1561 Mary Queen of Scots arrived in Scotland, after 13 year in France, to assume the throne.1587 Pope Sixtus V proclaimed the Catholic Crusade for invasion of England.
1591 The Spanish fleet captured the British warship 'Revenge' after fighting off the Azores and Sir Richard Grenville was mortally wounded.
1864 The Intercolonial Royal Mail Company decided to run two steamers monthly between Melbourne and Auckland.
1874 The first steam engine was constructed at Invercargill by Mr Hay.
1914 The German Navy bombarded the English Coast and the British Navy damaged the German battleship 'Westfalen' in the North Sea.
1918 Britain commenced its Western Front offensive during WWI.
1934 A plebiscite was held in Germany which gave sole power to the Fuhrer, Adolph Hitler.
1936 Franco's Fascist supporters forced Spanish writer Federico Garcia Lorca to dig his own grave before being shot.
1942 British and Canadian commandoes mounted a big raid on Dieppe in France which was repulsed amid heavy casualties.
1944 French Resistance start open warfare against Germans in Paris a week before liberation by Allied troops.
1945 Ho Chi Minh and the Viet Minh began the August Revolution against French rule in Vietnam.
1953 The USSR acknowledged that it had tested a hydrogen bomb.
1960 A Moscow tribunal convicts American pilot Gary Powers of espionage.
1960 A Soviet satellite, Sputnik 5 was launched into space carrying two dogs.
1968 The USSR and other Warsaw Pact nations invaded Czechoslovakia crushing the 'Prague Spring' liberaliation begun by Alexander Dubcek's government.
1989 Poland became the first Eastern European country since the Second World War to end one-party rule.
20th
1619 The first Africans arrived in the USA, brought there by Dutch who sold them as indentured servants in Virginia hence starting the American slave trade. 1874 The NZ Parliament approved the abolition of the North Island provinces. 1914 German forces occupied Brussels in Belgium.
1940 Leon Trotsky died after being wounded in Mexico City by a Spanish communist with an ice pick (see pic).
1968 Russian troops occupied Czechoslovakia.
21st
1858 The new Provinces Act was passed 1868 Te Ruaruru was captured by Lt. Col McDonnell during his attack on Ngutu o te Manu. 1914 Japan declared war on Germany in World War I. 1917 German forces attacked Russian troops on the Latvian front. 1937 Japanese forces landed at Shanghai in China.
1939 Civil defence started in Britain to help mitigate the effects of an enemy attack. 1942 Australian forces shot down 13 Japanese planes making their 24th bombing raid on Darwin. 1944 Representatives from the USA, Britain, USSR and China met to discuss forming the United Nations. 1944 Two RNZAF Lockhead Hudson bombers with 14 people on board disapear off the Auckland coast on route to Fiji. 1944 Allied troops captured the port of Marseilles in France.1945 The end of U.S. Lend-Lease aid to U.S. allies during the Second World War. Total aid exceeded $50.6 billion 1950 The UN building in New York opened. 1959 Hawaii became the 50th state of the USA. 1963 Martial law was imposed in South Vietnam and Buddhist monks were arrested. 1963 Occupying Soviet forces seize Czech liberal communist leader Alexander Dubcek. 1975 Communists completed their takeover of Laos. 1986 Nine leaders of Southern African nations met in Angola and exppressed their support for economic sanctions against South Africa. 1990 East and West Germany announced that they would unite their two countries on October 3rd. 1991 An attempted coup in the USSR failed as protests led by Boris Yeltsin forced a junta to resign and Gorbachev was reinstated (see pic). 1998 Former President Botha was found guilty of contempt for flouting South Africa's truth commission. 1999 Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder started work in Berlin, the first time Germany had been governed from that city since the end of WWII.
22nd
1485 King Richard III of England was killed at the Battle of Bosworth ending the War of the Roses.1572 The Earl of Northumberland was executed at York, for treason.
1582 An English raiding party in Scotland captured King James VI and held him captive until June 1583.
1642 The English Civil War began between King Charles I's Royalists and the Parliamentarians(see pic).
1788 The British settlement of Sierra Leone was founded to provide an African home for slaves freed in Britain.
1791 Rebellion started amongst slave sin Hispaniola culminating in the creation of the first black republic, Haiti.
1866 The Cook Strait cable was completed after two attempts.
1866 Round Bush redoubt was built where Hawera now stands.1874 The Imprisonment for Debt Abolition Act was passed.
1910 Japan annexed Korea.
1922 Irish nationalist, Michael collins was killed.
1945 The Vietnam War began when French paratroopers arrived following Ho Chi Minh's revolt.
1972 Rhodesia was asked to withdraw from the Olympic Games because of its rascist policies.
1983 Bob Jones launched the New Zealand Party.
1998 The Irish National Liberation Army announced a ceasefire.2002 Approx. 45kg of weapons grade uranium was transferred from Yugoslavia to Russia to be converted for use in commercial power generation.
