Today in History Birthdays

1755 – Samuel Johnson’s A Dictionary of the English Language is published in London.

1865 – US president Abraham Lincoln, right, dies from a bullet wound inflicted the night before by actor Johnwilkes Booth, a Confederate sympathiser.

1868 – First Ma¯ori MPS elected to four parliamentary seats established under the Ma¯ori Representation Act of 1867.

1874 – The first ‘‘Impressionist’’ exhibition opens in Paris, with works by Claudemonet, Edgar Degas, and Pierre Auguste Renoir.

1885 – Premier Robert Stout and Nga¯ti Maniapoto gather near Te Awamutu to turn the first sod of the North Island main trunk railway.

1912 – The ocean liner Titanic, carrying 2200 passengers and crew on its maiden voyage from Southampton to New York, sinks in the North Atlantic Ocean. More than 1500 people drown.

1942 – Britain’s King George VI awards the George Cross to the people of Malta, for their ‘‘heroism and devotion’’ in enduring a twoyear German and Italian siege.

2008 – Six students and a teacher from Elim Christian College in Auckland die in a flash flood while canyoning in the Mangatepopo Stream, in Tongariro National Park.

2013 – Two homemade bombs explode near the finish line of the Boston Marathon, killing three people and wounding hundreds.

2019 – Fire breaks out in the cathedral of Notre-dame de Paris, causing the collapse of its spire and the destruction ofmuch of its roof.

Henry IV, king of England (13671413); Leonardo da Vinci, Italian artist (1452-1519); Guru Nanak, Pakistani founder of Sikhism (14691539); Nikita Khrushchev, Soviet politician (1894-1971); Kimil-sung, North Korean politician (1912-94); John Bracewell, NZ cricketer (1958-); Emma Thompson, UK actor (1959-); Emmawatson, UK actor (1990-).