Today in History

1787 – A convention under George Washington meets for the first time in Philadelphia to draw up the United States constitution.

1861 – The first edition of The Press is published from a cottage in Montreal St, Christchurch.

1895 – Playwright Oscarwilde is convicted of gross indecency and sentenced to two years’ hard labour.

1951 – Guy Burgess and Donald

Maclean, British Foreign Office officials, disappear from London. It is later discovered they had defected to the Soviet Union.

1961 – US President John F

Kennedy, left, announces the intention of landing aman on the Moon by the end of the decade.

1978 – Police and soldiers remove 222 people from Bastion Point, Auckland, ending an occupation that had lasted 506 days.

1979 – America’s worst air disaster occurs when a DC-10 crashes at Chicago’s O’hare airport, killing 273.

1982 – In the Falklandswar, British ships Coventry and Atlantic Conveyor are sunk and 24 lives are lost.

1994 – Russian writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn ends a 20-year exile in the West and goes back to Russia.

2004 – At least 1950 people are killed in floods in the Dominican Republic and Haiti.

2007 – North Korea fires a salvo of test missiles into its coastal waters, flexing navalmuscles as South Korea launches its most advanced destroyer, armed with a hi-tech air defence system.

2008 – Scott Dixon becomes the first New Zealander to win the Indianapolis 500 motor race.

Birthdays

Ralphwaldo Emerson, US writer (1803-82); John Davies, NZ athlete (1938-2003); Sir Ian Mckellen, UK actor (1939-); Frank Oz, US actor/ director (1944-); Mike Myers, Canadian actor (1963-); Lauryn Hill, US singer (1975-); Jonnywilkinson, UK rugby player (1979-); Richie Mo’unga, All Black (1994-).