Today in History

1586 – Elizabeth I confirms the death sentence for Mary, Queen of Scots, right.

1791 – The Observer, the world’s first Sunday newspaper, is published in Britain.

1829 – British authorities in India outlaw suttee, by which widows burned themselves to death on their husbands’ funeral pyres.

1872 – A British ship finds the American-flagged Mary Celeste sailing erratically in the Atlantic. Its stores and supplies are untouched, and not a soul is on board.

1877 – Thomas Edison invents the phonograph.

1952 – Heavy smog begins to hover over London. It persists for five days, leading to the deaths of at least 4000 people.

1966 – Pirate radio station Radio Hauraki has its first scheduled transmission, from a ship in the Colville Channel, to circumvent state regulation of the airwaves.

1991 –American journalist Terry

Anderson is freed by Muslim captors in Lebanon after nearly seven years as a hostage.

1992 – US President George HW Bush orders more than 28,000 American troops to lead a mercy mission to Somalia.

1996 – Nasa launches a spacecraft to Mars carrying the first interplanetary rover.

2002 – Indonesian police arrest Muslim cleric Ali Ghufron, also known as Mukhlas, suspected of masterminding the Bali bombing that killed nearly 200 people.

2006 – Fiji military chief Voreqe Bainimarama leads the country’s latest coup.

2009 – US student Amanda Knox is convicted of murdering flatmate Meredith Kercher in Italy. Her conviction is overturned in 2011.

Birthdays

Francisco Franco, Spanish dictator (1892-1975); Sir Mason Durie, NZ academic (1938-); Pamela Stephenson, NZ-born actor (1949-); Jay-Z, US rapper (1969-); Tyra Banks, US model (1973-).