Today in History
1618 – Sir Walter Raleigh is executed for treason.
1787 – The opera Don Giovanni, with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, right, premieres in Prague.
1894 – 121 lives are lost when the Union Steam Ship Company steamer Wairarapa hits Miners Head, on Great Barrier Island.
1919 – New Zealand passes the Women’s Parliamentary Rights Act, allowing women to stand for the House of Representatives.
1929 – The New York stock market collapses, as investors trade 16 million shares in a single day. The losses lead to the Great Depression.
1956 – Israel invades Egypt, initiating the Suez Crisis.
1957 – MGM co-founder Louis B Mayer dies in Los Angeles, aged 75.
1958 – Boris Pasternak refuses the Nobel Prize for Literature, under pressure from Soviet authorities.
1972 – Palestinian guerrillas hijack a German airliner and gain the release of three prisoners held after the Munich Olympics massacre. 1995 – Forgotten Silver, a film by Peter Jackson and Costa Botes about a forgotten legend of early NZ cinema, screens on TV. The next day it’s revealed as a hoax.
1998 – John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth 36 years earlier, rides the space shuttle into orbit at age 77.
2015 – China announces the end of its one-child policy after 35 years.
2018 – New Zealander Nigel Richards wins his fourth world Scrabble title with the word ‘‘groutier’’ (meaning sulkier). 2020 – The Vatican ends Pope Francis’ audiences with the public amid a surge in coronavirus cases.
Birthdays
Robert Hardy, UK actor (1925-2017); Richard Dreyfuss, US actor (1947-); Tom Scott, NZ writer/cartoonist (1947-); Lee Child, UK writer (1954-); Dan Castellaneta, voice of Homer Simpson (1957-); Anthony Mosse, NZ swimmer (1964-); Parris Goebel, NZ choreographer (1991-).
Obituaries
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https://fairfaxmedia.pressreader.com/article/281771337404963
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