Today in History

1302 – The poet Dante Alighieri is banished from Florence for political activities.

1340 – Edward III of England declares himself king of France, leading to the Hundred Years’ War.

1820 – First confirmed sighting of Antarctica, by a Russian expedition led by Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen and Mikhail Lazarev.

1880 – American inventor Thomas Edison receives a patent for his electric incandescent lamp.

1888 – The National Geographic Society is founded in Washington DC. Nine months later, it publishes its first National Geographic magazine (May 2003 edition, left).

1944 – German siege of Leningrad is finally lifted after 880 days.

1945 – The Red Army liberates Auschwitz and Birkenau concentration camps in Poland. 1956 – Heartbreak Hotel, Elvis Presley’s first million-selling single, is released.

1962 – Olympic 800-metre champion Peter Snell breaks the world mile record at Cooks Gardens, Whanganui.

1967 – US, Soviet Union and 60 other nations sign treaty to limit military activities in outer space.

2002 – More than 1000 people die when a munitions depot in Lagos, Nigeria, explodes.

2017 – US President Donald Trump bans travel to the US from seven mostly Muslim countries, and suspends admission for refugees.

2020 – King Albert II of Belgium, who abdicated in 2103, admits after a court-ordered DNA test that he fathered a child during an extramarital affair in the 1960s.

Birthdays

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Austrian composer (1756-91); Lewis Carroll, UK novelist (1832-98); William Larnach, NZ politician (1833-98); Wilhelm II, German emperor (1859-1941); John Roberts, US chief justice (1955-); Rosamund Pike, UK actor (1979-); Daniel Vettori, NZ cricketer (1979-); Tony Woodcock, All Black (1981-).