Today in History

1586 – Elizabeth I confirms death sentence against Mary, Queen of

Scots, right.

1872 – A British ship finds the American-flagged Mary Celeste sailing erratically but at full sail in the Atlantic Ocean. Its stores and supplies are untouched, and not a soul is on board.

1877 – Thomas Edison invents the phonograph.

1966 – Pirate radio station Radio Hauraki has its first scheduled transmission, from a ship in the Colville Channel, to circumvent state regulation of the airwaves.

1971 – Indian forces launch attacks in East Pakistan – now Bangladesh – and hit key airfields in West Pakistan, now Pakistan.

1991 – AP Middle East correspondent Terry Anderson is freed by Muslim captors in Lebanon after nearly seven years as a hostage.

1992 – US President George HW Bush orders more than 28,000 American troops to lead a mercy mission to Somalia.

1996 – Nasa launches a spacecraft to Mars carrying the first interplanetary rover, a six-wheeled cart that will roam the Martian surface in search of rocks.

2002 – Indonesian police arrest Muslim cleric Ali Ghufron, also known as Mukhlas, suspected of masterminding the Bali bombing that killed nearly 200 people.

2006 – Fiji military chief Voreqe Bainimarama leads the country’s latest coup, as troops take control away from Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase.

2009 – US student Amanda Knox convicted of murdering British flatmate Meredith Kercher. Her conviction is overturned in 2011.

Birthdays

Crazy Horse, Native American chief (1849-1877); Francisco Franco, Spanish dictator (1892-1975); Pamela Stephenson, NZ-born actress (1949-); Jay-Z, US rapper (1969-); Tyra Banks, US model (1973-).