Today in History

1642 – Harvard College in Cambridge, Massachusetts, holds its first commencement ceremony. 1817 – Spain signs a treaty with Britain to end slave trade.

1846 – The planet Neptune, right, is discovered by German astronomer Johann Gottfried Galle. 1875 – Billy the Kid is arrested for the first time after stealing a basket of laundry. He later broke out of jail and roamed the American West, eventually earning a reputation as an outlaw and murderer.

1887 – The mountains of Tongariro in the central North Island are gifted to the Crown by Nga¯ti

Tu¯ wharetoa, forming the nucleus of the Tongariro National Park.

1957 – US President Dwight Eisenhower orders US troops to support integration of nine black students at Little Rock Central High School in Arkansas.

1973 – Juan Peron is elected for his third and final presidential term in Argentina.

1993 – The South African parliament approves a historic law giving blacks their first official say in the running of the country, authorising the creation of a transitional executive council before the first universal elections.

2005 – Simon Wiesenthal, who spent decades tracking down Nazis hiding throughout the world, is laid to rest in Israel.

2010 – The US delegation walks out of the UN speech by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad after he refers to speculation that Americans were behind the September 11 terror attacks, staged in an attempt to assure Israel’s survival.

Birthdays

Augustus Caesar, first Roman emperor (63BC-14AD); Haile Selassie I, emperor of Ethiopia (1892-1975); Ray Charles, US musician (1932-2004); Julio Iglesias, Spanish singer (1943-); Bruce Springsteen, US musician (1949-); Jonathan Coleman, NZ politician (1966-).