Today in History
1391 – Thousands of Jews are massacred in Seville, Spain.
1520 – England’s Henry VIII and France’s Francis I sign a treaty to end French interference in Scotland.
1654 – Sweden’s Queen Christina abdicates. She later moves to Rome and becomes a Catholic and an arts patron.
1683 – The first university museum, the Ashmolean, opens in Oxford, England.
1795 – Fire destroys about one-third of Copenhagen, capital of Denmark, leaving 18,000 people injured.
1815 – Mt Tambora, in present-day Indonesia, erupts in the most powerful volcanic event in recorded history.
1823 – New Zealand’s first Wesleyan mission is founded at Kaeo, Northland.
1833 – Andrew Jackson becomes the first US president to take a train ride, from Ellicott’s Mills in Maryland to Baltimore.
1844 – Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) is founded by George Williams in London.
1859 – Queensland is established as a separate colony from New South Wales. 1933 – The first drive-in movie theatre opens, in New Jersey.
1944 – Operation Overlord, the D-Day landing of Allied forces in Normandy, France, is launched.
1949 – George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-Four is published. 1965 – The Rolling Stones release (I Can’t Get
No) Satisfaction.
1972 – A coalmine explosion in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) kills 431 workers.
1975 – A United Kingdom referendum on whether to remain in the Common Market (forerunner of the European Union) is announced.
1981 – More than 500 passengers are killed when their train plunges into a river in India. The driver was trying to avoid a cow.
1982 – 30,000 Israeli troops invade Lebanon to drive out the PLO
1994 – West Indian cricketer Brian Lara, left, hits a record first-class score of 501 not out for Warwickshire against Durham.
1996 – New Zealand’s first wind farm, Hau Nui, in Wairarapa, becomes operational. 1998 – TV sitcom Sex and the City premieres in the US on HBO.
2013 – Whistleblower Edward Snowden reveals the extent of US domestic spying. 2017 – Indian writer Arundhati Roy releases her second novel, The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, 20 years after her first, The God of Small Things.
Birthdays
Diego Velazquez, Spanish artist (1599-1660); Alexander Pushkin, Russian poet (1799-1837); Robert Falcon Scott, UK explorer (1868-1912); Thomas Mann, German novelist (1875-1955); Precious McKenzie, NZ weightlifter (1936-); Bjorn Borg, Swedish tennis player (1956-); Grant Fox, All Black (1962-); Antonia Prebble, NZ actor (1984-); Gin Wigmore, NZ musician (1986-).