Today in History

1154 – Adrian IV is elected pope, the only Englishman to hold the office.

1619 – A group of colonists from England disembarks in Virginia and gives thanks to God. It is considered by many the first Thanksgiving in the Americas.

1745 – A rebel army under Prince Charles Edward Stuart (Bonnie Prince Charlie) reaches Derby, only about 160 kilometres from London. It is as far south as the rebels get before being forced back to Scotland. 1791 – The Observer, the world’s first Sunday newspaper, is published in Britain.

1829 – British authorities in India outlaw suttee, by which widows burned themselves to death on their husbands’ funeral pyres. 1952 – Heavy smog begins to hover over London. It persists for five days, leading to the deaths of at least 4000 people.

1961 – The first contraceptive pill becomes available through Britain’s NHS.

1966 – Pirate radio station Radio Hauraki makes its first scheduled transmission, from a ship in the Colville Channel, beyond New Zealand’s three-mile territorial limit.

1971 – India’s navy launches an attack on the Pakistani port city of Karachi, destroying ships and fuel storage tanks. 1991 – US journalist Terry Anderson is freed by Muslim captors in Lebanon after nearly seven years as a hostage.

1992 – US President George HW Bush orders more than 28,000 US troops to Somalia. 1995 – The first Nato troops land in the Balkans to begin setting up a peace mission. 1996 – Nasa launches a spacecraft to Mars carrying Pathfinder, the first interplanetary rover. It lands on the planet’s surface eight months later, and begins searching for rocks. 2001 – Marike de Klerk, ex-wife of former South African President FW de Klerk, is found murdered in her home near Cape Town. 2002 – Indonesian police arrest Muslim cleric Ali Ghufron, also known as Mukhlas, suspected of masterminding the Bali bombing that killed nearly 200 people. 2006 – Fiji military chief Commodore Voreqe Bainimarama leads the country’s latest coup, as troops take control from Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase.

2009 – US student Amanda Knox, left, and boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito are convicted of murdering her flatmate, Meredith Kercher, in Italy. Her conviction is overturned in 2011. 2016 – John Key announces he will resign as NZ prime minister, after eight years in office.

Birthdays

Thomas Carlyle, Scottish essayist-historian (1795-1881); Samuel Butler, UK novelist (1835-1902); Edith Cavell, British nurse/war hero (1865-1915); Francisco Franco, Spanish dictator (1892-1975); Ronnie Corbett, UK comedian (1930-2016); Sir Mason Durie, NZ academic (1938-); Dennis Wilson, US musician, Beach Boys (1944-83); Jeff Bridges, US actor (1949-); Pamela Stephenson, NZborn actor, psychologist (1949-); Hilary Barry, NZ TV host (1969-); Jay-Z, US musician (1969-); Karen Walker, NZ designer (1969); Tyra Banks, US model (1973-).