Today in history
Today is Friday, March 31, the 90th day of 2017. There are 275 days left in the year. Highlights in history on this date:
1841 — Plymouth Company settlers from the
William Bryan arrive at what is now New Plymouth.
1865 — The first regular steam ferry service on the Waitemata Harbour begins with the Waitemata making the Devonport/Auckland crossing. An earlier service with the Emu had run for only six months in 1860.
1889 — French engineer Alexandre Gustave
Eiffel unfurls the French flag from atop the Eiffel Tower, officially marking its completion.
1903 — This is the possible date Richard Pearse became airborne in a monoplane he designed and built himself. As the flight cannot be confirmed, it is possible the flight took place 12 months later, but if the 1903 date was accurate it would have preceded the Wright brothers’ claim of controlled powered flight by more than nine months; an explosion in the watergas purifying house at Dunedin’s gasworks causes widespread damage, with neighbouring houses in Braemar and Argyle Sts being severely damaged. The blast also shattered a window of the Union Steam Ship Company’s premises in Cumberland St and was felt as far away as Mornington.
1904 — New Zealand’s first coinintheslot postage franking machine is trialled in Christchurch. Designed and built by Ernest Moss, the machine’s introduction makes postage stamps unnecessary.
1905 — Dunedin and South Dunedin councillors mark the final hours of the South Dunedin borough as a separate entity before it amalgamates with the Dunedin Council at midnight, with a banquet. The merger comes just six months after Caversham joined the greater Dunedin scheme. It is expected St Kilda and Mornington councils will follow; German
Kaiser William II’s visit to Tangier sets off the first Moroccan crisis.
1917 — The United States purchases the Virgin Islands from Denmark for $US25 million.
1923 — The first US dance marathon, held in New York, ends with Alma Cummings setting a world record of 27 hours on her feet. She danced with six different partners.
1940 — Michael Joseph Savage is buried at Bastion Point, Auckland, after a special train carrying his body stopped at numerous stations on the journey from Wellington to allow North Islanders to pay their final respects. Massive crowds also lined the route of the funeral cortege in Auckland.
1976 — The New Jersey Supreme Court rules that coma patient Karen Anne Quinlan can be disconnected from her respirator. Quinlan, who remains comatose, dies in 1985.
1980 — An 80day strike by workers at the Kinleith pulp and paper mill ends when the Government backs down and recognises a negotiated payrise; death of US Olympic legend Jesse Owens, who won four gold medals at the 1936 Berlin Olympics to the annoyance of Adolf Hitler. 1982 — The last trolley bus runs in Dunedin. 1984 — Tolls are charged on the Auckland Harbour Bridge for the final time.
1987 — The New Zealand Post Office marks its final day of operation, before being split into NZ Post Ltd, Postbank Ltd and Telecommunications NZ Ltd.
1993 — Actor Brandon Lee (28), is killed during the filming of The Crow, in Wilmington, North Carolina, by a prop gun that fires part of a dummy bullet instead of a blank. The film goes on to become a cult hit.
2000 — New Zealand’s Y2K watch for disasters stemming from the new millennium is officially stood down.
2013 — A tornado rips through Hokitika, causing widespread damage.
Today’s birthdays:
Sir Francis Henry Dillon Bell, first New Zealandborn prime minister (18511936); Shirley Jones, US actresssinger (1934); Richard Chamberlain, US actor (1934); Herb Alpert, US musician (1935); Christopher Walken, US actor (1943); Gabe Kaplan, US actor (1945); Rhea Perlman, US actress (1948); Angus Young, Scottishborn musician (1955); Ewan McGregor, Scottish actor (1971).
Quote from history:
‘‘Euthanasia is a long smoothsounding word, and it conceals its danger as long smooth words do, but the danger is there, nevertheless.’’ — Pearl S. Buck, US author. On March 31, 2005, Terri Schiavo, a braindamaged Florida woman, died 13 days after her tubefeeding was halted under orders from a US court.