ON THIS DAY

1852 French engineer Henri Giffard takes his steam-powered, hydrogenfilled airship on a maiden 27km flight from Paris.

1853 France annexes most of New Caledonia as a future penal colony. Violent resistance by inhabitants will continue until 1988.

1869 Panic hits the US sharemarket on ”Black Friday” over an attempt by speculators James Fisk and Jay Gould to corner the US gold market.

1877 Japan’s modern army crushes a rebellion by 40,000 feudal samurai warriors fighting for their traditional way of life. Three rebel chiefs commit suicide.

1890 The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints renounces polygamy.

1948 Soichiro Honda, a mechanical engineer who used to make piston rings, founds the Honda Motor Co in Japan to make motorcycles.

1960 The first nuclearpowered aircraft-carrier in the world, the USS Enterprise, is launched from Virginia.

1976 American newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst (pictured) is sentenced to seven years in prison for her part in a 1974 bank robbery.

1987 A British bid to ban Spycatcher, the memoirs of former MI5 agent Peter Wright, is rejected by the NSW Court of Appeal.