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 aerial bombardment of Rotterdam kills nearly 900 people;

85,000 are left homeless. The Netherlands surrenders a day later.

1941 – New Zealand minesweeper Puriri is sunk by a German mine at the entrance to Hauraki Gulf. Five crew members die.

1948 – 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, French head of the International Monetary Fund, is removed from a Paris- bound 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-).