Today in History
1611 – Englishman Henry Hudson, famous for trying to find a route from Europe to Asia via the Arctic Ocean, is set adrift in Hudson Bay by mutineers on his ship Discovery. He was never seen again.
1846 – Belgian Adolphe Sax, right, is awarded a patent for the saxophone.
1868 – American inventor Christopher Latham Sholes awarded patent for a ‘‘type-writer’’.
1951 – UK diplomats and Soviet spies Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean are revealed to have fled to the USSR.
1961 – Antarctic Treaty, agreed to by NZ and 11 other participating states, comes into force.
1972 – US President Richard Nixon and White House chief of staff HR Haldeman discuss a plan to use the CIA to obstruct the Fbi’s watergate investigation.
1973 – The International Court of Justice rules that France must stop nuclear testing in the Pacific. France ignored the ruling but later moved the tests underground.
1985 – All 329 people on an Air India flight from Toronto to Bombay die when it crashes into the Atlantic Ocean.
1992 – Mafia godfather John Gotti is sentenced to life in prison.
1995 – Death of Jonas Salk, developer of the first polio vaccine.
2013 – US intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, who leaked information on spying by the US, arrives inmoscow where he is given temporary asylum; aerialist Nik Wallenda makes first Grand Canyon crossing on high wire.
2016 – UK votes to leave the EU in the ‘‘Brexit’’ referendum.
2018 – Twelve Thai soccer players and coach become trapped in cave.
Birthdays
Josephine, French empress and wife of Napoleon Bonaparte (1763-1814); Edward VIII (1894-1972); Alan Turing, UK computer scientist, mathematician (1912-1954); June Carter Cash, US country singer (1929-2003); Bob Blair, NZ cricketer (1932-); Frances Mcdormand, US actor (1957-); Colin Montgomerie, Scottish golfer (1963-); Zinedine Zidane, French footballer (1972-); Kris Faafoi, NZ politician (1976-); Lisa Carrington, NZ canoeist (1989-).