Today in History

1531 – Earthquake in Portugal kills tens of thousands and flattens much of Lisbon and other cities.

1797 – Bank of England issues first £1 note.

1815 – Napoleon Bonaparte and his supporters leave Elba to start a 100 day re-conquest of France.

1844 – William Brewer, a Wellington lawyer, suffers fatal injuries after being shot in a duel with another lawyer, H Ross. The case prompts calls for duelling to be outlawed.

1863 – Abraham Lincoln signs National Currency Act, establishing a single national US currency. 1885 – Berlin Conference gives Congo to Belgium and Nigeria to Britain. 1891 – Hedda Gabler ,by Henrik Ibsen, left, premieres in Oslo. 1918 – German planes bomb Venice during World War I.

1936 – Military coup in Japan replaces Koki Hirota as premier. 1951 – The 22nd Amendment to the US Constitution, limiting a president to two terms of office, is ratified.

1952 – Winston Churchill announces that Britain has produced its own atomic bomb.

1982 – Martin Crowe makes his test cricket debut for New Zealand v Australia in Wellington.

1983 – Michael Jackson’s Thriller album hits No 1 in the US, and stays there for 37 weeks.

1993 – A bomb at the World Trade Centre in New York kills six people and injures hundreds of others.

2001 – The Taliban destroys two giant Buddha statues in Bamiyan, Afghanistan.

Birthdays

Victor Hugo, French author (1802-85); William F Cody (Buffalo Bill), US frontier scout (1846-1917); Antoine ‘‘Fats’’ Domino, US musician (1928-2017); Ariel Sharon, Israeli politician (1928-2014); Johnny Cash, US musician (1932-2003); Helen Clark, NZ politician (1950-); Michael Bolton, US singer (1953-); Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, Norwegian football coach (1973-).