Highlights in history on this date:

 

1512 - In one of the bloodiest battles of the 16th century, the French defeat Spanish and Papal forces at Ravenna.

 

1689 - William and Mary are crowned King and Queen of England.

 

1713 - The Treaty of Utrecht is signed, ending the War of the Spanish Succession and re-drawing the map of Europe.

 

1814 - Napoleon Bonaparte abdicates as emperor of France and is banished to Elba by Treaty of Fontainebleau.

 

1842 - NSW colony unveils its first statue - of Governor Sir Richard Bourke.

 

1894 - Uganda is declared a British protectorate.

 

1899 - Philippine islands are transferred from Spain to United States.

 

1906 - Death of US circus owner James Anthony Bailey, one half of the Barnum and Bailey partnership.

 

1913 - French pilot Gustave Hamel makes a record return trip across the English Channel from Dunkirk to Dover and back in only 90 minutes.

 

1919 - Voters in a New Zealand referendum go against prohibition; The constitution of the International Labour Organisation goes into effect.

 

1921 - Queensland aviator Bert Hinkler betters his own long-distance non-stop record of 1046 km, set in 1920 when he flies 1130 km from Sydney to Bundaberg, Queensland.

 

1945 - US troops capture the German towns of Essen and Weimar and liberate the Buchenwald concentration camp.

 

1951 - US President Harry Truman relieves General Douglas MacArthur of his command in Far East.

 

1951 - The Stone of Scone, symbol of Scottish independence stolen from Westminster Abbey by nationalist protesters, is recovered after an 107-day hunt.

 

1954 - Canberra-based Soviet diplomat-spy Vladimir Petrov renounces Communism and seeks political asylum in Australia.

 

1957 - Singapore is granted self-government by the United Kingdom.

 

1961 - Nigeria imposes total boycott on South African trade.

 

1973 - Martin Bormann, Nazi official pursued throughout the world, is officially declared dead and taken off West Germany's "most wanted" list.

 

1979 - Idi Amin is deposed as president of Uganda as rebels and exiles backed by Tanzanian forces seize control.

 

1980 - The US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission issues regulations making sexual harassment of women illegal in the workplace.

 

1982 - Britons Ranulph Fiennes and Charles Burton become the first explorers to circumnavigate the Earth via the Poles when they reach the North Pole.

 

1982 - Australian adventurer Dick Smith completes a record solo flight in helicopter from Sydney to Bundaberg, Queensland.

 

1984 - Advance Australia Fair is proclaimed as the national anthem.

 

1985 - Death of Albania's Stalinist strongman Enver Hoxha.

 

1991 - UN Security Council announces a formal end to the Gulf War, accepting Iraq's pledge that it will pay for war damages and scrap its weapons of mass destruction.

 

1992 - The Yugoslav Army seizes the town of Modrica, Bosnia, sending thousands of refugees fleeing towards Tuzla.

 

1994 - Tasmanian gays celebrate UN Human Rights Commission ruling that sex discrimination covers sexual orientation, placing Tasmanian anti-gay laws in breach of International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

 

1995 - Jockeys Jim Cassidy is banned for three years and Kevin Moses for one after an inquiry into race-fixing allegations in Sydney.

 

1997 - A multinational peacekeeping force lands in Albania in an attempt to curb violence and help humanitarian aid effort.

 

1998 - The Cambodian army takes Anlong Veng, the last major Khmer Rouge base, sending the rebels fleeing into the jungle.

 

1999 - India tests an improved medium-range missile, capable of carrying a nuclear warhead more than 2000 km. Pakistan tests a similar missile two days later.

 

2000 - Disgraced South African cricket captain Hansie Cronje is sacked as captain after admitting to taking money from an Indian bookmaker in the worst scandal in the sport's history.

 

2001 - Israeli tanks and bulldozers rumble into the Khan Yunis Refugee Camp in Palestinian-controlled territory, damaging 30 homes and triggering fighting that kills two Palestinians and wounds more than two dozen.

 

2001 - Death of Sir Harry Secombe, Welsh comedian, singer and entertainer; a stampede at a packed soccer stadium in Johannesburg, South Africa, kills 43.

 

2002 - Wouter Basson, a scientist who headed South Africa's covert chemical and germ-warfare operations during the apartheid era, is acquitted on 46 charges of murder, conspiracy, drug possession and fraud.

 

2003 - In the war in Iraq, US and Kurdish forces take Iraq's third city of Mosul without a fight, sealing their victory in the north.

 

2004 - Pope John Paul II makes an unexpected appeal for Christian unity as Western and Eastern Churches, unusually, celebrate Easter on the same day.

 

2006 - Centre-left economist Romano Prodi emerges the winner of Italy's election by a razor-thin margin, but Premier Silvio Berlusconi claims voting irregularities and demands a recount; Europe's first space probe to Venus enters the planet's orbit and sends transmissions to Earth; Ariel Sharon's tenure as Israel's prime minister comes to a symbolic end at a cabinet meeting that formally designates Ehud Olmert to replace the comatose stroke victim.

 

2007 - Bombs rip through the Algerian prime minister's office and a police station, killing 23 people and wounding 160 in an attack orchestrated by al-Qaeda wing in North Africa. The premier escapes unharmed.

 

2009 - Protesters in Bangkok storm a summit of Asian leaders, breaking through glass doors to demand the resignation of Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva.

 

2010 - President Barack Obama says on the eve of a summit aimed at finding ways to secure the world's nuclear stockpile that if al-Qaeda acquired nuclear weapons it "would have no compunction at using them."

 

2011 - Arthur Freeman is jailed for life for throwing his four-year-old daughter Darcey off Melbourne's West Gate Bridge in a crime that horrified the nation; a bloody, four-month political standoff ends when troops loyal to Ivory Coast's elected president - backed by French ground and air forces - capture the West African country's longtime leader who had refused to give up power.

 

2012 - Ahmed Ben Bella, first president of an independent Algeria, dies aged 95.

 

2013 - A US intelligence report concludes that North Korea has advanced its nuclear know-how to the point that it could arm a ballistic missile with a nuclear warhead.

 

2014 - The United States blocks Iran's controversial pick for envoy to the United Nations, a rare diplomatic rebuke that could stir fresh animosity between the two nations.