Today in History

1793 – Queen Marie Antoinette is beheaded during the French Revolution.

1846 – American dentist William Morton demonstrates the effectiveness of ether as an anaesthetic by administering it to a patient undergoing jaw surgery.

1847 – Jane Eyre is first published, under Charlotte Bronte’s pseudonym, Currer Bell.

1916 – Margaret Sanger opens the first birth-control clinic in the United States, in New York City.

1934 – Chinese Communists under Mao Zedong begin the Long March – an epic trek of more than 9500 kilometres to escape Nationalist encirclement.

1936 – New Zealand aviator Jean

Batten, left, completes an 11-day, 45-minute solo flight from England to Auckland, becoming the first person to make the journey.

1964 – China detonates its first atomic bomb.

1968 – US athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos give the Black Power salute on the 200m medal podium at the Mexico City Olympics.

1978 – Cardinal Karol Wojtyla of Poland is chosen as pope. He takes the name John Paul II.

1998 – Former Chilean dictator General Augusto Pinochet is arrested in London on a Spanish warrant requesting his extradition on murder charges.

2013 – ACT MP and Cabinet minister John Banks resigns his ministerial roles after being ordered to stand trial for irregularities in his Auckland mayoralty election returns.

Birthdays

Oscar Wilde, Irish writer (1854-1900); David Ben-Gurion, Israeli prime minister (1886-1973); Eugene O’Neill, US playwright (1888-1953); Michael Collins, Irish independence leader (1890-1922); Angela Lansbury, actress (1925-); Tim Robbins, actor and director (1958-); Michael Venus, NZ tennis player (1987-).