23rd
1839 Hong Kong was taken by the British. 1861 The first meeting of the Chamber of Commerce in Dunedin. 1914 The British fought at the first Battle of the Mons during WWI.
1939 Germany and the Soviets signed a short-lived non-agression pact. 1940 The Germans launched an all night bombing raid on London signalling the start of the Blitz (see pic).
24th
79 Mount Vesuvius erupted and buried the cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum under ash (see pic). 410 Alaric led the Visigoths to sack Rome. 1857 The Christchurch-Lyttleton Road, via Sumner and Evans pass was opened. 1861 An escort arrived in Dunedin with 5056 oz of gold, from the Otago goldfields.
1968 France became the fifth nuclear power whn it exploded a hydrogen bomb in French Polynesia. 1991 Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev resigned as the head of the Communist Party and urged its leadership to disband the party. the Ukraine became the 7th of 15 Soviet republics to declare independence.
25th
1914 The Germans sacked Louvain (see pic).
1921 The USA signed a peace treaty with Germany. 1940 The RAF made the first air raid on Berlin.
1941 British and Soviet troops invaded Iran after the Shah's refusal to reduce the numbers of resident Germans. 1943 US forces overran New Georgia in the Solomons.
1944 Paris was liberated by the Allies after 4 years of Nazi occupation with a Free French force being the first division into the city.
1948 Three people were killed and 80 injured when about 150 houses were wrecked when Frankton was hit by what was still New Zealand's deadliest recorded tornado. 1967 Hanoi announced plans for the evacuation of all non-essential civilians from the city as a consequence of the danger posed by US air attacks. 1978 Vietnamese and Chinese forces skirmished in Friendship Pass on their shared border. 1997 Egon Krenz, East Germany's last hardline communist leader was jailed for 61/2 years for the deaths of citizens who had tried to escape Berlin over the wall.
26th
55BC Julius Caesar landed in Britain (see pic). 1865 The commencement of the Dunedin waterworks. 1894 The second Maori King, Tukaroto Matutaera Potatau Te Wherowhero Tawhiao died. had led his people through the Waikato wars of the 1860s, was buried at Taupiri after a tangihanga in September and was succeeded as King by his son Mahuta. 1914 German troops outmanoevered the Russians at the battle of Tannenberg resulting in the loss of over 30,000 Russian troops. 1915 The German army took Brest-Litovsk in Russia during WWI. 1920 Women in the USA were granted the right to vote by the 19th Amendment.
1936 Britain and Egypt signed the Anglo-Egyptian Alliance. 1942 The first major battle took place in Australia's Kokoda Trail campaign when the Japanese attacked the PNG village of Isurava. 1942 The German Army reached Stalingrad during WWII. 1945 Japanese envoys received their surrender instructions on board the US Missouri.
1957 The USSR announced that it had successfully tested an ICBM. 1959 Chinese troops entered Indian territory after a border dispute.1970 North Vietnam sent its chief negotiator back to the Paris peace talks ending a boycott of eight and a half months.
1973 The Cambodian military reported that the Khmer Rouge had severed two important supply routes.1976 The US guided missile cruiser USS Truxton entered Wellington Harbour.
1985 A French investigator cleared the French government and intelligence service of any involvment in the sinking of the Greenpeace vessel, Rainbow Warrior.
1995 The Russian communist Party started a campaign for the ressurection of the Soviet state that had collapsed four years earlier. 1997 South Africa's last white president, F. W. De Klerk resigned as head of the National party and left politics.
27th
1660 John Milton's books were burned in London because of his criticism of King Charles II.1858 The ship 'Henbury' burnt at Port Chalmers only a few hours after arriving from London.
1870 The arrival in Wellingtn of HRH Duke of Edinburgh, on HMS Galatea, on his second visit.
1915 Anzac troops sufferred heavy casualties in the failed attack on Hill 60 at Gallipoli.1919 Louis Botha, the South African Boer general and first PM of the Union, died aged 56.
