Today in History

1824 – The US presidential election is turned over to the House of Representatives when a deadlock develops among John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, William Crawford and Henry Clay. Adams is declared the winner.

1898 – The firstmotion pictures known to have been shot in New Zealand are made by photographer WHBartlett.

1913 – Henry Ford installs the first moving assembly line for the mass production of an entire automobile. 1933 – Pilot Teddy Harvie makes the first one-day flight from North Cape to Invercargill, in a time of 16 hours, 10 minutes.

1955 – Rosa Parks, left, defies Alabama law by refusing to give up her seat to a white man on a bus in Montgomery. She is arrested, sparking a year-long boycott of buses by blacks.

1959 – Twelve nations, including New Zealand, sign the Antarctica Treaty, which bans military activity and weapons testing on the continent.

1965 – An airlift of refugees from Cuba to the US begins. Thousands are allowed to leave.

1988 – Benazir Bhutto is named Pakistan’s prime minister, becoming the first woman to lead a modern-day Muslim nation.

2003 – Tens of thousands of spectators crowd into central Wellington to celebrate the world premiere of the Peter Jackson third Lord of the Rings film, The Return of the King. 2019 – A 55-year-old man in Wuhan, central China, becomes the first traceable patient to develop symptoms of a novel coronavirus that becomes known as Covid-19.

Birthdays

Heather Begg, NZ opera singer (1932-2009); PeterWilliams, NZ lawyer (1934-2015); Woody Allen, US director (1935-); Bette Midler, US singer-actor (1945-); Pablo Escobar, Colombian drug lord (1949-93); Andrew Adamson, NZ director/ writer (1966-).