Today in History

1570 – England’s Queen Elizabeth I is excommunicated by Pope Pius V. 1836 – Samuel Colt patents first multi-shot revolving-cylinder revolver.

1926 – Francisco Franco becomes Spain’s youngest general at 33. 1932 – Austrian-born Adolf Hitler gets German citizenship.

1943 – Forty-eight Japanese prisoners of war and one guard are killed in a riot at a POW camp in the Featherston, Wairarapa.

1948 – Communists take power in Czechoslovakia.

1954 – Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser usurps power as premier of Egypt.

1956 – Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev denounces Josef Stalin, beginning the ‘‘deStalinisation’’ movement.

1964 – Muhammad Ali, left, (then Cassius Clay) knocks out Sonny Liston to become world heavyweight boxing champion for the first time.

1975 – NZ batsman Ewen Chatfield is flattened by a ball from England’s Peter Lever and is seriously injured.

1986 – Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos and his entourage are airlifted from the presidential palace in Manila by US helicopters in the face of public demonstrations.

1991 – Iraqi President Saddam Hussein orders his forces, under attack by allied ground troops, to withdraw from Kuwait.

1992 – Imelda Marcos accepts Philippine government conditions for returning her husband’s body.

2005 – Argentina completes the biggest debt restructuring in history.

Birthdays

Jose de San Martin, Argentine independence hero (1778-1850); Pierre Auguste Renoir, French artist (1841-1919); Enrico Caruso, Italian opera singer (1873-1921); Herbert ‘‘Zeppo’’ Marx, US comedian (1901-79); George Harrison, UK musician (1943-2001); Tom Courtenay, UK actor (1937-); Benji Marshall, NZ league player (1985-).