1928 The anti-war Kellog-Briand pact was signed by 15 countries.
1939 Nazi Germany demanded the territories of Danzig and the Polish corridor.
1939 German pilot Erich Warshitz flew the first jet plane, a Heinkel HE178.
1943 Japanese forces evacuated New Georgia in the South pacific.
1972 US airplanes bombed Haiphong in North Vietnam.
1979 Lord Mountbatten of Burma was murdered by the IRA (see pic).
1986 Police shot dead 12 blacks in Soweto.
28th
1640 The Scots defeated theEnglish at Newburn-on-Tyne.
1833 Britain banned slavery in the British Empire by the passing of the Abolition of Slave Act.
1846 The NZ Government Act was passed by the Imperial Parliament. The charter divided NZ into New Munster, New Ulster and granted representative institutions. 1852 The whaling schooner 'Amazon' was wrecked at Bluff. 1858 The steamship 'Queen' of 132 tons, was the first steam vessel to arrive in Dunedin. 1866 Fire in Queen St., Auckland caused 20,000 pounds of damage.
1866 The first cable message was sent from Wellington to Dunedin. 1879 British troops captured Cetywayo the last great Zulu King, in the Zulu war.
1914 The Battle of Heligoland Bight, the first major naval battle of WWI. 1928 The All-party Congress at Lucknow, India voted for dominion status within the British Empire.
1944 The last German troops in Marseille, France surrendered and Toulon was also cleared of German troops during WWII.
1945 US forces landed in Japan. 1954 Pauline Parker and her friend Juliet Hulme were found guilty of murdering Pauline's mother Honoria. 1963 200,000 people marching for civil rights arrived in Washington where Matrtin Luther King delivered his "I have a dream" speech (see pic). 1968 Anti-war protesters and police clashed outside the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. 1973 Princess Anne became the first Royal to visit the USSR when she arrived in Kiev for an equestrian event.2008 NZ parliament approves police to carry Taser guns.
29th
1842 The Treaty of Nanking was signed, ending the Opium War and leasing Hong Kong territories to the British. 1848 The Boer were defeated by the British at Bloomplatz.
1914 Colonel Robert Logan led a expeditionary force of 1374, to capture German Samoa.
1943 Danish warships were scuttled during an uprising against the Nazis in Copenhagen. 1944 15,000 US troops march down the Champs Elysees as Paris celebrates its liberation from the Nazis. 1953 The USSR exploded a hydrogen bomb (see pic). 1972 North and South Korean Red Cross officials met to discuss the reunification of Korean families. 1991 The Supreme Soviet voted to suspend all activities of the Communist Party. 1992 the last Russian diplomats leave Kabul after 10 years of involvement in Afghanistan
1997 The Japanese supreme Court ruled that the government had acted illegally in deleting from history textbooks Japanese experiments on Chinese during WWII.
30th
30 Cleopatra committed suicide by letting an asp bite her. 1851 The weekly issue of the 'Otago Witness' began. 1869 The Auckland Floating Dock Company was established. 1875 The railway between Invercargill and Gore was opened.1903 Guide Joseph Warbrick, and three tourists, were killed instantly when the Waimangu geyser, in Rotorua, suddenly erupted.
1914 The German Army destroyed the Russian second Army at the Battle of Tannenberg. 1916 Paul von Hindenburg became Chief of the General Staff of Germany (see pic). 1918 Vladimir Lenin was shot and wounded after speaking at the Michelson factory in Moscow, by two sisters. 1932 Nazi Hermann Goering was declared president of the Reichstag in Germany.
1941 British children were evacuated from major cities in advance of German bombing.
1941 The seige of Leningrad by German forces began and lasted until January 1943. 1960 East Germany partially blockades West Berlin. 1963 The 'hotline' between the US president and Soviet premier was established. 1991 Soviet republic of Azerbaijan declared independence. 1994 Russia officially ended 50 years of military presence in the former East Germany and the Baltics.
31st
1871 The first sod of the Helensville-Riverhead railway was turned. 1861 Mr John Brannigan arrived to establish the police force. 1861 The opening of the Southland Provincial Council building by the Superintendent, Dr Menzies.
French Premier Daladier and British PM Chamberlain failed in their attempts to appease Hitler.
1942 The British halted the German North African offensive at Alam al-Halfa (see pic).
1944 US Troops penetrated German lines at Normandy beachhead. 1974 NZ prime minister, Norman Kirk, died in office. 1983 The USSR shot down a Korean airliner killing 269 people on board.1990 East and west Germany signed a treaty to harmonise their legal and political system following their October 3rd planned merger.
1994 the IRA declared an open-ended cease fire after a 24 year long campaign to end British rule in Northern Ireland.
1997 Princess Diana was killed in a car crash in Paris.
2008 Adherents of the ancient Greek religion at the Acropolis prayed to Athena to stop the removal of antiquities in what was claimed as the first such ceremony since late in the 4th century.
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