Today in history
1542 - Scots under King James V are routed by Britain at Battle of Solway Moss.
1783 - The British evacuate New York, their last military position in the United States during the Revolutionary War.
1903 - Timaru boxer Bob Fitzsimmons becomes the first man to be world boxing champion in three different weight divisions.
1952 - The world’s longest-running play, Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap, opens in London.
1967 - More than 65 people die in Colombian town after eating bread contaminated by insecticide.
1986 - The Iran-contra affair erupts as US President Ronald Reagan and Attorney General Edwin Meese reveals that profits from secret arms sales to Iran had been diverted to Nicaraguan rebels.
1991 - President Mikhail Gorbachev’s efforts to hold the Soviet Union together suffer a setback when seven republics fail to initial the proposed Union Treaty.
1992 - Representatives of 93 nations agree to speed efforts to phase out the production and use of chemicals that damage the Earth’s ozone layer. Under the agreement, industrialised nations will move up their deadlines for eliminating some harmful chemicals.
1997 - A former member of Winnie Madikizela-mandela’s entourage testifies before the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission that he saw her stab a young activist to death.
1998 - President Jiang Zemin arrives in Tokyo for the first visit to Japan by a Chinese head of state since World War II.
2005 - An Austrian court rules that British historian David Irving must remain in custody on Holocaust denial charges despite his assertion that he now acknowledges the existence of Nazi-era gas chambers.
2006 - Lebanon’s Us-backed government approves the creation of an international tribunal to try suspects in the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
2007 - Pakistan’s exiled former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif returns home to a hero’s welcome and calls on President General Pervez Musharraf to end emergency rule before elections.
2008 - Flights in and out of Bangkok, Thailand, are grounded when anti-government demonstrators occupy Suvarnabhumi international airport.
2012 - Fire races through a garment factory in Bangladesh that supplies major retailers in the West, killing at least 112 people, many of whom were trapped.
Today’s birthdays:
Joe Dimaggio, US baseball player (1914-1999); Amy Grant, US singer (1960-); Christina Applegate, US actress (1971-).