TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY is Wednesday, January 13, the 13th day of 2021. There are 352 days left in the year. Highlights in history on this date:

1419 — An English force captures the French city of Rouen.

1547 — Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, is sentenced to death for treason, on the grounds of having quartered his coat of arms to make them similar to those of the King, Henry VIII of England.

1822 — The design of the Greek flag is adopted by the First National Assembly of Epidaurus.

1838 — The first Catholic mass is held by Bishop Pompallier at his Totara Point home in Hokianga, and in baptising Catherine Poynton, he performs the first Catholic baptism.

1840 — The steamship Lexington burns and sinks four miles off the coast of Long Island with the loss of 139 lives.

1842 — At the end of an attempted retreat from Kabul, the remaining survivors from a British force of about 5000 men commanded by Major General Sir William Elphinstone and 12,000 civilians are massacred in the Khyber Pass by Afghan tribesmen. Dr William Brydon, an assistant surgeon, is the sole survivor.

1849 — British forces retreat at the Battle of Chillianwala in the Second AngloSikh War.

1866 — The Synod of Otago and Southland holds its first meeting.

1890 — ‘‘Torpedo’’ Billy Murphy becomes the first New Zealander to win a world title in professional boxing when he wins the world featherweight boxing championship in a bout in San Francisco against Ike Weir. Murphy held the title for less than a year.

1893 — Britain’s Independent Labour Party, the precursor to the current Labour Party, holds its first meeting.

1898 — Emile Zola’s famous defence of Captain Alfred Dreyfus, J’Accuse, is published in Paris.

1908 — The Rhoads Opera House in Boyertown, Pennsylvania, catches fire when a kerosene lamp being used for stage lighting is knocked over during a stage play, resulting in the deaths of 171 people.

1910 — New York’s Metropolitan Opera takes part in the first live radio broadcast of opera, presenting Cavalleria Rusticana and Pagliacci.

1915 — The town of Avezzano in central Italy is struck by an earthquake which kills 30,000 people.

1920 — Up to 42 people are killed and about 100 others are injured during a demonstration in front of the Reichstag building in Berlin, in what is the bloodiest

demonstration in German history.

1939 — Seventyone people die in Black Friday bushfires in Victoria; Melbourne reaches a record 45.6degC.

1942 — Henry Ford patents a plastic automobile, which is 30% lighter than a regular car; an aircraft ejection seat is used for the first time by a German test pilot flying a Heinkel He 280 jet fighter.

1950 — The British submarine HMS Truculent collides with an oil tanker in the Thames Estuary, resulting in the deaths of 64 men; Finland establishes diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China.

1951 — The Battle of Vinh Yen, a major engagement in the First Indochina War, begins.

1953 — An article appears in Pravda accusing prominent doctors, mostly Jews, in the Soviet Union, of taking part in a vast plot to poison members of the top Soviet political and military leadership.

1963 — The West African Republic of Togo’s President Sylvanus Olympio is murdered by Sgt Gnassingbe Eyadema in a military coup.

1964 — AntiMuslim riots break out in Calcutta, resulting in 100 deaths.

1967 — Lieutenantcolonel Gnassingbe Eyadema seizes power in Togo in a bloodless coup.

1968 — Johnny Cash performs live at Folsom State Prison.

1982 — An Air Florida 737 taking off in a snowstorm crashes into a Washington bridge and falls into the Potomac River, killing 78 people.

1985 — A passenger train plunges into a ravine in Ethiopia, resulting in the deaths of 428 people in the worst rail disaster in Africa.

1988 — Lee Tenghui becomes the first native Taiwanese president of the Republic of China.

1989 — Computers across Britain are hit by the Friday the 13th virus.

1990 — Salvadorian president Alfredo Cristiani announces the arrest of four police officers and four soldiers in the slayings of six Jesuit priests.

1992 — Japan apologises for forcing tens of thousands of Korean women to serve as sex slaves for its soldiers during World War 2.

1994 — Italian premier Carlo Ciampi resigns, opening the way for parliamentary elections to oust the scandalscarred parties that have dominated Italy for five decades.

1998 — Protesting against homophobia, Alfredo Ormando sets himself on fire in front of St Peter's Basilica in the Vatican City.

1999 — Brazil’s central banker unexpectedly resigns and his successor devalues the currency by 8%, stirring up world financial markets.

2001 — An earthquake measuring 7.6 on the Richter scale strikes El Salvador, killing more than 840 people.

2003 — The Ivory Coast’s two western rebel groups, Movement for Justice and Peace and the Ivorian Popular Movement of the Greater West, sign a truce with the Government and agree to participate in peace talks.

2005 — Mark Thatcher, the son of former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, pleads guilty to helping bankroll a botched coup plot in Equatorial Guinea.

2007 — Ten former members of the Nazi SS receive life sentences for their part in the 1944 slaughter of more than 700 people near Bologna.

2008 — Australian kayakers James Castrission (25) and Justin Jones (24) become the first people to paddle their way across the Tasman Sea between Australia and New Zealand when they arrive at Ngamotu Beach, New Plymouth. Their journey from Forster, New South Wales, took 60 days, 20 hours, 50 minutes.

2012 — The passenger cruise ship Costa Concordia sinks off the coast of Italy due to the captain’s negligence. There are 32 confirmed deaths.

2018 — A false emergency alert warning of an impending missile strike in Hawaii causes widespread panic.

Today’s birthdays:

Anne Maria Chapman, New Zealand Anglican missionary (17911855); Thomas Hickman, New Zealand policeman (18481930); Hone Heke Rankin, New Zealand tribal leader (18961964); Sholto Kairakau Black, New Zealand community leader (19021963); Tui Mayo, New Zealand nurse/local politician (19051993); Sir Joh BjelkePetersen, New Zealandborn former Queensland premier (19112005); Doris Strachan, New Zealand track and field athlete (19171974); Sir Brian Gerald BarrattBoyes, New Zealand heart surgeon (19242006); James Beal, New Zealand boxer (19291996); Michael Selby, New Zealand geomorphologist (19362018); Richard Moll, US actor (1943); Noel Mills, New Zealand rower (19442004); Brian Newth, New Zealand modern pentathlete (1947); Nigel Cox, New Zealand author (19512006); Bob Parker, New Zealand mayor (1953); John McConnochie, New Zealand swimmer (1954); Janet Hubert, US actress (1956); Scott Kendall, New Zealand alpine skier (1959); Julia LouisDreyfus, US actress (1961); Graham ‘‘Suggs’’ McPherson, English singer (1961); Campbell Cooley, New Zealand actor (1966); Patrick Dempsey, US actor (1966); Kellie Kiwi, Black Fern (1972); Nicole Eggert, US actress (1972); Bic Runga, New Zealand singer (1976); Orlando Bloom, English actor (1977); Jill Wagner, US actress (1979); Sarah

Macky, New Zealand sailor (1980); Sara Clapham, New Zealand footballer (1985); Yulia, New Zealand singer (1986); Sam Cane, All Black (1992).

Quote of the day:

’’You have to love the doing of what you're doing and not wait for the phone to ring.’’ — Robert Stack, US actor, who was born on this day in 1919. He died in 2003, aged 84.