Today in History

1807 – US Embargo Act takes effect, banning trade with Britain, France and the rest of the world.

1808 – Ludwig van Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony is premiered in Vienna.

1895 – First X-ray, of the bones of a woman’s hands, is made by William Conrad Roentgen in Germany.

1916 – Future NZ prime minister Peter Fraser is charged with sedition, after a speech attacking policy of military conscription. Convicted, he serves a year in prison.

1943 – Death of British author

Beatrix Potter, left.

1968 – Eighty-two crewmen of US intelligence ship Pueblo are released by North Korea, 11 months after their capture off North Korea.

1975 – Pro-Palestinian terrorists end 20-hour siege of headquarters of Opec in Vienna, take hostages and airliner, and begin flight to several Middle East capitals.

1987 – Zimbabwe Prime Minister Robert Mugabe and chief opposition leader Joshua Nkomo sign an agreement to unite their political parties and establish a one-party Marxist-Leninist state.

1989 – Romanian Communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu is overthrown in a revolution after 24 years in power.

1993 – South Africa’s white parliament buries apartheid, voting 237 to 45 to adopt an interim constitution leading to majority rule and the first all-race election.

1994 – Italy’s Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi resigns after his government is toppled by a mutiny by the

Northern League coalition party. 2003 – Roman Catholic archdiocese of Boston, Massachusetts, pays US$85 million to 542 plaintiffs who agreed to a sexual abuse settlement.

Birthdays

Giacomo Puccini, Italian composer (1858-1924); Diane Sawyer, US broadcast journalist (1945-); Robin and Maurice Gibb, English-born pop singers (1949-2012 and 1949-2003, respectively); Ralph Fiennes, English actor (1962-); Josh Junior, NZ America’s Cup sailor (1989-).