Today in History

1400 –Geoffrey Chaucer, English poet best known for his unfinished Canterbury Tales, dies.

1586 – Death sentence pronounced against Mary Queen of Scots. 1874 – Britain annexes Fiji islands. 1922 – Fascists march on Rome. Italian king nominates Benito Mussolini, right, prime minister. 1936 – Germany and Italy form Rome-Berlin Axis.

1949 – Intellectually Handicapped Children’s Parents’ Association, the forerunner to the IHC, is formed at a meeting in Wellington.

1971 – NZ’s scheduled steamhauled train services end.

1976 - Transkei becomes the first of South Africa’s black homelands to be given its independence.

1989 - Soviet State Bank announces rouble will be devalued by nearly 90 per cent for tourists and businessmen.

1995 - Israeli troops start Israel’s pullout from Jenin, West Bank, the first Palestinian city under the Israel- PLO autonomy agreement. 1999 - Israel opens a land link between the West Bank and Gaza Strip, taking Palestinians a step closer to statehood. The so-called safe passage will allow Palestinians to travel between the autonomous areas – in which they hope to establish an independent state. 2001 - The US House of Representatives approves legislation that will give law enforcement and intelligence agencies broader powers to investigate suspected terrorists. 2012 - Authorities announce that 300 potential victims had come forward with accusations against Jimmy Savile, one of the BBC’s most popular children’s entertainers, and that others might have acted with him.

Birthdays

Thomas Macauley, British historian (1800-1859); Pablo Picasso, Spanish artist (1881-1973); Antony Starr, New Zealand actor (1975-); Katy Perry, American singer (1984-).