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Highlights in history on this date:
1554 - France's King Henry II invades the Netherlands.
1585 - English shipping in Spanish ports is confiscated, serving as declaration of war on England.
1588 - The Spanish Armada sets sail for England; it is soundly defeated by the English fleet the following August.
1649 - England is declared a republic after King Charles I is executed by parliamentarians.
1792 - Russia invades Poland at the behest of Polish conservatives, resulting in the second partition of Poland.
1881 - The American Red Cross is founded by Clara Barton.
1916 - Britain introduces Daylight Savings Time, originally called "summer time."
1930 - White women are enfranchised in South Africa.
1943 - In an address to the U.S. Congress, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill pledges his country's full support in the war against Japan.
1962 - Actress Marilyn Monroe performs a rendition of "Happy Birthday" for U.S. President John F. Kennedy during a fund-raiser at New York's Madison Square Garden.
1964 - The U.S. State Department discloses that 40 hidden microphones had been found in the U.S. Embassy in Moscow.
1967 - The Soviet Union ratifies a treaty with the United States and Britain banning nuclear weapons from outer space.
1973 - The Soviet Union and West Germany sign 10-year agreement calling for economic, industrial and technical cooperation.
1990 - U.S. Secretary of State James A. Baker III says all major obstacles to U.S.-Soviet nuclear arms agreement have been cleared.
1992 - Pro-democracy protests break out across Thailand despite a bloody government crackdown on demonstrators in the capital. Hundreds disappear at the hands of soldiers in a month of rioting.
1999 - Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic accepts "principles" of a Kosovo peace plan as NATO jets bomb Belgrade suburbs.
2005 - Egyptian authorities arrest 75 members of the Muslim Brotherhood and extend the detention of four leaders jailed earlier in a government crackdown sparked by a wave of pro-reform protests by the banned movement believed to be Egypt's largest Islamic group.
2006 - The U.N. panel that monitors compliance with the world's anti-torture treaty says the United States should close its prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and avoid using secret detention facilities in the war on terror.
2007 - British Prime Minister Tony Blair, on his last visit to Iraq before stepping down in June, urges Iraq's leaders to speed up reconciliation efforts _ after three blasts rock the compound in Baghdad's Green Zone where he met with Iraq's leaders.
2009 - President Barack Obama's promise to close the Guantanamo Bay prison suffers a blow when his allies in the Senate say they would refuse to finance the move until the administration delivers a satisfactory plan for what to do with the detainees there.
Today's Birthdays:
Nellie Melba, Australian opera singer (1861-1931); Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey (1881-1938); King Faisal I, first king of independent Iraq (1883-1933); Ho Chi Min of North Vietnam (1890-1969); Pol Pot, Cambodian communist leader (1925 or 1928-1998); Pete Townshend, British rock singer-composer of The Who (1945--); Glenn Close, U.S. actress (1947--); Grace Jones, Jamaican-born singer-actress (1952--).
