Today in history
1620 — Near Cape Cod, the heads of all 41 households aboard the Mayflower sign the Mayflower Compact, which establishes a plan for pilgrims to govern in the new American colony.
1783 — First successful flight made in a hot air balloon when Frenchmen Francois Pilatre de Rosier and Francois Laurent, Marquis d’arlandes, fly for 25 minutes above Paris.
1806 — France’s Napoleon Bonaparte issues Berlin Decrees, declaring blockade of Britain.
1877 — Thomas A Edison announces invention of the phonograph in United States.
1916 — Death of ruler of the Austro-hungarian Empire since 1848, Emperor Franz Josef. His attack on Serbia helped precipitate World War I.
1920 — The Irish Republican Army shoots dead 14 British agents in what becomes known as the country’s first Bloody Sunday.
1974 — 21 people are killed and 162 injured in Birmingham, England, when bombs explode in two pubs. The IRA claims responsibility.
1975 — Vietnamese governments in Hanoi and Saigon agree on speedy merger as key to unification of the nation under Communist rule.
1977 — Estimated 3000 people are believed to have perished in cyclone that strikes south-eastern India, and entire villages are submerged by tidal waves.
1980 — 87 people die in a fire at the MGM Grand Hotel-casino in Las Vegas, Nevada.
1995 — Former Nazi SS Captain Erich Priebke is extradited from Argentina to Italy to face charges in the massacre of 335 Italian civilians in Nazi-occupied Rome.
1999 — China successfully completes an unmanned spacecraft test, a breakthrough that could make it the third country to put humans in space. The United States and the former Soviet Union are the other two.
2001 — Maoist rebel leaders in Nepal withdraw from their fourmonth-old ceasefire with the government, and launch their worstever attacks, killing more than 200 people.
2006 — Swimmer Ian Thorpe announces his retirement from competitive swimming.
2009 — After offering a home in his church to disaffected Anglicans, Pope Benedict XVI assures the archbishop of Canterbury that he is still committed to seeking closer relations between Roman Catholics and Anglicans.
2015 — Seven dead in a helicopter crash at Fox Glacier. Today’s Birthdays: Voltaire, French poet-philosopher (1694-1778); Adolph (Harpo) Marx, of Marx brothers comedy team (1888-1964); Bjork, Icelandic pop singer (1965-); Alex James British rock musician (Blur) (1968-).