This day in history

British forensic scientists announce that they have positively identified the remains of Russia’s last Tsar, Nicholas II, his wife, Tsarina Alexandra and three of their daughters. The scientists used mitochondria DNA fingerprinting to identify the bones, which had been excavated in a forest near Yekaterinburg by Russian scientists in 1991.

The Crown Prince Alexei and one Romanov daughter were not accounted for, fuelling the persistent legend that Anastasia, the youngest Romanov daughter, had survived the July 1918 execution of her family by the Bolsheviks. Of the several Anastasias that surfaced in Europe in the decade after the Russian Revolution, Anna Anderson, who died in the United States in 1968, was the most convincing. In 1994, however, British and American scientists used DNA to prove that Anna Anderson was not Anastasia but a Polish woman named Franziska Schanzkowska.

In his last game of professional football Zinedine Zidane is sent off for head butting Italian defender Marco Materazzi as France lose to Italy 5-3 on penalties in the World Cup final.

The African Union is formed.

The International Olympic Committee lifts its 21 year old boycott of South Africa.

In England, Michael Fagan breaks into Buckingham Palace spending ten minutes talking to the Queen in her bedroom before he is apprehended by the police.

America defeats the Japanese at the Battle of Saipan to seize control of the island.

The Congress of Tucuman declares Argentina’s independence from Spain.