Today in History

1014 – King Sweyn I of Denmark dies and is succeeded by his son, Canute II the Great.

1867 – Prince Mutsuhito becomes Emperor Meiji of Japan at 14.

1919 – Kiev, in Ukraine, is captured by the Bolsheviks; League of Nations meets for the first time in Paris.

1928 – Paleoanthropologist Davidson Black declares ancient human fossils found at Zhoukoudian,

China, to be a new species, ‘‘Sinanthropus pekinensis’’ (now known as ‘‘Homo erectus’’).

1931 – Earthquake almost destroys the towns of Napier, left, and Hastings, and kills 256 people.

1958 – Benelux Economic Union Treaty between Belgium, Luxembourg and Netherlands is signed.

1966 – First controlled landing on the moon is made by the Soviet unmanned spacecraft Luna IX.

1984 - A woman in California becomes the world’s first to give birth from a donated embryo.

1994 – US President Bill Clinton lifts a 19-year trade embargo against Vietnam.

1995 – Nato holds its first exercise in what used to be enemy territory in former East Germany.

2003 – American rock producer Phil Spector is arrested after the alleged murder of actress Lana Clarkson. 2009 – Harry Potter author JK Rowling is awarded the French Legion of Honour. 2014 – Swimmer Ian Thorpe is admitted to hospital with depression after being found disoriented in a Sydney street.

Birthdays

Ferdinand Magellan, Portuguese explorer (1480-1521); Felix Mendelssohn, German composer (1809-1847); Gertrude Stein, US author (1874-1946); Gordon Coates, NZ politician (1878-1943); Guy Ngan, NZ artist (1926-2017); Graham Mexted, All Black (1927-2009); Isla Fisher, Australian actor (1976-); Amal Clooney, British-Lebanese human-rights lawyer (1978-).