Today in History

1741 – George Frideric Handel, right, finishes the composition Messiah.

1812 – Napoleon Bonaparte enters Moscow and Russians set fires in city. 1814 – Francis Scott Key writes a poem that becomes the US national anthem, The Star-Spangled Banner. 1901 – Theodore Roosevelt becomes US president after William McKinley is killed by an assassin.

1918 – Austria-Hungary makes peace offer to the Allies in World War I.

1927 – US dancer Isadora Duncan is killed when her scarf is caught in the wheels and axle of a car.

1938 – NZ’s Labour government passes landmark Social Security Act, introducing revised pensions and extended benefits for families, invalids and the unemployed.

1959 – A Soviet space probe is first manmade object to reach the Moon.

1960 – The Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Iraq, Iran, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela) is formed in Baghdad.

1964 – Writer John Steinbeck is presented with US Medal of Freedom.

1982 – Princess Grace of Monaco, formerly actress Grace Kelly, dies at 52 of injuries from a car crash.

1999 – Chinese President Jiang Zemin keeps 350 guests waiting more than 90 minutes at a state dinner in Christchurch, to avoid demonstrators.

2009 – Three Britons are jailed for life for a plot to blow up trans-Atlantic airliners with liquid explosives.

2020 – Astronomers report possible sign of life on Venus, after detecting phosphine in the planet’s atmosphere by telescope. The claims are later downgraded.

Birthdays

Alice Stone Blackwell, US suffragist (1857-1950); Alexander Turnbull, NZ librarian (1868-1918); Margaret Sanger, US birth control activist (1879-1966); Sam Neill, NZ actor (1947-); Kepler Wessels, South African/Australian cricketer (1957-); Jeff Crowe, NZ cricketer (1958-); AmyWinehouse, UK singer-songwriter (1983-2011); Nicola Browne, NZ cricketer (1983-).