Today in History

1536 – Catherine of Aragon, first wife of Henry VIII, dies.

1610 – The astronomer Galileo Galilei sees four of Jupiter’s moons. 1785 – Frenchman Jean-Pierre Blanchard and American John Jeffries pilot a gas balloon from Dover to Calais, becoming the first to cross the English Channel by air. 1789 – The first United States presidential election is held. White male property owners vote for electors who, a month later, choose George Washington as president.

1927 – Commercial trans-Atlantic telephone service is inaugurated between New York and London.

1931 – First successful solo flight across the Tasman. Australian Guy

Menzies, left, flew from Sydney and crash-landed in a swamp at Harihari, on the West Coast. 1947 – Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer tops the US charts. 1953 – US President Harry Truman announces that America has developed the hydrogen bomb.

1979 – Vietnamese forces capture the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh, overthrowing the Khmer Rouge government.

1989 – Death of Emperor Hirohito, Japan’s longest-serving monarch.

1999 – The US Senate opens the impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton.

2009 – Russia shuts off all its gas supplies to Europe through Ukraine.

2015 – Two gunmen kill 12 people at the offices of the French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, which caricatured the Prophet Muhammad.

Birthdays

Pope Gregory XIII (Ugo Buoncompagno, 1502-85); Millard Fullmore, 13th US president (1800-74); Ross Norman, NZ squash player (1959-); Christian Louboutin, French shoe designer (1963-); Nicolas Cage, US actor (1964-); Rob Waddell, NZ rower/sailor (1975-); Eden Hazard, Belgian footballer (1991-); Lewis Hamilton, UK Formula One champion (1985-).