Today in History

1620 – 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 in a hot air balloon, over Paris, piloted by Francois Pilatre de Rosier and Francois Laurent.

1863 – Crown forces capture Rangiriri, in Waikato. The bloodiest

battle of the New Zealand Wars opened up the Waikato basin to colonial forces.

1877 – Thomas Edison, left, announces invention of the phonograph in United States.

1920 – The Irish Republican Army shoots dead 14 British agents in what becomes known as the country’s first Bloody Sunday.

1974 – Twenty-one 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 merger as key to unification of the nation under Communist rule.

1977 – Estimated 3000 people are believed to have perished in cyclone that strikes southeastern India, and entire villages are submerged by tidal waves.

1980 – About 350 million people around the world watch the ‘‘Who Shot JR?’’ episode of Dallas.

1999 – China successfully completes an unmanned spacecraft test, paving the way to make it the third country to put humans in space, after the US and Soviet Union.

2015 – Seven die in a helicopter crash at Fox Glacier.

Birthdays:

Voltaire, French poet-philosopher (1694-1778); Adolph (Harpo) Marx, comic actor (1888-1964); Bjork, Icelandic pop singer (1965-); Andrew Caddick, Nz-born England cricketer (1968-); David Tua, Samoaborn NZ boxer (1972-); Aaron Smith, All Black (1988-).