Today in History

1824 – The US presidential election is turned over to the House of Representatives when a deadlock develops among the four candidates. John Quincy Adams is later declared the winner.

1898 – The first motion pictures known to have been shot in New Zealand are made by photographer WH Bartlett.

1913 – Henry Ford installs the first moving assembly line for the mass production of an entire automobile.

1933 – Pilot Teddy Harvie makes the first one-day flight from North Cape to Invercargill, in a time of 16 hours, 10 minutes.

1953 – First issue of Playboy magazine, featuring Marilyn Monroe, published.

1955 – Rosa Parks defies Alabama law by refusing to give up her seat to a white man on a bus in Montgomery. She is arrested, sparking a year-long boycott of buses by blacks.

1959 – Twelve nations, including

New Zealand, sign the Antarctica Treaty, which makes the continent a demilitarised zone to be preserved for scientific research.

1965 – Thousands of refugees are allowed to leave Cuba for the US.

1988 – Benazir Bhutto, left, is named Pakistan’s prime minister, becoming the first woman to lead a modern-day Muslim nation.

1990 – British and French workers digging the Channel Tunnel finally meet after knocking out a passage in a service tunnel.

2003 – Tens of thousands of spectators in Wellington celebrate the world premiere of the Peter Jackson third Lord of the Rings film, The Return of the King.

Birthdays

Marie Tussaud, museum founder (1761-1850); Heather Begg, NZ opera singer (1932-2009); Peter Williams, NZ lawyer (1934-2015); Woody Allen, US director (1935-); Richard Pryor, US comedian (1940-2005); Bette Midler, US singer-actor (1945-); Andrew Adamson, NZ director/ writer (1966-).