Today in History

1349 - Up to 3000 Jews are killed in Black Death riots in Erfurt, Germany.

1556 - The Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, is burnt at the stake as a heretic.

1918 - The Second Battle of the Somme, the last German offensive in World War I, begins.

1919 - The Soviet Republic is proclaimed.

1943 - An assassination attempt on Nazi leader Adolf Hitler fails.

1960 - Seventy people are killed and more than 180 wounded when South African police fire on a black demonstration at Sharpeville.

1961 - The Beatles’ first appearance at the

Cavern Club in Liverpool.

1963 - Alcatraz Prison in San Francisco Bay is closed.

1965 - Martin Luther King and more than 3000 demonstrators begin a march from Selma, Alabama, to Montgomery, the state capital, in favour of voting rights.

1980 - US President Jimmy Carter announces the US will boycott the Moscow Olympics.

1994 - Anna Paquin, aged 11, becomes the first New Zealander to win an acting Oscar, as best supporting actress in Jane Campion’s The Piano.

2003 - Race Relations Day is formally observed for the first time in New Zealand.

The date marks the 1960 Sharpeville massacre.

2006 - Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey sends first tweet, which reads “just setting up my twttr”.

2018 - Facebook admits it “made mistakes” after data on 50 million users is harvested by Cambridge Analytica.

Birthdays

Sir Bernard Freyberg, UK/NZ soldier, governor-general (1889-1963); Margaret Mahy, NZ writer (1936-2012); Gary Oldman, UK actor (1958-); Ayrton Senna, Brazilian racing driver (1960-94); Rhys Darby, NZ actor (1974-).