Today in History

1215 – King John of England signs Magna Carta.

1520 – Pope Leo X responds to Martin Luther’s criticisms of the Church with the bull Exsurge Domine, threatening Luther with excommunication.

1567 – Troops of Mary, Queen of Scots, refuse to fight rebels at Carberry Hill and she surrenders.

1896 – Tsunami strikes Shinto festival on beach at Sanriku, Japan; 27,000 are killed.

1904 – More than 1000 people die in fire aboard steamboat General Slocum off New York City.

1910 – Robert Falcon Scott’s Terra Nova expedition to Antarctica sets sail from Cardiff, Wales.

1919 – British pilots John William Alcock and Arthur Whitten Brown complete the first non-stop flight across the Atlantic, flying from Newfoundland to Ireland.

1935 – New Zealand runner Jack Lovelock, right, wins the ‘‘Mile of the Century’’ race at Princeton University, in the US.

1940 – France surrenders to Nazi Germany, German troops occupy Paris.

1992 – Japan’s parliament approves use of troops overseas for the first time since WWII.

1996 – US jazz musician Ella Fitzgerald dies, aged 79.

2006 – Construction of Global Seed Vault, on remote Spitsbergen halfway between mainland Norway and the North Pole, begins.

2020 – The US Supreme Court rules in a 6-3 decision that gay and transgender workers are protected by civil rights legislation.

Birthdays

Keith Park, NZ soldier (1892-1975); Dove-Myer Robinson, Auckland mayor (1901-89); Waylon Jennings, US country singer (1937-2002); Johnny Hallyday, French singeractor (1943-2017); Xi Jinping, Chinese president (1953-); Jim Belushi, comedian-actor (1954-); Helen Hunt, US actor (1963-); Courteney Cox, US actor (1964-); Ice Cube, US actor-rapper (1969-).