Today in History
1657 – Death of William Harvey, English physician who discovered the nature of the circulation of blood and the function of the heart as a pump.
1869 – Otago University founded. 1937 – Duke of Windsor, formerly King Edward VIII, marries American divorcee Wallis Simpson in France. 1940 – Allied evacuation from Dunkirk, France, is completed. 1941 – First women enter police training in NZ.
1946 – Former engineer Louis Reard unveils the bikini bathing suit, named for Bikini Atoll, where
US nuclear tests were being held.
1959 – Singapore becomes selfgoverning.
1968 – Pop artist Andy Warhol, left, is shot and critically wounded in his New York film studio by feminist and actress Valerie Solanas.
1969 – Australian aircraft carrier HMAS Melbourne collides with the US destroyer Frank E Evans in the South China Sea, resulting in the deaths of 74 Americans.
1979 – The world’s worst oil spillage occurs as a result of a marine blowout beneath the drilling rig Ixtoc 1 in the Gulf of Mexico.
1989 – Chinese troops storm
Tiananmen Square, killing hundreds of pro-democracy demonstrators.
1998 – A high-speed train derails in Eschede, Germany, killing 101 people; Serbian forces deal a heavy blow to guerrillas fighting for independence in Kosovo, killing more than 40 people over five days.
2000 – Archaeologists scouring the Mediterranean seabed announce they have found the 2500-year-old ruins of the submerged Pharaonic cities Herakleion, Canopus and Menouthis, until now were known only through Greek tragedies, travelogues and legends.
2016 – The bodies of at least 104 asylum seekers are found washed up on a beach in the western Libyan town of Zwara.
2017 – Three terrorists mow down pedestrians on London Bridge. Eight people are killed.
Birthdays
Jefferson Davis, first and only president of the US Confederacy (1808-89); George V (1865-1936); Josephine Baker, US dancer (1906-75); Tony Curtis, US actor (1925-2010); Allen Ginsberg, US poet (1926-97); John Reid, NZ cricketer (1928-); Colin Meads, All Black (1936-2017); Suzi Quatro, US musician (1950-); Rafael Nadal, Spanish tennis player (1986-).