Today in History

31BC – Octavian’s Roman fleet wins the battle of Actium, off the west coast of Greece, decisively defeating Mark Antony and Cleopatra.

1666 – The Great Fire of London breaks out in Pudding Lane, near London Bridge. It burns for five days, but claims few lives.

1792 – Mobs in Paris slaughter three Catholic bishops, more than 200 priests, and prisoners believed to be royalist sympathisers. 1870 – Emperor Napoleon III and 83,000 French troops surrender at Sedan, ending the Franco-German War after six weeks.

1901 – US Vice-President Theodore Roosevelt outlines his ideal foreign policy as ‘‘Speak softly, and carry a big stick’’.

1944 – Teenage Dutch diarist Anne Frank is sent to Auschwitz.

1945 – Japan formally surrenders, ending World War II; Vietnam declares independence from France.

1960 – Kiwi athletes Peter Snell and Murray Halberg win gold medals within about half an hour of each other at the Rome Olympics.

1963 – Alabama Governor George Wallace prevents the racial integration of Tuskegee High School by encircling it with state troopers.

1969 – The first automated teller machine (ATM) opens for business in New York; death of Vietnamese communist leader Ho Chi Minh, left.

1972 – The NZ rowing eight wins gold at the Munich Olympics.

1979 – Kiwi Ivan Mauger wins his sixth world speedway title.

2018 – Fire at the National Museum of

Brazil in Rio de Janeiro destroys most of its 20 million artefacts.

Birthdays

John Howard, UK prison reformer (1726-90); Queen Lili’uokalani, last monarch of Hawaii (1838-1917); Derek Fowlds, UK actor (1937-2020); Billy Preston, US musician (1946-2006); Jim Richards, NZ racing driver (1947-); Jimmy Connors, US tennis player (1952-); Chris Knox, NZ musician (1952-); Sir Keir Starmer, UK politician (1962-); Keanu Reeves, Canadian actor (1964-); Salma Hayek, Mexican actor (1966-).