Today in history
1104 – The Seljuq Turks capture Baldwin of Bourg, First Crusade leader. He is ransomed in 1108 and later becomes king of Jerusalem.
1663 – Opening of London’s Drury Lane Theatre, the oldest English theatre still in use.
1824 – Premiere in Vienna of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.
1846 – Sixty people, including the paramount chief of Ngāti Tūwharetoa, die in a landslide at Te Rapa.
1856 – Henry Sewell becomes the first premier of New Zealand.
1867 – Alfred Nobel patents dynamite. 1888 – Anti-Chinese hysteria in Dunedin sees a public meeting call for a ban on Chinese immigrants.
1915 – Nearly 1200 people die when a German torpedo sinks British liner Lusitania off the Irish coast.
1928 – the minimum voting age for British women is lowered from 30 to 21 — the same age as men.
1939 – Germany and Italy announce a military and political alliance known as the Rome-Berlin Axis.
1941 – Glenn Miller and His Orchestra record Chattanooga Choo Choo.
1945 – Germany signs an unconditional surrender at Allied headquarters in Rheims, France, ending WorldWar II in Europe.
1954 – Vietnamese forces overrun Dien Bien Phu, held by the French. A resulting ceasefire divides the country into North and South.
1975 – US President Gerald Ford declares an end to the ‘‘Vietnam era’’. Viet Cong celebrate takeover of Ho Chi Minh City.
1994 – EdvardMunch’s The Scream is recovered by Norwegian police, almost three months after it was stolen from amuseum in Oslo.
2009 – Gunman Jan Molenaar holes up in his Napier home after shooting three policemen and another man.
2015 – Britain’s Conservative Party, under David Cameron, wins a general election with an outright majority.
2017 – Emmanuel Macron wins France’s presidential election, defeating far-right rival Marine Le Pen.
2020 – Authorities in the US state of Georgia arrest a white father and son and charge them with murder after the February shooting death of Ahmaud Arbery, a Black man they had pursued in a truck after spotting him jogging in their neighbourhood.
2021 – A federal grand jury indicts four former Minneapolis police officers involved in George Floyd’s arrest and death.
Robert Browning, UK poet (1812-89); Johannes Brahms, German composer (1833-97); Pyotr Tchaikovsky, Russian composer (1840-93); Josip Broz Tito, Yugoslav president (1892-1980); Gary Cooper, US actor (1901-61); Eva Peron, Argentine leader (1919-52); Steve Hansen, All Blacks coach (1959-); Andrew Little, NZ politician (1965-); Stacey Jones, NZ league player (1976-).