Today in History

1831 – Naturalist Charles Darwin sets out on a voyage to the Pacific aboard the HMS Beagle.

1907 – The play Peter Pan , by JM Barrie, right, opens in London. 1927 – Joseph Stalin’s faction wins at All-Union Congress in Soviet Union, and Leon Trotsky is expelled from the Communist Party.

1944 – Soviet forces surround Budapest; US forces smash across the German Bulge in Belgium and relieve US troops under siege at Bastogne.

1949 – The Netherlands’ Queen Juliana grants Indonesia sovereignty after more than three centuries of Dutch rule.

1972 – Australia halts military aid to South Vietnam, ending its involvement in the Vietnam War.

1979 – Soviet forces seize control of Afghanistan. President Hafizullah Amin is overthrown and executed.

1985 – American naturalist Dian Fossey, who studied gorillas in the wild, is found hacked to death at a research station in Rwanda.

1987 – Death of New Zealander Rewi Alley, aged 90, who had become well-known for his efforts promoting relationships with China.

2007 – Pakistan opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, 54, is assassinated at a campaign rally.

2008 – International aid agencies warn Zimbabwe’s humanitarian crisis is deepening, with a sharp rise in acute child malnutrition and a worsening cholera epidemic.

2011 – Surprised airport workers in Argentina find hundreds of poisonous snakes and endangered reptiles in the baggage of a Czech man who was about to board an international flight to Spain.

Birthdays

Johannes Kepler, German astronomer (1571-1630); Louis Pasteur, French chemist (1822-95); Marlene Dietrich, German actress/ singer (1901-92); Bill Manhire, NZ writer (1946-); Polly Toynbee, UK journalist (1946-); Gerard Depardieu, French actor (1948-); Dillon Boucher, NZ basketballer (1975-).