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Today in History

1793 – Queen Marie Antoinette is beheaded during the French Revolution.

1813 – The Battle of Leipzig begins, between Emperor Napoleon’s French army and a coalition of Austrian, Prussian, Swedish and Russian forces. The largest battle in Europe before World War I ends after four days in a decisive defeat for Napoleon.

1847 – Jane Eyre is first published, under Charlotte Bronte’s pseudonym, Currer Bell. 1914 – The main body of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force – about 8500 men and nearly 4000 horses – sails from Wellington at the start of World War I. 1923 – Artist Walt Disney and his brother Roy form the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio in Hollywood, California.

1934 – Chinese Communists under Mao Zedong begin the Long March – an epic trek of more than 9500 kilometres to escape Nationalist encirclement.

1936 – New Zealand aviator Jean Batten completes an 11-day solo flight from England to Auckland, becoming the first person to make the journey.

1964 – China detonates its first atomic bomb, becoming the fifth nuclear power after the US, Soviet Union, Britain and France. 1968 – US athletes Tommie Smith and

John Carlos, right, give the Black Power salute on the 200m medal podium at the Mexico City Olympics.

1973 – US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and North Vietnamese diplomat Le Duc Tho are awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for negotiating the Paris peace accords. Kissinger accepts, but Tho declines, saying peace is not ‘‘truly established’’.

1978 – Cardinal Karol Wojtyla of Poland is chosen as pope. He takes the name John Paul II.

1987 – TV viewers around the world watch enthralled as 18-month-old Jessica McClure is rescued from an abandoned well in Midland, Texas, in which she had become trapped 58 hours earlier.

1998 – Former Chilean dictator General Augusto Pinochet is arrested in London on a Spanish warrant requesting his extradition on murder charges.

2013 – ACT MP John Banks resigns his ministerial roles after being ordered to stand trial for irregularities in his Auckland mayoralty election returns.

2020 – French teacher Samuel Paty is beheaded by a teenage Islamist in Paris, after being falsely accused of showing students cartoons of the prophet Mohammed.

Birthdays

Oscar Wilde, Irish writer (1854-1900); David Ben-Gurion, Israeli prime minister (1886-1973); Eugene O’Neill, US playwright (1888-1953); Michael Collins, Irish independence leader (1890-1922); Enver Hoxha, Albanian dictator (1908-85); Angela Lansbury, UK-born actor (1925-); Nico, German singer/model (1938-88); Tim Robbins, US actor/director (1958-); Michael Venus, NZ tennis player (1987-); Naomi Osaka, Japanese tennis player (1997-).

Obituaries

en-nz

2021-10-16T07:00:00.0000000Z

2021-10-16T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://fairfaxmedia.pressreader.com/article/281883006529134

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