Today In History

His Highness Malietoa Tanumafili II was born on 4 January 1913 as the son and third child of his parents, Malietoa Tanumafili I and Momoe Lupeuluiva Meleisea. Tanumafili was chosen as the Mālietoa in 1940 following his father’s death on 5 July 1939. Addressed Susuga Malietoa Tanumafili II, the title is one of Samoa’s four […]

John F. Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States was assassinated on Friday, 22 November 1963, at 12:30 p.m in Dallas Texas while riding in a presidential motorcade through Dealey Plaza. According to the Warren Commission and the House Select Committee on Assassinations, Kennedy was waving to the crowds on his right with his […]

Ridden by Jimmy Pike, the New Zealand-bred and Australian-owned wonder-horse beat Second Wind by two lengths to claim one of his greatest victories of the “race that stops the nation”. The Melbourne Cup is the pinnacle of thoroughbred racing in Australasia and is widely regarded as the most prestigious two-mile (3200 metres) handicap in the […]

The United Nations (UN), international organization was established on October 24, 1945. The United Nations (UN) was the second multipurpose international organization established in the 20th century that was worldwide in scope and membership. Its predecessor, the League of Nations, was created by the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 and disbanded in 1946. Headquartered in […]

On 17 October 1931, gangster Al Capone is sentenced to 11 years in prison for tax evasion and fined $80,000, signaling the downfall of one of the most notorious criminals of the 1920s and 1930s. Alphonse Gabriel Capone was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1899 to Italian immigrants. He was expelled from school at […]

Inspired by footwear he had seen in Japan, Auckland businessman Morris Yock and his son Anthony began manufacturing this simple rubber footwear in their garage in 1957. They say the name ‘jandal’ combined the words ‘Japanese’ and ‘sandal’. On the 4th of October 1957 Yock trademarks the jandal in New Zealand. However there is disagreement […]

At 6:48am on the 29 September 2009, a powerful 8.0 magnitude earthquake close to the main Samoan Island chain with its epicenter 190 km south of the Samoan capital of Apia. This was followed only 10 – 20 minutes later by two tsunami waves that impacted American Samoa, The Independent State of Samoa, and the […]

The September 11 attacks, often referred to as 9/11, were a series of four coordinated terrorist attacks by the militant Islamist terrorist group al-Qaeda against the United States of America on the morning of Tuesday, September 11, 2001. On that morning, four commercial airliners traveling from the northeastern United States to California were hijacked mid-flight by 19 al-Qaeda terrorists. The hijackers […]

16 August 2008: Evers-Swindell twins win gold in back to back Olympics for the double sculls event. While Kiwis had high expectations of their rowing squad at the Beijing Olympics, few expected identical twins Caroline and Georgina Evers-Swindell to successfully defend the double sculls title they had won in Athens in 2004. No duo had […]