Today in History

1270 – The eighth and last Crusade is launched.

1865 – New Zealand’s Native Land Court is established, making it easier to convert Ma¯ori-owned land from communal title to individual title for sale.

1888 – In London, Jack the Ripper murders his last victim.

1918 – Czechoslovakia proclaimed an independent republic.

1918 – A 240,000-signature petition demanding an end to the manufacture and sale of alcohol in New Zealand gets to Parliament.

1928 – Experimental transmission of still photographs by television begins in Britain.

1938 – US radio play The War of

the Worlds, starring Orson Welles, airs. The live drama, which employed fake news reports, panicked listeners who thought its portrayal of a Martian invasion was true.

1974 – Muhammad Ali, left,

knocks out George Foreman in the eighth round of a 15-round bout in Kinshasa, Zaire, to regain his world heavyweight title.

1994 – Gerry Adams, leader of Irish Republican Army’s political ally Sinn Fein, says he is willing to accept a compromise that falls short of uniting Northern Ireland with the Irish Republic.

1998 – High-profile New Zealand decathlete Simon Poelman is sent to prison for drug smuggling.

2005 – TVNZ chief executive Ian Fraser resigns, blaming political interference over high salaries in the broadcaster’s news division.

2008 – A US federal jury convicts Charles McArthur Emmanuel, the son of former Liberian President Charles Taylor, in the first case brought under a 1994 US law allowing prosecution for torture and atrocities committed overseas.

2012 – Sandy, the worst storm in decades to strike the US East Coast, floods New York’s subway, kills at least 182 people and causes $65 billion damage.

Birthdays

Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Irish author-politician (1751-1816); Ezra Pound, US poet (1885-1972); Diego Maradona, Argentine soccer star (1960- ).