Today in History

1863 – Floods kill about 25 miners in Central Otago.

1865 – Parliament moves from Auckland to Wellington.

1908 – The Federal Bureau of Investigation is established.

1928 – Gisborne-born Tom Heeney fights Gene Tunney for the world heavyweight boxing title in New York. Tunney wins as referee stops the fight in the 11th round.

1941 – President Franklin

Roosevelt, left, appoints General Douglas MacArthur commander of US Forces in the Far East. He also freezes all Japanese assets in the US, virtually halting JapaneseAmerican trade.

1945 – Clement Attlee becomes British prime minister after Labour defeats Winston Churchill’s Conservatives.

1956 – Egypt’s President Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalises the Suez Canal, and Britain, France and US announce financial retaliation.

1965 – Maldive Islands, a British protectorate in the Indian Ocean, become independent.

1997 – KR Narayanan takes the oath of India’s presidency, the first member of the class once known as ‘‘untouchables’’ to do so.

2010 – A United Nations-backed tribunal sentences the Khmer Rouge’s chief jailer to 35 years in prison for overseeing the torture or execution of more than 15,000 people in Cambodia.

Birthdays

George Bernard Shaw, Irish writer

(1856-1950); Carl Jung, Swiss psychologist (1875-1961); Aldous Huxley, English author (1894-1963); Stanley Kubrick, US film director

(1928-1999); John Howard, Australian prime minister (1939-); Mick Jagger, English rock singer

(1943-); Helen Mirren, English actress (1945-); Kevin Spacey, US actor (1959-); Sandra Bullock, US actress (1964-); Jason Statham, English actor (1967-); Kate Beckinsale, English actress (1973-); Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand prime minister (1980-).