Today in history
1811 – British under Duke of Wellington defeat French at Fuentes d’ontro in Portugal.
1846 – The first major battle of the Mexicanwar is fought at Palo Alto, Texas, resulting in victory for US Gen. Zachary Taylor’s forces.
1852 – Integrity of Denmark is guaranteed through Treaty of London by Britain, France, Russia, Prussia, Austria and Sweden.
1886 – The first Coca-cola, an invention of Dr John Pemberton, is sold at Jacob’s Pharmacy in Atlanta, Georgia.
1895 – Japan surrenders Liao Tung Peninsula and Port Arthur to China in return for huge indemnity.
1897 – Greece asksmajor powers to intervene in its war with the Turks.
1902 – Mount Pelee on the French West Indian island of Martinique erupts, wiping out city of St Pierre and killing all but two of its 30,000 residents.
1916 – Forces from Australia and New Zealand arrive in France during World War I.
1970 – Kiwi singer John
Rowles tops the New
Zealand charts with his song Cheryl Moana
Marie, capping his growing fame and success at home, in
Britain and Australia.
1998 – The UN human rights spokesman in Rwanda is expelled by the government because of his criticism of the justice system.
2001 – The New Zealand Government announces it is scrapping the combat wing of the country’s air force.
2002 – New Zealand’s cricket team abandons its tour of Pakistan, with one test out of two to play, after a bomb by its Karachi hotel kills 12 people.
2003 – The US Senate votes, 96-0, to ratify the expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) to include seven former communist countries in Eastern Europe.
2005 – Survivors, political dignitaries and others gather inside the Mauthausen Nazi concentration camp to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the liberation of what one speaker describes as ‘‘hell on earth.’’
2006 – South Africa’s former Deputy President Jacob Zuma is acquitted of rape in the country’smost politically charged trial since the end of apartheid.
2007 – Protestant leader Ian Paisley and Sinn Fein deputy leader Martin Mcguinness are elected to the top posts of the new power-sharing government for Northern Ireland.
Today’s Birthdays:
Edward Gibbon, English historian (1737-1794); Henri Dunant, Swiss founder of International Red Cross (1828-1910); Harry Truman, US president (1884-1972); David Attenborough, British television producer and naturalist (1926- ).