Today in history
1500 — France’s King Louis XII and Ferdinand of Aragon sign secret Treaty of Granada for conquest and partition of Naples.
1778 — British forces take St Lucia, West Indies, from French.
1918 — Armistice for World War I is signed between Allies and Germany; Independent republic of Poland is proclaimed by Jozef Piludski.
1952 — First video recorder is demonstrated by inventors John Mullin and Wayne Johnson in Beverly Hills, California.
1987 — Boris Yeltsin, who criticised what he called the slow pace of Soviet reform, is removed as Moscow Communist Party chief; Van Gogh’s Irises is sold for a then record $US53.9 million ($A58.32 million) in New York.
1994 — A 72-page manuscript of Leonardo da Vinci’s scientific diagrams and notes is sold at an auction in New York for a record $US30.8 million ($A33.32 million).
1997 — An eight-year-old boy is fatally wounded when Israeli troops fire at Palestinians throwing stones to protest the opening of Rachel’s Tomb in Bethlehem.
2002 — Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates pledges $US100 million ($A108.20 million) to fight AIDS in India.
2005 — Syrian-born Hollywood producer Moustapha Akkad dies, two days after being wounded in a suicide bomb attack on the hotel in which he was staying in Jordan. He was best known for producing the series of Halloween horror films.
2009 — Nearly 200 million children in poor countries have stunted growth because of insufficient nutrition, according to a new report published by UNICEF before a three-day international summit on the problem of world hunger.
2012 — Israel is drawn into fighting in neighbouring Syria for the first time, firing warning shots across the border after an errant mortar shell landed near an Israeli military installation in the Golan Heights.
2015 — Researchers say they have observed for the first time chimpanzees in the wild caring for a baby with severe disabilities, which may help shed light on the development of human social behaviours.
Today’s Birthdays: Louis Antoine Bougainville, French navigator (1729-1811); Fyodor Mikhailovitch Dostoevsky, Russian author (1821-1881); George Patton, US general (1885-1945); Kurt Vonnegut Jr, US author (1922-2007); Doug Frost, Australian swimming coach (1943-); Fuzzy Zoeller, US golfer (1951-); Kathy Lette, Australian writer (1958-); Demi Moore, US actress (1962-); James Morrison, Australian jazz musician (1962-); Calista Flockhart, US actress (1964-); Leonard Dicaprio, US actor (1974-).