Today in history
1633 Bananas go on sale in England for the first time.
1814 Napoleon’s army is defeated by the British and Spanish at the Battle of Toulouse, leading to his abdication and exile to Elba the next day.
1849 Americanwalter Hunt patents the safety pin. Unable to see its possibilities, he later sells all rights for a few hundred dollars.
1912 RMS Titanic sails from the English port of Southampton on its ill- fated maiden voyage.
1919 Revolutionary leader Emiliano Zapata is killed in an army ambush in Chinameca, Mexico.
1925 The Great Gatsby, by F Scott Fitzgerald, is first published.
1932 Paul von Hindenburg is reelected German president, with Adolf Hitler finishing second.
1941 Siege of Tobruk begins in World War II.
1968 Thewahine ferry sinks in severe weather in Wellington harbour killing 51 people.
1972 Earthquake strikes southern Iran, killing more than 5000.
1972 More than 50 countries sign a treaty outlawing the stockpiling of biological weapons.
1984 A rally to demand free presidential elections in Brazil after 20 years of dictatorship draws a million people in Rio de Janeiro.
1995 Top United Nations weapons inspector reports that Baghdad seems to be developing biological weapons.
1997 Ecuador’s top court puts out a warrant for the arrest of deposed President Abdala Bucaram, prompting him to seek political asylum in Panama.
1999 Brigadier-general Ali Sayyad Shirazi, deputy joint chief of staff of the Iranian armed forces, is assassinated by ‘‘terrorist elements’’.
2003 British Airways and Air France announce they will mothball their Concorde fleets at the end of October, ending 27 years of supersonic commercial air travel.
2014 President Vladimir Putin warns Europe that it may face a shutdown of Russian natural gas supplies if it fails to help Ukraine settle its enormous gas bill.
2016 At least 260 people are injured after Macedonian police fire tear gas on a group of asylum seekers as they try to break through a fence on the Greece- Macedonia border.
TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS Lewiswallace, US novelist (Ben Hur), soldier and diplomat (1827-1905); William Booth, English founder of Salvation Army (1829-1912); Joseph Pulitzer, US journalist
(1847-1911); Omar
Sharif, Egyptian actor (1932-2015); Bunnywailer,
Jamaican musician (1947- 2021); Mandy Moore, US singer-actor (1984-); Daisy Ridley, British actor (1992-).