Today in History

1866 – Maori prophet and military leader Te Kooti is deported to the Chatham Islands, after being accused of spying on government troops he was fighting with.

1947 – US Secretary of State George C Marshall calls for a massive programme of foreign aid to help European states recover after World War II. It becomes known as the Marshall Plan.

1963 – British Secretary of War John Profumo resigns after it is revealed he lied to Parliament about an affair with alleged prostitute Christine Keeler, left.

1967 – Israel launches airstrikes on Egypt, beginning the Six-Day War in the Middle East.

1968 – US Senator Robert F Kennedy is shot and mortally wounded in Los Angeles.

1975 – Suez Canal reopens to international shipping for first time since the Six-Day War.

1981 – The Centres for Disease Control and Prevention reports that five gay men in California have a rare pneumonia found in patients with weakened immune systems – the first recognised cases of Aids.

1989 – As clashes continue in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, a photo of a lone protester facing a column of tanks becomes the symbol of the crackdown.

2004 – Former US President Ronald Reagan dies.

2007 – Pipeline diggers unearth a mass grave believed to contain thousands of Jews slaughtered in Ukraine during World War II.

2009 – David Bain is found not guilty of the 1994 murders of his family after a retrial in Christchurch.

2018 – Harvey Weinstein pleads not guilty to rape and sexual assault charges.

Birthdays

Adam Smith, UK economist (1723-90); John Maynard Keynes, UK economist (1883-1946); Ken Follett, UK novelist (1949-); Mark Wahlberg, US actor (1971-); Pero Cameron, NZ basketball coach (1974-).