Today in History

1547 – England’s King Henry VIII dies, and is succeeded by his 9-year-old son, Edward VI.

1689 – Britain’s Parliament declares that James II has abdicated.

1807 – Pall Mall, in London, becomes the first street lit by gaslight.

1813 – Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen, right, is published.

1827 – French explorer Jules Sebastien Cesar Dumont d’Urville sails through the narrow French Pass into the Marlborough Sounds.

1871 – Paris falls following a four-month siege during the Franco-German War.

1881 – Russian novelist and short-story writer 1887