Today in History
1413 – Henry V ascends the English throne, on the death of his father, Henry IV.
1602 – Dutch East India Company is set up. During its 96-year history it becomes one of the world’s most powerful companies.
1616 – Sir Walter Raleigh is freed from the Tower of London to seek gold in South America.
1815 – Napoleon arrives back in Paris from Elba to reclaim power at the start of ‘‘the Hundred Days’’ before defeat at Waterloo.
1834 – Northern chiefs meet at Waitangi to choose a national flag, from three suggestions drawn up by the Church Missionary Society. They adopt the design known as the United Tribes ensign, left, incorporating the flag of the Anglican diocese of New South Wales into the Royal Navy’s white ensign.
1846 – The foundation stone of Melbourne’s Princes Bridge is laid.
1852 – Harriet Beecher Stowe’s anti-slavery novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, is published.
1854 – Former members of the US Whig Party meet in Wisconsin to establish a new party, which becomes the Republican Party.
1933 – SS leader Heinrich Himmler announces creation of Germany’s first concentration camp, at Dachau.
1956 – France recognises independence of Tunisia; Habib Bourguiba is its first president.
1965 – US President Lyndon Johnson notifies Alabama’s governor that he will send federal troops to protect a civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, to be led by the Rev Martin Luther King Jr.
1969 – Beatle John Lennon marries Japanese artist Yoko Ono in Gibraltar.
1987 – Italian air force general Livio Giorgieri is shot dead by two youths on a motorcycle, an attack attributed to Red Brigades terrorists; the sale of AZT, a drug shown to prolong the lives of Aids patients, is approved in the US.
1995 – Packages of deadly sarin gas are set off in the Tokyo subway system, killing 12 people and injuring more than 5000.
2010 – Pope Benedict XVI sends an unprecedented letter to Ireland apologising for chronic child abuse within the Roman Catholic church.
2019 – The Walt Disney Company acquires Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox entertainment business for US$71 billion.
2020 – Four men are hanged for the rape and murder of a woman on a bus in New Delhi; star quarterback Tom Brady signs with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers after 20 years with the New England Patriots.
Birthdays
Ovid, Roman poet (43BC-17AD); Henrik Ibsen, Norwegian playwright (1828-1906); Cardinal Thomas Williams, NZ archbishop (1930-); Phil Judd, NZ musician (1953-); Louis Sachar, US children’s author (1954-); Spike Lee, US filmmaker (1957-); Holly Hunter, US actor (1958-); Lawrence Makoare, NZ actor (1968-); Keven Mealamu, All Black (1979-); Rory Fallon, NZ footballer (1982-).