Today in History

1828 – Andrew Jackson is elected president of the United States.

1854 – More than 20 goldminers at the Eureka Stockade in Ballarat, Victoria, are killed by state troopers in an uprising over mining licences.

1863 – The New Zealand Parliament passes a law allowing the confiscation of Māori land, affecting tribes deemed to have rebelled against the Crown.

1901 – Freda du Faur, right, becomes the first woman to complete an ascent of Mt Cook/ Aoraki.

1947 – A Streetcar Named Desire, by Tennessee Williams, premieres on Broadway.

1967 – Surgeons at Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town, led by Dr Christiaan Barnard, perform the first human heart transplant. Louis Washkansky lives for 18 days with the new heart.

1975 – Communists take control of Laos and declare an end to its 600-year-old monarchy.

1984 – More than 2000 people die, and a further 2000 are injured, after a cloud of gas escapes from a pesticide plant in Bhopal, India; the Band Aid fundraising single Do They Know It’s Christmas? is released in the UK.

2007 – Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez loses a constitutional vote that would have let him run for re-election indefinitely.

2018 – Ryan Kaji, aged 7, is declared the year’s highest-earning YouTube star, with US$22 million, for his channel Ryan Toys Review.

2019 – Kamala Harris ends her campaign to be the Democratic candidate for president.

Birthdays

Joseph Conrad, Polish-British writer (1857-1924); Richard Pearse, NZ aviator (1877-1953); Andy Williams, US singer (1927-2012); Jean-Luc Godard, French film-maker (1930-); Ozzy Osbourne, UK singer (1948-); Julianne Moore, US actor (1960-); Andrew Stanton, US film-maker (1965-); Stephen Donald, All Black (1983-); Amanda Seyfried, US actor (1985-).