Today in History
1643 – Louis XIV becomes King of France at the age of 4.
1787 – Delegates gather in Philadelphia to draw up a constitution for a new form of American government.
1796 – English physician Edward Jenner administers the world’s first vaccination, inoculating an 8-yearold boy against smallpox.
1870 – First game of rugby played in New Zealand, at Nelson.
1907 – Dr Frederic Truby King, left, helps to form the Society for the Promotion of the Health of Women and Children, later known as the Plunket Society.
1940 – The Netherlands surrenders to invading German forces during World War II.
1941 – New Zealand minesweeper Puriri is sunk by a German mine at the entrance to Hauraki Gulf. Five crew members die.
1948 – The state of Israel is proclaimed.
1955 – Representatives from eight
Communist bloc countries, including the Soviet Union, sign the Warsaw Pact in Poland.
1961 – Freedom Riders are attacked by mobs in Anniston and Birmingham, Alabama.
1973 – The US launches Skylab 1, its first manned space station.
1998 – Singer-actor Frank Sinatra dies, aged 82.
2000 – Tens of thousands attend the ‘‘Million Mom March’’ in Washington for stricter gun control.
2011 – Dominique Strauss-Kahn, head of the International Monetary
Fund, is removed from a Parisbound plane in New York and charged with the sexual assault of a Manhattan hotel maid.
Birthdays
Thomas Gainsborough, UK artist (1727-88); Eric Morecambe, UK comedian (1926-84); George Lucas, US director (1944-); Frank Nobilo, NZ golfer (1960-); Tim Roth, UK actor (1961-); Cate Blanchett, Australian actor (1969-); Mark Zuckerberg, US founder of Facebook (1984-).