Today in history

Highlights in history on this date:

1494 – Forces of France’s King Charles VIII enter Rome.

1775 – The British repel an attack by Continental Army generals Richard Montgomery and Benedict Arnold at Quebec. Montgomery is killed.

1853 – Sir George Grey departs New Zealand, after completing his first term as governor.

1857 – Britain’s Queen Victoria decides to make Ottawa the capital of Canada.

1879 – US inventor Thomas Edison gives first demonstration of his electric incandescent light at Menlo Park, New Jersey.

1966 – United States says it will halt bombing of North Vietnam when Hanoi gives assurance that it will discuss peace terms seriously.

1974 – Private US citizens are allowed to buy and own gold for the first time in more than 40 years.

1988 – India and Pakistan agree not to attack each others’ nuclear facilities.

1991 – Representatives of North Korea and South Korea agree not to use nuclear weapons.

1993 – The teenage granddaughter of Cuban leader Fidel Castro arrives in the United States for a reunion with her mother, who defected from Cuba the previous week.

1997 – Hong Kong authorities finish up the slaughter of 1.3 million chickens and other fowl to prevent an outbreak of a deadly strain of bird flu in humans.

1998 – Eleven European nations usher in the New Year and the euro.

1999 – Russian President Boris Yeltsin announces his resignation.

2003 – The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that an outbreak of influenza reached epidemic levels in 45 states and has already killed at least 42 children.

2003 – Four climbers, including two of New Zealand’s leading mountain guides, Paul Scaife and David Hiddleston, are killed when their party is hit by an avalanche on Mt Tasman, in the Aoraki-mt Cook National Park.

2004 – Locked doors at a nightclub in Buenos Aires, Brazil, block or slow the exit of many concert-goers fighting to escape a fire that kills 186 people and injures hundreds.

2009 – A US judge dismisses all charges against five Blackwater Worldwide security guards accused of killing unarmed Iraqi civilians in a crowded Baghdad intersection in 2007.

Birthdays: Henri Matisse, French artist-sculptor (1869-1954); Anthony Hopkins, English actor (1937– ); Sarah Miles, British actress (1941– ); Ben Kingsley, British actor (1943– ); Donna Summer, US singer (1948-2012); Richie Mccaw, NZ rugby player (1980-).