grenade that killed a captive British aid worker during a rescue attempt to free Linda Grove in Afghanistan.

2012 - Mo Yan of China wins the Nobel Prize in Literature.

2014 - The death toll from an epidemic of the deadly Ebola virus in west Africa passes 4000.

2016 - Samsung halts the production of its Galaxy Note 7 smartphones due to consumer safety concerns.

2017 - In a landmark decision that will affect millions of child brides, India's top court rules that a man is committing rape if he has sex with his underage wife.

Today's Birthdays:

Arthur Phillip, First Fleet commander and first Governor of NSW (1738-1814); Eleanor Roosevelt, US first lady and Nobel Peace Prize laureate (1884-1962); Francois Mauriac, French writer and Nobel laureate (1885-1970); Jerome Robbins, US choreographer-director (1918-1998); Neville Wran, former NSW premier (1926-2014); Barry Jones, former national president of the ALP (1932-); Sir Bobby Charlton, English footballer (1937-); Daryl Hall, US singer-musician (1946-); Dawn French, English comedian ,actress and screenwriter (1957-); Wayne Gardner, Australian motorcycle champion (1959-); Joan Cusack, US actress (1962-); Luke Perry, US actor (1966-); Jane Krakowski, US actress (1968-); Michelle Trachtenberg, American actress (1985-); Michelle Wie, American golfer (1989-).

Thought For Today:

In America, an hour is forty minutes - German saying.

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