Today in History

1461 – Bloodiest battle of the Wars of the Roses occurs at Towton, near York, ending with Edward IV displacing Henry VI. As many as 28,000 may have died.

1673 – Britain’s King Charles II accepts the Test Act, excluding Catholics from public functions. 1801 – Britain seizes Danish and Swedish islands in West Indies. 1812 – The first White House wedding takes place when First Lady Dolly Madison’s sister Lucy Payne Washington marries Supreme Court Justice Thomas Todd.

1814 – Jews get equal rights in Denmark. 1827 – About 20,000 people attend Ludwig von Beethoven’s burial in Vienna.

1830 – Spain’s King Ferdinand VII passes law allowing females to be heirs to throne.

1849 – Britain annexes Punjab in India by treaty with Maharajah of Lahore.

1867 – British Parliament passes the North America Act to create the Dominion of Canada. 1901 – Edmund Barton is elected prime minister in Australia’s first parliamentary election. 1912 – Antarctic explorer Captain Robert Scott makes last entry in his diary: ‘‘The end cannot be far.’’ 1929 – US President Herbert Hoover, left, has a telephone installed in the Oval Office.

1942 – Conman Sydney Ross dupes New Zealand’s intelligence service into believing Nazi agents are planning sabotage attacks.

1943 – Rationing of meat, butter and cheese begins in United States.

1946 – First test match between New Zealand and Australia begins at the Basin Reserve, Wellington. Australia win within two days.

1951 – Americans Julius and Ethel Rosenberg are convicted of passing atomic secrets to the Soviet Union. They are executed two years later.

1973 – Last American troops leave South Vietnam, ending direct military role of US in Vietnam war.

1974 – Chinese farmers discover the ‘‘Terracotta Army’’ near Xian.

1990 – Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke becomes the first Labor winner of four consecutive terms.

1994 – Serbs and Croats sign a ceasefire to end the war between them in Croatia.

2010 – Two suicide bombings on the Moscow underground kill 40 people.

2017 – British Prime Minister Theresa May sends a letter to the EU, formally triggering Brexit.