Today in History

1836 - Samuel Colt manufactures the first pistol, a 34-calibre “Texas” model.

1868 - United States Senate is organised into a court of impeachment to decide charges against President Andrew Johnson.

1924 - Frank Carauna becomes the first person to bowl consecutive perfect 300 games in 10-pin bowling.

1946 - Former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill delivers his famous “Iron Curtain” speech at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, in the US.

1953 - Soviet dictator Josef Stalin dies. Some 2000 people are crushed to death in the crowd during the funeral. 1971 - Stairway to Heaven by Led Zeppelin is played live for the first time, in Belfast.

1983 - Bob Hawke leads Labor to victory in the Australian general election, defeating the Liberals, led by Malcolm Fraser.

1997 - Representatives of North Korea and South Korea meet for the first time in 25 years, for peace talks in New York.

2005 - A team of US and Ethiopian scientists discovers the fossilised remains of what they believe is humankind’s first walking ancestor, a hominid that lived in the wooded grasslands of the Horn of Africa nearly 4 million years ago.

2015 - Actor Harrison Ford crash-lands his 1942 Ryan Aeronautical plane in California. 2017 - Donald Trump accuses former President Barack Obama of wiretapping Trump Tower during the presidential campaign, but provides no evidence.

2021 – Pope Francis begins a historic visit to Iraq amidst the Covid-19 pandemic.

Birthdays

Gerard us Mercator, Flemish geographer mathematician (1512-1594); Sir Rex Harrison, British actor (1908-1990); Heather Roy, NZ politician (1964-); Eva Mendes, US actress (1975-); Daniel Carter, New Zealand rugby player (1982-).