Today in History

1791 – First grapevine in colony of NSW is planted at Parramatta. 1837 – Details of the first practical shorthand system, designed by Isaac Pitman, right, are published for the first time as Stenographic Sound-Hand.

1920 – League of Nations Assembly holds first meeting in Geneva.

1923 – Rampant inflation in Germany reaches a peak, its currency standing at four trillion marks to the dollar.

1928 – Fascist Grand Council becomes part of Italian constitution.

1976 – Syrian army takes full control of Beirut, effectively ending 18-month civil war in Lebanon.

1990 – Nato and Warsaw Pact nations agree in principle on a treaty drastically slashing their stocks of conventional weapons.

1996 – Shine is awarded best film at Australian Film Institute awards.

2007 – Cyclone Sidr roars across the southwestern coast of Bangladesh with 240kmh winds killing at least 3100 people in the deadliest such storm in more than a decade.

2012 – Oil giant BP agrees to plead guilty to a raft of criminal charges and pay a record US$4.5 billion in a settlement with the US government over the deadly 2010 disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.

2013 – China announces the first significant easing of its one-child policy in 30 years and moves to abolish its labour camp system.

2015 – Democratic White House hopeful Hillary Clinton uses a presidential debate to call for global unity to crush Islamic State following the Paris terror attacks, which killed 130 people two days earlier.

Birthdays

William Pitt, English statesman

(1708-1779); William Cowper, English poet (1731-1800); Sir Frederick William Herschel, German-born astronomer

(1738-1822); Petula Clark, English singer-actress (1932-).