Highlights in history on this date (from the AP):
1770 - Marie Antoinette, age 14, marries the future king of France, Louis XVI, who is 15.
1866 - U.S. Congress authorizes minting of the nickel.
1920 - Joan of Arc is canonized in Rome.
1929 - The first Academy Awards are presented during a banquet at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel.
1961 - Maj. Gen. Park Chung-hee stages a military coup in South Korea and rules until his intelligence chief assassinates him in 1979.
1966 - China's Cultural Revolution begins when the Communist party's Politburo approves an edict from Chairman Mao Zedong. An elite corps of young zealous students, the Red Guards, is formed to attack traditional values and bourgeois thinking.
1969 - Soviet spacecraft reaches vicinity of planet Venus and drops capsule that sends back information on planet's atmosphere.
1989 - Hundreds of thousands arrive in Beijing to support college students fasting for freedom in Tiananmen Square.
1991 - France's first female prime minister, Edith Cresson, takes office; Queen Elizabeth II becomes the first British monarch to address the U.S. Congress.
1994 - Scotland Yard for the first time approves a plan to allow some London police officers to openly carry firearms.
1999 - Iranian President Mohammad Khatami is greeted with warm embraces and kisses on his historic visit to Saudi Arabia, the first by an Iranian leader in two decades. He mentions hope for "a new era" between the two countries and a stable Persian Gulf.
2003 - Twenty-nine people are killed and about 100 others injured in five nearly simultaneous suicide bombing attacks in Casablanca, Morocco's largest city and commercial center.
2007 - Estonia's first and only synagogue opens, six decades after previous houses of worship were destroyed in World War II.
2008 - An Iranian Embassy convoy comes under fire in Baghdad, wounding two Iranian diplomats and two other staff. Tehran accuses the United States of encouraging attacks against Iranian interests in Iraq.
2009 - The ruling Congress Party sweeps to a resounding victory in India's national elections, defying expectations as it brushes aside the Hindu nationalist opposition and a legion of ambitious smaller parties.
Today's Birthdays:
Maria Agnesi, Italian, first woman to become a known mathematician (1718-1799); Henry Fonda, U.S. actor (1905-1982); H.E. Bates, English author (1905-1974); Woody Herman, U.S. jazz musician (1913-1987); Pierce Brosnan, Irish actor (1953--); Debra Winger, U.S. actress (1955--); Janet Jackson, U.S. pop singer (1966--); Tori Spelling, U.S. actress (1973--).
