Today in History

1577 – Sir Francis Drake sets sail from England on a circumnavigation of the world.

1642 – Dutch mariner Abel Tasman becomes the first European to sight New Zealand.

1937 – Japanese troops take Nanking in China and proceed to massacre an estimated 300,000 Chinese civilians.

1939 – The Battle of the River Plate begins off South America, with the

HMS Achilles becoming the first New Zealand warship to take part in a naval battle.

1989 – South African President FW de Klerk meets for the first time with imprisoned African National Congress leader Nelson Mandela, at de Klerk’s office in Cape Town. 2000 – Al Gore concedes defeat of George W Bush in his bid for presidency, after weeks of legal battles over Florida vote recount. 2001 – Air force Skyhawks, left, stage final flights, marking the end of NZ’s air-strike capacity. 2003 – US forces capture former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein in a small underground hideout near the Iraqi city of Tikrit.

2007 – EU leaders sign Lisbon Treaty, a slimmed- down version of the aborted EU constitution. The 50-article charter creates the post of EU president and overhauls voting rules.

2009 – An attacker hurls a statuette at Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, hitting the 73year-old in the face and leaving him with a broken nose.

Birthdays

Henry IV of France (1553-1610); Archibald Baxter, NZ pacifist (1881-1970); Keith Hay, NZ homebuilder (1917-1997); Dick Van Dyke, US actor (1925-); Christopher Plummer, Canadian actor (1929-); Leighton Smith, Australian-born NZ talkback host (1947-); Ruth Richardson, former NZ finance minister (1950-); Ben Bernanke, US economist (1953-); Wayne Shelford, All Black (1957-); Jamie Foxx, US actor (1967-); Taylor Swift, American singer (1989-).