Today in History

1657 – Parliament offers the English Crown to Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell. He declines.

1727 – Isaac Newton, the English physicist and mathematician, dies, aged 84.

1889 – The Eiffel Tower officially opens in Paris.

1910 – The Hocken Library opens at Otago Museum.

1939 – Britain and France pledge to support Poland if it is invaded. 1943 – Rodgers and Hammerstein musical Oklahoma! opens on Broadway in New York City.

1959 – The Dalai Lama, fleeing the Chinese suppression of an uprising in Tibet, crosses into India, where he is granted political asylum.

1967 – Auckland aviator Fred Ladd illegally flies his Widgeon amphibian aircraft under the harbour bridge. He is taken to court but discharged without conviction.

1968 – United States President Lyndon Johnson announces he will not seek re-election. 1980 – US track-and-field legend Jesse Owens, who won four gold medals at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, dies, aged 66.

1992 – UN Security Council votes to ban flights and arms sales to Libya, for shielding six men accused of blowing up a Pan Am flight over Lockerbie, Scotland.

2000 – Japan’s Mt Usu volcano erupts; 16,000 residents evacuate. 2003 – Bosnian Muslims gather near the town of Potocari to bury the first 600 victims of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre. An estimated 8000 Muslim men and boys were executed by Serb forces.

2004 – Google confirms reports it will introduce a free e-mail service called Gmail.

Birthdays

Rene Descartes, French philosopher (1596-1650); Johann Sebastian Bach, German composer (1685-1750); Franz Joseph Haydn, Austrian composer (1732-1809); Christopher Walken, US actor (1943-); Al Gore, US politician (1948-) Ewan McGregor, UK actor (1971-); Codie Taylor, All Black (1991-).