Stuff Digital Edition

Today in History

585BC – Likely date of the first predicted solar eclipse, forecast by Greek philosopher Thales. It becomes one of the cardinal dates from which other dates in ancient history are calculated.

1431 – Joan of Arc is accused of relapsing into heresy by donning male clothing again, providing justification for her execution.

1742 – The first indoor public swimming pool opens, in Goodman’s Fields, east London.

1788 – The Federalist papers, a series of 85 essays on the proposed US Constitution and republican government, written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay, are published in book form.

1830 – US Congress authorises native Indians to be removed from all states to the western prairie.

1912 – Australian Jimmy Matthews becomes the only bowler to take two hat-tricks in the same cricket test, and on the same day.

1920 – An accused murderer is convicted almost entirely on fingerprint evidence for the first time in New Zealand. Police found Dennis Gunn’s prints on three cash boxes from a robbery in which Auckland postmaster Augustus Braithwaite was killed. Gunn is hanged in Auckland on June 22. 1936 – Alan Turing submits his paper On Computable Numbers to a mathematics society, setting out the theoretical basis for modern computers.

1937 – Neville Chamberlain becomes prime minister of Britain; Volkswagen is founded to produce a low-price ‘‘people’s car’’.

1940 – The Belgian army surrenders to invading German forces.

1959 – US Army launches Able, a rhesus monkey, and Baker, a squirrel monkey, aboard a Jupiter missile for a suborbital flight. Both survive.

1961 – Peter Benenson publishes ‘‘The Forgotten Prisoners’’ in The Observer, in London, heralding the creation of Amnesty International.

1964 – The charter of the Palestine Liberation Organisation is issued at the start of a meeting of the Palestine National Congress in Jerusalem.

1972 – Burglars break into the Democratic National Headquarters at Watergate in Washington DC, and install telephone bugs; death of the Duke of Windsor, left, formerly Edward VIII, in Paris, aged 77.

2021 – Canadian officials announce discovery of the remains of more than 200 children, some as young as 3, buried on the site of what was once Canada’s largest indigenous residential school.

Birthdays

George I, German-born UK king (1660-1727); Joseph-Ignace Guillotin, French doctor and inventor of guillotine (1738-1814); Charles Todd, NZ industrialist (1868-1942); Ian Fleming, UK writer (1908-64); Patrick White, Australian writer (1912-90); Rudy Giuliani, US lawyer/ politician (1944-); Gladys Knight, US singer (1944-); Kylie Minogue, Australian singer-actor (1968-); Carey Mulligan, UK actor (1985-).

Obituaries

en-nz

2022-05-28T07:00:00.0000000Z

2022-05-28T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://fairfaxmedia.pressreader.com/article/281990381147124

Stuff Limited