Today in History
337 – Death of Roman emperor
Constantine the Great, right.
1570 – The first atlas, Theatrum Orbis Terrarum (Theatre of the World), is published in Antwerp.
1840 – The transporting of British convicts to the New South Wales colony is abolished.
1843 – The ‘‘Great Emigration’’ - a wagon train made up of 1000 settlers and 1000 head of cattle sets off down the Oregon Trail from
Independence, Missouri.
1884 – The first representative New Zealand rugby team has its opening match, beating a Wellington XV 9–0 at Newtown Park, Wellington.
1906 – The Wright brothers patent their flying machine.
1939 – Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini sign Pact of Steel, a 10-year political and military alliance between Germany and Italy.
1973 – President Richard Nixon confesses his role in the Watergate cover-up.
1995 – Waikato-Tainui is the first iwi to reach a Treaty settlement with the Crown for injustices dating from the1860s.
2010 – Remains of Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus are reburied in Frombork Cathedral after a 200-year search for his tomb.
2015 – Ireland votes in a referendum to legalise gay marriage, with 62.1 per cent saying ‘‘yes’’ to changing the constitution.
2017 – A suicide bomber kills 22 people at a concert in Manchester by singer Ariana Grande.
Birthdays
Richard Wagner, German composer
(1813-83); Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, UK writer (1859-1930); Sir Laurence Olivier, UK actor (1907-89); Charles Aznavour, French singer (19242018); George Best, UK footballer
(1946-2005); Bernie Taupin, UK songwriter (1950-); Mark Mitchell, NZ politician (1968-); Naomi Campbell, UK model (1970-); Novak Djokovic, Serbian tennis player (1985-).