Today in history
Today is Saturday, December 16, the 350th day of 2017. There are 15 days left in the year. Highlights in history on this date:
1653 — Oliver Cromwell becomes lord protector of
England, Scotland and Ireland.
1740 — Prussia’s Frederick the Great enters Silesia,
now in Poland, and begins the first Silesian War.
1773 — American colonists, dressed as Indians, dump 342 chests of tea overboard from a British ship in Boston Harbour, staging a protest against British taxation. The event becomes known as the Boston Tea Party.
1809 — Napoleon Bonaparte divorces
Empress Josephine by an Act of the French Senate.
1835 — Rawiri Taiwhanga offers butter for sale from his farm in the Bay of Islands in the first instance of commercial dairy farming in New Zealand.
1850 — The first settlers from the Canterbury Association arrive at Lyttelton aboard the Charlotte Jane and Randolph. They face a demanding journey over the Port Hills on foot and through swamp land, only to find once they reach Christchurch that preparations had ceased because the Canterbury Association had run short of funds.
1881 — The first horticultural show in Dunedin is
held at the Garrison Hall.
1903 — Dunedin’s Electrical Tramways are officially opened, replacing the horsedrawn system that had long been part of the city’s transportation system. 1905 — The All Blacks suffer their only loss of the Originals tour when beaten 3nil at Cardiff Arms Park by Wales. Controversy will rage for years after a lastminute try by Bob Deans for the All Blacks was disallowed.
1916 — Gregory Rasputin, a monk who wielded powerful influence over Tsar Nicholas II, is murdered by a group of noblemen in St Petersburg.
1919 — New Zealand’s first official airmail flight takes place, on a service from Auckland to Dargaville.
1929 — SS Manuka is wrecked on Long Point, in
the Catlins. All passengers and crew survive.
1944 — The New Zealand Division captures Faenza, in Italy, during World War 2; German forces begin the Battle of the Bulge in the Ardennes area of Belgium in World War 2.
1950 — United States President Harry Truman proclaims a national state of emergency in order to fight communist imperialism.
1956 — The United Nations assumes control over most of the invaded sector of the Suez Canal Zone as AngloFrench troops continue their withdrawals under increased Egyptian harassment.
— A United Airlines DC8 and a TWA Super Constellation collide over New York City, killing 134 people.
1966 — Live deer are captured from a helicopter in
New Zealand for the first time.
1971 — Pakistani troops surrender East Pakistan after a war with its rebels and their Indian allies. The territory soon becomes the independent nation of Bangladesh.
1972 — The US Apollo 17 spacecraft heads for Earth after the last US manned exploration of the moon.
1990 — Haitians elect populist priest JeanBertrand Aristide in the country’s first fully democratic election.
2000 — Hundreds of Polish nurses block international railways and border crossings across the country as part of mounting protests
for higher pay.
2013 — Water washes into about 20 shops in Dunedin’s CBD, mostly between Wall Street mall and the St Andrew St intersection, during midto late afternoon thunderstorms; a 150kg fur seal leads wouldbe rescuers on a merry dance through a succession of backyards in the Andersons Bay area before being successfully captured and returned to the surf at Tomahawk Beach.
Today’s birthdays:
Catherine of Aragon, first wife of Henry VIII (14851536); Jane Austen, English novelist (17751817); Sir Noel Coward, English dramatistcomposer (18991973); Sir Arthur C. Clarke (British author (19172008); Liv Ullmann, Norwegian actress (1937); Benny Andersson, Swedish musiciancomposer, former member of Abba (1946); Joel Garner, West Indian cricket player (1952); Benjamin Bratt, US actor (1963); John Kirwan, All Black (1964).
Thought for today:
Life means progress, and progress means suffering. — Hendrik Willem Van Loon, Dutchborn journalist and lecturer (18821944).
ODT