Today in History

1588 – English army assembles at Tilbury to repel Spanish Armada.

1829 – A ‘‘typographer machine’’, or typewriter, is patented by William Burt of Michigan.

1851 – Maria is wrecked near Cape Terawhiti on Wellington’s southwest coast and 26 lives are lost.

1903 – The Ford Motor Company sells its first car.

1904 – The icecream cone is invented by Charles E Menches, according to some accounts.

1952 – Yvette Williams, left, leaps to a gold medal for New Zealand in the long jump at the Helsinki Olympics.

1967 – The first successful liver transplant is performed on 19-month-old Julie Rodriguez at the University of Colorado.

1974 – Greece’s military rulers announce they will return the nation to civilian rule.

1983 – A regional struggle for independence by Tamils in Sri Lanka’s north and east escalates into a civil war when they kill 13 Sri Lankan soldiers.

1986 – Britain’s Prince Andrew marries Sarah Ferguson at Westminster Abbey in London.

1996 – War crimes investigators in Bosnia recover more than a dozen bodies thought to belong to Muslims executed after the fall of the city of Srebrenica.

2011 – English singer Amy Winehouse is found dead from a drug overdose, aged 27.

2017 – The Tour de France cycling race is won by Chris Froome of Britain, for the fourth time.

Birthdays

Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia (1891-1975); Clive Rice, South African cricketer (1949-2015); Graham Gooch, English cricketer (1953-); Woody Harrelson, US actor (1961-); Jo Brand, English comedian (1957-); Philip Seymour Hoffman, US actor (1967-2014); Alison Krauss, US country singer (1971-), Monica Lewinsky, White House intern (1973-); Daniel Radcliffe, English actor (1989-).