Today in history

1647 – England’s King Charles I is recaptured and imprisoned by rebels.

1851 – American author Herman Melville’s novel Moby Dick is published.

1889 – Inspired by Jules Verne, New York World reporter Nellie Bly sets out to travel around the world in less than 80 days. She succeeds, making the trip in 72 days.

1935 – US President Franklin Roosevelt proclaims Philippine Islands a commonwealth and pledges independence by 1946.

1940 – German bombers destroy most of the English city of Coventry in World War II.

1947 – United Nations recognises Korea’s claim to independence.

1969 – Apollo 12 blasts off for the moon.

1970 – Cyclone and giant waves devastate southern coast of East Pakistan – now Bangladesh – and islands in Bay of Bengal, with the death toll estimated at 300,000.

1973 – Britain’s Princess Anne marries Captain Mark Phillips in Westminster Abbey. The couple divorces in 1992.

1973 – The Social Security Amendment Act is passed, providing for the introduction of the domestic purposes benefit for New Zealand’s solo mothers.

1992 – A Unionist gunman kills two people and wounds 13 in a Belfast bookmaker’s shop in Northern Ireland.

1994 – Tropical Storm Gordon kills at least 829 people in Haiti.

1999 – The United Nations imposes sanctions on Afghanistan and demands the arrest of suspected terrorist Osama bin Laden. The sanctions require UN member states to freeze Taliban assets and to ban flights in and out of the country.

2007 – Charged with crimes against humanity, former Khmer Rouge Foreign Minister Ieng Sary and his wife are formally put in detention by Cambodia’s Un-backed genocide tribunal.

2008 – A lunar probe from India lands successfully on the moon.

2010 – Democracy heroine Aung San Suu Kyi takes her first steps back into Myanmar’s political minefield, vowing to press ahead in her decades-long fight for democracy while also calling for compromise with other political parties and the ruling junta.

2011 – Jordan’s king says that Syrian President Bashar Assad should step down for the good of his country, the first Arab leader to publicly make such a call as Syria’s neighbours close ranks against an increasingly isolated regime.

Today’s birthdays: Claude Monet, French painter (1840-1926); Jawaharlal Nehru, Indian statesman (1889-1964); Astrid Lindgren, Jordan’s King Hussein (1935-1999); Prince Charles (1948–); Sir Jerry Mateparae (1954-).