Today in History

399BC – Reputed date for the death sentence passed on philosopher Socrates by the city of Athens for corrupting the minds of the youth, and for impiety. He accepts the sentence, and drinks poison.

1879 – United States President Rutherford Hayes signs a bill allowing female lawyers to argue cases before the Supreme Court.

1882 – First shipment of frozen mutton leaves New Zealand for England aboard SS Dunedin, arriving on May 25.

1922 – Marconi begins regular broadcasting transmissions from Essex, UK.

1936 – Adolf Hitler announces the construction of the Volkswagen Beetle (the People’s Car), left.

1942 – Singapore surrenders to Japanese forces in World War II.

1944 – US troops complete reconquest of Solomon Islands in Pacific Ocean in World War Two; nearly 1000 British bombers pound Berlin, Germany; monastery at Monte Cassino in Italy is bombed by Allied aircraft.

1961 – Entire 18-member US figure skating team, en route to world championships in Prague, among 72 killed in a plane crash in Berg-Kampenhout, Belgium.

1965 – A new national flag, featuring a red maple leaf, is raised over Parliament Hill in Ottawa for the first time, following a formal proclamation from the Queen.

1971 – Britain changes over to decimal currency.

1978 – New Zealand beat England in a cricket test for the first time, after 48 years, ushering joyous scenes at the Basin Reserve.

1988 – Austrian President Kurt Waldheim, accused of having a Nazi past, flatly rejects widespread calls for his resignation.

1989 – The last Soviet soldier leaves Afghanistan after a 10-year occupation that failed to quell a Muslim insurgency.

1990 – Britain and Argentina restore diplomatic relations, broken off during the 1982 Falkland Islands War.

2003 – More than six million protesters against the war in Iraq take to the streets in 600 towns and cities across the world.

2011 – Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi is ordered to stand trial on charges he paid a 17-year-old Moroccan girl for sex and then used his influence to cover it up.

2012 – A fire started by an inmate tears through an overcrowded prison in Honduras, killing as many as 300 people.

2013 – A meteor blazes across the western Siberian sky and explodes with the force of 20 atomic bombs, injuring more than 1000 people in the city of Chelyabinsk.

Birthdays

Galileo Galilei, Italian astronomer (1564-1642); Louis XV, king of France (1710-1774); Ernest Shackleton, Irish explorer (1874-1922); Jane Seymour, UK-born actress (1951-); Matt Groening, US creator of The Simpsons

(1954-); Elizabeth Knox, NZ author (1959-); Jock Hobbs, All Black/NZ Rugby Union chairman (1960-2012); Urzila Carlson, South African-born NZ comedian (1976-).