Today in History

1587 – England’s Queen Elizabeth I signs warrant for execution of Mary Queen of Scots.

1790 – First session of the US Supreme Court.

1842 – The Fifeshire arrives in Nelson with immigrants for the New Zealand Company’s first settlement in the South Island.

1861 – Texas secedes from the Union, precipitating the American Civil War.

1884 – First volume of the Oxford English Dictionary is published.

1896 – La Boheme, by Giacomo Puccini, premieres in Turin, Italy. 1908 – Portugal’s King Carlos I and son Luis Filipe are murdered in Lisbon. Manuel II becomes king.

1943 – Japnaese begin evacuation of Guadalcanal.

1959 – Swiss referendum rejects female suffrage in federal elections.

1963 – Nyasaland (now Malawi) becomes self-governing.

1965 –Martin Luther King, left, and 700 civil rights demonstrators are arrested in Selma, Alabama.

1966 – Death of US comedy film actor and director Buster Keaton. 1978 – Harriet Tubman becomes the first African American woman to appear on a US postage stamp.

1979 – Ayatollah Khomeini returns to Iran after 15 years in exile.

1981 – Trevor Chappell bowls underarm, right, to protect Australia’s lead in a one-day international against New Zealand in Melbourne.

1991 – South African President FW de Klerk announces he will scrap all remaining apartheid laws.

2003 – The space shuttle Columbia breaks up while entering the atmosphere over Texas, killing all seven crew members on board.

Birthdays

John Ford, US film director (1895-1973); Anastasio Somoza, Nicaraguan dictator (1896-1956); Clark Gable, US actor (1901-60); Muriel Spark, UK novelist (1918-2006); Boris Yeltsin, Russian politician (1931-2007); Ray Sawyer, US singer, Dr Hook (1937-2018); Terry Jones, UK comedian (1942-2020); Peter Fulton, NZ cricketer (1979-); Ronda Rousey, US mixed martial arts fighter (1987-); Harry Styles, UK pop singer (1994-).