Today in history
49BC - Roman emperor Julius Caesar crosses the Rubicon river and moves his troops into an offensive position in the war against Pompeii.
1846 - British forces occupy the Ruapekapeka Pa in Northland, in the final battle of New Zealand’s Northern War.
1923 - France and Belgium occupy the Ruhr valley after the German government fails to keep up its World War I reparation payments.
1927 - Birth of New Zealand cricket fast bowler Johnny Hayes, who later served as Morocco’s honorary consul to New Zealand.
1935 - Aviator Amelia Earhart begins a trip from Honolulu to Oakland, California, becoming the first woman to fly solo across the Pacific Ocean.
1942 Japan declares war against the Netherlands, the same day that Japanese forces invade the Dutch East Indies.
1962 - Avalanche buries village in the Peruvian Andes, and 3000 people are reported killed.
1964 - United States Surgeon General Luther Terry issues the first government report saying smoking may be hazardous to one’s health.
1977 - France sets off an international uproar by releasing Abu Daoud, a Palestinian suspected of involvement in the massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics.
1993 - The United Nations Security Council meets to warn Iraqi President Saddam Hussein that he is violating Gulf War cease-fire terms by his unauthorised seizure of weapons in Kuwaiti territory.
1995 - An Intercontinental Aviation DC-9 with at least 52 people aboard crashes near Cartagena, Colombia, with only one survivor.
1997 - Burundian soldiers shoot and kill 126 Hutu refugees in northeastern Burundi.
1998 - An armed gang attacks two villages outside Algiers, Algeria, slaughtering 120 people.
2001 - The US Army acknowledges that soldiers killed an ‘‘unknown number’’ of South Korean refugees in the Korean War at No Gun Ri.
2002 - The first 20 Taliban and al Qaeda detainees from the US campaign in Afghanistan arrive at the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
2008 - Sir Edmund Hillary, the first man to climb Mt Everest, dies.
2011 - Wikileaks founder Julian Assange vows to step up his site’s release of secret documents while he fights extradition to Sweden, as his lawyers argue that sending him to Stockholm could land him in Guantanamo Bay or even on US death row. Today’s Birthdays: William James, philosopher (1842-1910); Rod Taylor, actor (1930—); Kim Coles, actress (1962—); Mary J Blige, singer (1971—).