Today in History
1742 – Death of English astronomer Edmond Halley, discoverer of the comet named after him.
1784 – United States ratifies peace treaty with Britain, formally ending American War of Independence.
1878 – Britain’s first private connection by telephone is made on the Isle of Wight when Queen Victoria speaks to her private secretary, Thomas Biddulph.
1891 – New Zealander Bob Fitzsimmons, left, wins the world middleweight boxing title, in New Orleans. He went on to win the world heavyweight title in 1897.
1898 – Death of Lewis Carroll, British author of Alice in
Wonderland, from pneumonia. 1943 – US President Franklin Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill open a wartime conference in Casablanca.
1948 – 14-year-old Nelson boy Malcolm Simpson unearths the oldest fossils yet found in New Zealand, in Cobb Valley, Motueka. The trilobites were from the Paleozoic era, 542–251 million years ago.
1954 – Actress Marilyn Monroe marries baseball star Joe DiMaggio in San Francisco.
1998 – An international treaty comes into effect protecting the entire continent of Antarctica as a global wilderness preserve.
2009 – A French court acquits six doctors and pharmacists in the deaths of at least 114 people who contracted a brain-destroying disease after being treated with tainted human growth hormones.
Birthdays
Benedict Arnold, US general
(1741-1801); Thomas Hocken, NZ collector/bibliographer (1836-1910); Sir Cecil Beaton, UK photographer/ stage designer (1904-80); Faye Dunaway, US actress (1941-); Rob Hall, NZ mountaineer (1961-96); Steven Soderbergh, US film director
(1963-); Emily Watson, UK actor
(1967-); LL Cool J, US rapper-actor
(1968-); Dave Grohl, US musician
(1969-).