Today in History

1841 - US President William Harrison dies of pneumonia, just 31 days after assuming office.

1902 - The Rhodes Scholarship fund is created with a bequest of US$10 million in Cecil Rhodes’ will.

1917 - US Senate agrees to participate in World War I.

1932 - US researcher Professor CG King, of Pittsburgh, isolates vitamin C for the first time.

1949 - Nato is established by the United States, Britain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Italy, Luxembourg, Norway, Iceland, Canada, and Portugal. 1960 - Ben-Hur sets an Oscars record, winning 11 of the 12 categories in which it was nominated, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor (Charlton Heston).

1964 - The Beatles set a record by having all of the top five US singles at the same time.

1968 - US civil rights leader Martin Luther King is assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee.

1973 - The World Trade Center, then the world’s tallest building, opens in New York.

1975 - Microsoft is founded by childhood friends Bill Gates and Paul Allen; British TV sitcom The Good Life debuts on the BBC.

2013 - The discovery of Poecilotheria rajaei, a giant tarantula with a 20cm leg span, in Sri Lanka is announced.

Birthdays

Georg von Trapp, patriarch of Trapp Family Singers (1880-1947); Selwyn Toogood, NZ TV host (1916-2001); Maya Angelou, US poet (1928-2014); Dame Cath Tizard, NZ politician (1931-2021); Murray Chandler, NZ chess grandmaster (1960-); Graham Norton, Irish TV presenter (1963-); Robert Downey Jr, US actor (1965-); Lecretia Seales, NZ lawyer (1973-2015); Heath Ledger, Australian actor (1979-2008).