Today in History

164BC – Judas Maccabaeus recaptures Jersusalem and rededicates the Second Temple, commemorated since as the Jewish festival Hanukkah.

1783 – First successful flight in a hot air balloon, over Paris, piloted by Francois Pilatre de Rosier and Francois Laurent.

1863 – Imperial troops capture Rangiriri, in Waikato. The bloodiest battle of the NZ Wars opened up the Waikato basin to colonisation.

1877 – Thomas Edison announces the invention of the phonograph.

1916 – Britannic, Titanic’s sister ship, sinks in Aegean Sea. Thirty people drown, 1000 are rescued.

1920 – The Irish Republican Army shoots dead 14 British agents. The British respond by killing 14 civilians and three republican prisoners in Ireland’s first Bloody Sunday.

1974 – Twenty-one people are killed and 162 injured in Birmingham, England, when IRA bombs explode in two pubs.

1975 – Vietnamese governments in Hanoi and Saigon agree on merger as key to unification of the nation under Communist rule.

1977 – Up to 3000 people are believed to have died in cyclone in southeastern India, as villages are submerged by tidal waves.

1980 – About 350 million people globally watch the ‘‘Who Shot JR?’’ episode of Dallas, left.

1986 – The Iran-Contra scandal begins with shredding of incriminating documents by US National Security Council’s Oliver North.

2015 – Seven die in a helicopter crash at Fox Glacier. 2017 – Robert Mugabe’s resignation is read out in Zimbabwe’s parliament.

Birthdays

Voltaire, French author (1694-1778); Adolph (Harpo) Marx, US actor (1888-1964); Rene Magritte, Belgian artist (1898-1967); Bjork, Icelandic singer (1965-); Jamie Joseph, All Black/rugby coach (1969-); David Tua, NZ boxer (1972-); Aaron Smith, All Black (1988-).