Today in History

1381 – The Peasants’ Revolt, led by Wat Tyler and sparked by the implementation of a poll tax, marches into London.

1525 – Martin Luther marries Katharina von Bora, against the celibacy rule decreed by the Roman Catholic Church for priests and nuns. 1828 – Simon Bolivar assumes dictatorship of Gran Colombia (present-day Venezuela, Colombia, Panama and Ecuador), Peru and Bolivia. 1866 – Four men are murdered on the Maungatapu track, southeast of Nelson. The killings raised fears of a Wild West

lawlessness after the discovery of gold in the South Island.

1920 – United States Post Office says children cannot be sent by parcel post any more.

1956 – Last British troops leave Suez Canal base, turning the waterway over to Egypt after 74 years of operation.

1962 – Stanley Kubrick’s film adaptation of Vladimir Nabokov’s controversial novel

Lolita, starring Sue Lyon, right, has its premiere, in the United States.

1966 – The US Supreme Court hands down its decision in the Miranda v Arizona case, establishing the principle that all criminal suspects must be advised of their rights before interrogation.

1971 – The New York Times begins publishing the ‘‘Pentagon Papers’’, which indicate the US government consistently lied about the Vietnam War.

1990 – East Germany begins the final demolition of the Berlin Wall.

1997 – Timothy McVeigh, a 29-year-old army veteran, is sentenced to death for bombing a government building in Oklahoma City in 1995, killing 168 people.

2000 – South Korean President Kim Dae

Jung meets leader of North Korea Kim Jong Il, for the start of the first inter-Korea summit, in the northern capital of Pyongyang.

2005 – US pop star Michael Jackson is cleared of all charges in a sex abuse trial that threatened to destroy his career.

2006 – The US Senate issues a formal resolution apologising for its failure to create anti-lynching legislation.

2017 – American college student Otto Warmbier returns home in an unresponsive state after being held in North Korean jail for 17 months. He dies six days later.

2018 – The journal Nature reports that

Antarctica is melting at an accelerating rate – of 200 billion tonnes a year.

Birthdays

William Butler Yeats, Irish poet (1865-1939); Dorothy L Sayers, UK crime writer (18931957); Slim Dusty, Australian singer (19272003); Malcolm McDowell, UK actor (1943-); Ban Ki Moon, South Korean UN chief (1944-); Tim Allen, US actor (1953-); Chris Cairns, NZ cricketer (1970-); Mick Fanning, Australian surfer (1981-); Ashley and Mary-Kate Olsen, US actors (1986-); Jack Goodhue, All Black (1995-).