Today in History

1554 – Lady Jane Grey, England’s ‘‘nine-day queen’’, is executed for treason.

1689 – Declaration of Rights in England, by which William and Mary are proclaimed king and queen.

1909 – The passenger ship Penguin is wrecked on rocks during a night sailing between Picton and Wellington, with the loss of 72 of the 102 on board.

1912 – Six-year-old Hsian-t’ung, China’s last emperor, is forced to abdicate. 1924 – Tutankhamen’s sarcophagus is opened.

1924 – George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue premieres in New

York City.

1955 – President Dwight Eisenhower sends first US advisers to South Vietnam.

1967 – British police raid the home of Rolling Stone Keith Richards, left. He and Mick Jagger are later jailed for drugs offences. 1980 – Richard Hadlee becomes New Zealand’s leading test wickettaker, taking his 117th against the West Indies in Dunedin.

1993 – Two 10-year-old boys lure 2-year-old James Bulger from his mother at a shopping mall in Liverpool, and beat him to death. 1994 – Edvard Munch’s The Scream is stolen from an Oslo museum.

1999 – US President Bill Clinton is acquitted by the Senate in an impeachment trial. 2000 – Peanuts creator Charles Schulz dies of cancer, aged 77. 2002 – The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring receives 13 Academy Award nominations.

Birthdays

Charles Darwin, UK scientist (1809-82); Abraham Lincoln, US president (1809-65); Anna Pavlova, Russian ballerina (1881-1931); Sir Walter Nash, NZ prime minister (1882-1968); Bruno Lawrence, NZ actor (1941-95); Ehud Barak, Israeli prime minister (1942-); Christian Cullen, All Black (1976-).