Today in History

1471 – The Battle of Tewkesbury, in the Wars of the Roses, restores Edward IV to the English throne.

1772 – French explorer Marion du Fresne arrives in the Bay of Islands. He and 24 of his crew were killed by local Ma¯ori in mid-June.

1776 – Rhode Island becomes the first American colony to declare independence from Britain.

1780 – The first Epsom Derby is run.

1904 – Building of the Panama Canal begins.

1937 – An avalanche kills two workers building the Homer tunnel in Fiordland.

1945 – German forces in the Netherlands, northern Germany and Denmark surrender; US 7th Army captures Hitler’s country retreat of Berchtesgaden; Salzburg also is captured by the Allies.

1953 – Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and The Sea wins the Pulitzer Prize for Literature.

1970 – An anti-war protest at Kent State University, Ohio, left, is fired on by the US National Guard, killing four students. 1979 – Margaret Thatcher is sworn in as Britain’s first female prime minister.

1998 – Convicted ‘‘Unabomber’’ Theodore Kaczynski is sentenced to four terms of life in prison without parole in the US.

2000 – Ken Livingstone becomes the first elected mayor of London. 2005 – Constantin Brancusi’s Bird in Space sells for US$27.5m, at the time a record price for a sculpture..

2010 – Three people die in a torched Athens bank during protests over the government’s planned spending cuts.

Birthdays

Archibald McIndoe, NZ plastic surgeon (1900-60); Hosni Mubarak, Egyptian president (1928-2020); Audrey Hepburn, Belgian-born actor (1929-93); Amos Oz, Israeli writer (1939-2018); Randy Travis, US musician (1959-); Phil Twyford, NZ politician (1963-); Rory McIlroy, UK golfer (1989-).