Today in History

1497 – Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama leaves Lisbon in search of a sea route to India.

1776 – First public reading of the Declaration of Independence, outside the State House (now Independence Hall) in Philadelphia.

1889 – Journalist Charles Henry Dow publishes the first issue of The Wall Street Journal.

1893 – First meeting of the New Zealand Racing Conference, formed to control the thoroughbred horse-racing industry.

1918 – Ernest Hemingway, then an 18-year-old Red Cross ambulance driver, is wounded by a mortar shell while serving in Italy during World War I.

1951 – Paris celebrates what it claims to be its 2000th birthday.

1967 – Death of British stage and screen actress Vivien Leigh, left, best known for her award-winning role in Gone with the Wind.

1994 – OJ Simpson is ordered to stand trial on charges of murdering his ex-wife, Nicole, and Ronald Goldman; death of Kim Il Sung, leader of North Korea since 1948.

2003 – Ladan and Laleh Bijani, 29-year-old Iranian twins who were joined at the head, die in Singapore in a 54-hour operation after doctors fail to stop blood loss.

2017 – All Blacks draw 15-15 with the British and Irish Lions, to leave their three-match series tied 1-1.

2018 – Four boys are the first to be brought out of the Tham Luang cave in Thailand by rescuers.

2019 – US financier Jeffrey Epstein is charged with sex trafficking.

Birthdays

Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin, German airship inventor (18381917); John D Rockefeller, US oil tycoon (1839-1937); John Money, NZ psychologist, art collector (19212006); Waka Nathan, All Black (1940-2021); Kevin Bacon, US actor (1958-); Steve Gurney, NZ multisport athlete (1963-); Beck, US musician (1970-); Sourav Ganguly, Indian cricketer (1972-); Son Heungmin, Korean footballer (1992-).