Today in History
1707 – Acts of Union come into effect, uniting England and Scotland as the United Kingdom of Great Britain.
1786 – Mozart’s opera Marriage of Figaro premieres in Vienna.
1840 – The Penny Black, the world’s first adhesive stamp used in a public postal system, is issued in Britain.
1851 – Great Exhibition opens at the Crystal Palace in south London.
1886 – US general strike for an eight-hour working day begins.
1893 – Richard Seddon becomes New Zealand premier, remaining in office for 13 years until his death in 1906.
1930 – The name Pluto, suggested by an 11-year-old English girl, Venetia Burney, is officially adopted for the planet discovered earlier that year. It was reclassified as a dwarf planet in 2006.
1931 – President Herbert Hoover officially dedicates New York City’s Empire State Building, pressing a button from the White House to turn on the building’s lights.
1941 – Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane has its first public screening in New York City. It is a boxoffice flop, despite now being cited regularly as one of the great movies of all time.
1942 – Japanese forces take Mandalay, Burma, in World War II.
1955 – Five New Zealand jets attack Malayan guerrillas, in NZ’s first combat strike since World War II.
1960 – The Soviet Union shoots down an American U-2 spy plane piloted by Gary Powers, who is held prisoner until a spy swap deal in 1962.
1967 – Elvis Presley marries Priscilla Beaulieu in Las Vegas.
1979 – Greenland gains home rule from Denmark.
1988 – Police clash with demonstrators throughout Poland as thousands heed Solidarity’s call for national day of protest. 1994 – Brazilian Formula 1 driver Ayrton Senna is killed in a crash while leading the San Marino Grand Prix in Italy. He was 34. 1997 – The British Labour Party, under Tony Blair, is elected to government after 18 years in opposition; Sinn Fein leaders Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness win two Northern Ireland seats.
2018 – Chinese authorities declare British cartoon Peppa Pig, left, subversive, and it is removed from the Douyin video website. 2020 – Canada bans assault-style weapons after a mass shooting in Nova Scotia a week earlier.
Birthdays
Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington (1769-1852); Otto von Bismarck, German statesman (1815-98); Julius von Haast, German/NZ explorer (1822-87); Martha ‘‘Calamity Jane’’ Cannary, US frontierswoman (1856-1903); Sir Frank Kitts, NZ politician (1912-79); Joseph Heller, US novelist (1923-99); Dick Joyce, NZ Olympic gold-medallist rower (1946-); Gordon Greenidge, Barbadian cricketer (1951-).