Today in History

1184BC – Traditional date on which elite Greek soldiers enter Troy hidden inside a

wooden horse, right.

1704 – The first regularly issued American newspaper, The Boston News-Letter, begins publication.

1877 – American federal troops are ordered out of New Orleans, ending the North’s postCivil War rule in the South.

1915 – More than 200 leaders of the Armenian community in Turkey are arrested and later killed. The date is marked as the start of the Armenian Genocide, in which about 1 million ethnic Armenians die.

1916 – About 1600 Irish nationalists launch the Easter Rising by seizing several key sites in Dublin. The rebellion is put down by British forces several days later.

1920 – Edward, Prince of Wales (later Edward VIII) visits New Zealand partly to thank the Dominion for its contribution to the Empire’s war effort.

1922 – NZ holds its first Poppy Day, to fundraise for war veterans.

1941 – Hundreds of civilians and Commonwealth troops, including New Zealanders, being evacuated from Greece are killed as German dive-bombers sink the steam yacht Hellas at Piraeus, near Athens.

1945 – US President Harry Truman is briefed on the full details of the Manhattan Project, to create the first atomic bomb.

1951 – NZ suffers its first battlefield casualty of the Korean War, with the death of Second Lieutenant Dennis Fielden.

1953 – British wartime leader Winston Churchill is knighted by the Queen.

1980 – The United States launches a failed attempt to free 52 American hostages in Iran. Eight US servicemen die as a retreating helicopter and transport plane collide.

1990 – The US space shuttle Discovery takes the Hubble Space Telescope into orbit.

1991 – South African government announces it will uphold agreement with African National Congress to free all political prisoners by April 30.

1993 – Commandos break into the cockpit of a commandeered Indian Airlines plane in Amritsar, India, shoot the hijacker and free

141 people. The hijacker died of his wounds.

2003 – Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, former wife of Nelson Mandela, is convicted of fraud and theft in Pretoria, South Africa, and sentenced to five years in prison.

2005 – Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger is inaugurated as the 265th pope, taking the name Pope Benedict XVI.

2013 – More than 1130 people, mostly clothing workers, die and 2500 are injured as a building collapses in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Birthdays

St Vincent de Paul, French priest (1581-1660); Anthony Trollope, UK writer (1815-82); Willem de Kooning, Dutch/US artist (1904-97); Barbra Streisand, US actor/singer (1942-); Sachin Tendulkar, Indian cricketer (1973-); Ashleigh Barty, Australian tennis player (1996-); Lydia Ko, NZ golfer (1997-).