Today in History

1536 – Catherine of Aragon, right, first wife of Henry VIII, dies. 1610 – Astronomer Galileo Galilei sees four of Jupiter’s moons.

1714 – The typewriter is patented by Englishman Henry Mill.

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 GeorgeWashington 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 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 capture Phnom Penh, overthrowing Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge government.

1989 – Death of Emperor Hirohito, Japan’s longest-serving monarch. 1999 – US Senate opens impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton. 2009 – Russia shuts off all its gas supplies to Europe via Ukraine. 2012 – Hot air balloon crashes in Carterton, killing 11.

2015 – Gunmen kill 12 at the Paris offices of French satirical weekly

Charlie Hebdo, which caricatured the Prophet Muhammad.

Birthdays

St Bernadette Soubirous, French nun (1844-79); Frederick de Jersey Clere, NZ architect (1856-1952); Gerald Durrell, UK author/naturalist (1925-95); Ross Norman, NZ squash player (1959-); Christian Louboutin, French shoe designer (1963-); Irrfan Khan, Indian actor (1967-2020); Rob Waddell, NZ rower/sailor (1975-); Sir Lewis Hamilton, UK racing driver (1985-).