Today in history
1422 – Henry VI becomes king of England at the age of 9 months.
1841 – The Sophia Pate is wrecked on a sandbar at the entrance to Kaipara Harbour; 21 lives are lost.
1888 – Mary Ann Nichols, the first of Jack the Ripper’s victims, is found.
1894 – New Zealand becomes the first country to introduce compulsory arbitration for disputes between employers and unions.
1897 – Thomas Edison receives a patent for his movie camera, the Kinetograph.
1925 – Anthropologist Margaret Mead first arrives in Samoa, forming often controversial views on Pacific attitudes to sex.
1928 – Die Dreigroschenoper
(The Threepenny
Opera), by Bertold Brecht, left, and Kurt Weill, premieres in Berlin. 1939 – Adolf Hitler signs an order to attack Poland; German forces move to the frontier.
1945 – The Liberal Party of Australia is founded by Robert Menzies.
1957 – The Federation of Malaya – forerunner of modern Malaysia – gains independence from Britain.
1962 – Trinidad and Tobago gain independence from Britain.
1968 – West Indian Garfield Sobers, playing for Nottinghamshire, becomes the first cricketer to score six sixes off one over in first-class cricket.
1974 – New Zealand prime minister Norman Kirk dies suddenly, aged 51.
1980 – The Gdan´sk Agreement is signed, allowing Polish citizens to bring democratic changes within the communist political structure.
1991 – Uzbekistan declares independence from the Soviet Union.
1994 – The Provisional IRA declares an indefinite ceasefire in Northern Ireland.
1997 – Diana, Princess of Wales, dies in a car crash in in Paris, along with Dodi Fayed and driver Henri Paul.
2005 – Nearly 1000 people, mostly women and children, either drown or are crushed to death in Baghdad as rumours of a suicide bomber spread panic among Shi’ite pilgrims crossing a bridge over the Tigris River.
2006 – Police in Norway recover the Edvard Munch masterpieces The Scream and Madonna, two years after masked gunmen stole them. Today’s birthdays:
Caligula (Gaius Caesar), emperor of Rome (12-41); Commodus, Roman emperor (161-92); Maria Montessori, Italian doctor and educator (1870-1952); Roderick Carr, NZ RAF and Indian air force chief (1891-1971); Sir Bernard Lovell, UK astronomer (1913-2012); Van Morrison, UK musician (1945-); Richard Gere, US actor (1949-); Serge Blanco, French rugby player (1958-); Kieran Crowley, All Black (1961-); Queen Rania of Jordan (1970-).