Today in History

1611 – Englishman Henry Hudson, who tried to find a route from Europe to Asia via the Arctic Ocean, is set adrift in Hudson Bay by mutineers and never seen again.

1868 – American inventor Christopher Latham Sholes awarded patent for a ‘‘type-writer’’.

1951 – UK diplomats and Soviet spies Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean are revealed to have fled to the USSR.

1961 – Antarctic Treaty, agreed to by NZ and 11 other participating states, comes into force.

1972 – US President Richard Nixon, left, and White House chief of staff HR Haldeman discuss a plan to use the CIA to obstruct the FBI’s Watergate investigation.

1973 – The International Court of Justice rules that France must stop nuclear testing in the Pacific. France ignores the ruling but later moves the tests underground.

1985 – All 329 people on an Air India flight from Toronto to Bombay die when it crashes into the Atlantic Ocean.

1992 – Mafia godfather John Gotti is sentenced to life in prison.

1995 – Death of Jonas Salk, developer of the first polio vaccine.

2013 – US intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, who leaked information on spying by the US, gets temporary asylum in Moscow.

2016 – UK votes to leave the EU in the ‘‘Brexit’’ referendum.

2018 – Twelve Thai youth soccer players and coach are trapped in a cave. They are later rescued.

Birthdays

Josephine, French empress and wife of Napoleon Bonaparte (1763-1814); Edward VIII (1894-1972); Alan Turing, UK computer scientist, mathematician (1912-54); June Carter Cash, US country singer (1929-2003); Bob Blair, NZ cricketer (1932-); Frances McDormand, US actor (1957-); Colin Montgomerie, Scottish golfer (1963-); Zinedine Zidane, French footballer/coach (1972-); Kris Faafoi, NZ politician (1976-); Lisa Carrington, NZ canoeist (1989-).