Today in History
1605 – Russia’s teenaged Tsar Theodore (or Fyodor) II is assassinated in a palace coup.
1756 – Scores of British prisoners are imprisoned in a dungeon known as the ‘‘Black Hole of Calcutta’’, where all but 21 die from suffocation and heat exhaustion.
1789 – French assemblymen representing the common people vow not to leave the tennis court where they meet until a constitution is drawn up, signalling the start of French Revolution.
1791 – Louis XVI of France attempts to flee in the so-called Flight to Varennes, but is caught.
1837 – Queen Victoria succeeds to the British throne, aged 18, on the death of her uncle, William IV.
1840 – Samuel Morse patents his telegraph. 1900 – The Boxer Rebellion, in which Chinese nationalists kill several Westerners and besiege foreign legations, begins in Beijing.
1943 – Ten United States Navy personnel drown off Paeka¯ka¯riki, north of Wellington, during a training exercise in bad weather.
1947 – Benjamin ‘‘Bugsy’’ Siegel is shot dead at the Beverly Hills mansion of his girlfriend, Virginia Hill, on the orders of mob associates.
1963 – The US and the Soviet Union agree to establish a nuclear ‘‘hotline’’ between their nations.
1967 – Champion boxer Muhammad Ali, left, is sentenced to five years by a jury in Houston for refusing to be drafted.
1973 – Juan Peron returns to Argentina after an 18-year exile.
1975 – Jaws is released in US cinemas.
1987 – The All Blacks win the inaugural Rugby World Cup, beating France 29-9 at Eden Park.
1991 – German parliamentarians narrowly vote to return the reunified country’s seat of power from Bonn to Berlin.
1992 – Czech leader Vaclav Klaus and Slovak leader Vladimir Meciar agree to split Czechoslovakia in two.
1994 – US athlete OJ Simpson pleads not guilty
to charges of murdering his ex-wife and her friend.
2005 – Death aged 81 of Jack Kilby, inventor of the integrated circuit, the basis of the computer chip revolution.
2011 – John Key delivers the first speech by a New Zealand prime minister to Australia’s federal parliament.
2017 – US golfer Tiger Woods checks into a clinic to manage his pain medication and sleep disorder, after his arrest for drink-driving; actor Daniel Day-Lewis announces his retirement.