Today in History

1676 – Theodore III becomes tsar of Russia on death of his father Alexis.

1820 – George III of Britain dies. 1840 – First governor of New Zealand, William Hobson, right, arrives in the Bay of Islands.

1842 – Auckland hosts its first Anniversary Day regatta, although the races don’t become an annual fixture until 1850.

1845 – Edgar Allan Poe’s poem The

Raven is first published in the New

York Evening Mirror.

1856 – The Victoria Cross is established, for valour in the face of an enemy.

1886 – Karl Benz patents the first automobile with an internal combustion engine.

1892 – The Coca-Cola Company is incorporated in Atlanta, Georgia.

1900 – The American League, consisting of eight baseball teams, is organised in Philadelphia.

1916 – Germans stage first Zeppelin raid on Paris in World War I. 1942 – First broadcast of BBC radio show Desert Island Discs, which continues to air weekly.

1943 – The New Zealand cruiser Kiwi collides with Japanese submarine I-1 at Guadalcanal.

1963 – Britain is refused entry into European Common Market by French veto.

1992 – Russian President Boris Yeltsin unveils a nuclear weapons reduction plan.

1996 – La Fenice, a 204-year-old opera house, burns down in Venice, Italy; French President Jacques Chirac announces France will no longer test nuclear weapons.

2004 – New Zealand writer Janet Frame dies in Dunedin, aged 79.

Birthdays

Thomas Paine, UK-born political activist (1737-1809); William McKinley, US president (1843-1901); Ronald Hugh Morrieson, NZ writer (1922-72); Germaine Greer, Australian writer (1943-); Tom Selleck, US actor (1945-); Ron Mark, NZ politician (1954-); Oprah Winfrey, US television host (1954-).