Today in History

1535 – Francisco Pizarro founds the city of Lima in Peru.

1778 – James Cook becomes the first European to visit Hawaii.

1788 – HMS Supply, first of Britain’s First Fleet to Australia, reaches Botany Bay.

1886 – Modern field hockey is born with the formation of The Hockey Association in England.

1919 – The World War I Peace Congress opens in Versailles, France; composer Jan Paderewski becomes Polish prime minister.

1936 – Author Rudyard Kipling dies in England.

1943 – Soviet Union announces it has broken the German siege of Leningrad. The siege was not fully lifted for another year.

1952 – Anti-British riots break out in Egypt.

1976 – France expels at least 40 Soviet officials on grounds they have worked as spies.

1977 – Australia’s worst rail crash, at Granville, Sydney, kills 83 when a train hits a concrete bridge. 1980 – Jon Stevens, of Upper Hutt, achieves back-to-back No 1 singles as Montego Bay bumps Jezebel from the top of the New Zealand charts. 1995 – Pope John Paul II begins a visit to Australia.

1996 – Lisa Marie Presley-Jackson files for divorce from Michael Jackson. 2005 – Airbus launches the A380, capable of carrying up to 800 passengers.

2007 – A woman who had disappeared as a child 19 years earlier is found in the jungles of northeastern Cambodia.

2012 – Italians tally 11 dead, 21 missing from the Costa Concordia cruise ship disaster.

2015 – A record six million people attend a Mass celebrated by Pope Francis in the Philippine capital Manila;

AB de Villiers, of South Africa, makes the fastest century in ODI cricket, from 31 balls, against the West Indies.

2016 – The world’s 62 richest people are now as wealthy as half the world’s population, according to a report published by Oxfam.

Birthdays

A A Milne, UK author (1882-1956); Oliver Hardy, US actor (1892-1957); Cary Grant, UK-born actor (1904-86); Sir Eddie Durie, NZ judge (1940-); Paul Keating, Australian politician (1944-); Kevin Costner, US actor (1955-); Pep Guardiola, Spanish football coach (1971-); Angelique Kerber, German tennis player (1988-).