Today in history

1642 - Battle of Edgehill [Warwickshire]: Inconclusive battle between King Charles I and English parliamentarian forces.

1739 - War of Jenkins’ Ear starts: British Prime Minister, Robert Walpole, reluctantly declares war on Spain.

1854 - English newspaper “The Times” gives precise British positions in Crimea during Crimean War.

1911 - First aerial reconnaissance mission is flown by an Italian pilot over Turkish lines during the Italo-turkish War.

1915 - New Zealand nurses lost in the sinking of the transport ship Marquette in the Aegean Sea in late 1915 added to the grief of a nation still reeling from the heavy losses at Gallipoli.

1942 - First ships of invasion fleet to Morocco leave Norfolk; Britain launches major offensive at El Alamein, Egypt; German units go through Red October factory in Stalingrad.

1944 - Gulf of Leyte battle begin; Vice Admiral Takeo Kurita’s flagship the heavy cruiser Atago sinks during the Battle of Leyte Gulf; Soviet army invades Hungary. 1948 - The Lockheed Electra airliner ZKAGK Kaka went missing in poor weather on a flight from Palmerston North to Hamilton. Searchers did not reach the wreckage on Mt Ruapehu for a week. The air crash killed 13. 1951 - English chemist Rosalind Franklin first identifies the two types of carbon produced by temperature, in paper published by the Royal Society.

1975 - Women take the day off in Iceland to commemorate “International Women’s Year”, shutting the country down for a day. 2011 - The All Blacks won the Webb Ellis Cup for the second time in seven attempts, defending grimly to hold on to an 8-7 lead over France in front of 61,000 spectators at Eden Park, Auckland.