Today in history
Today is Thursday, May 10, the 130th day of 2018. There are 235 days left in the year. Highlights in history on this date:
1307 — Scottish king Robert the Bruce heavily defeats an English cavalry force at the battle of
Loudoun Hill in Ayrshire.
1774 — Louis XVI ascends to the throne of France
after Louis XV dies of smallpox.
1834 — Almost two weeks after the barque Harriet runs aground at Cape Egmont, survivors are attacked by Ngati Ruanui. Twelve sailors are captured and eaten.
1855 — Following his conviction for sheepstealing a month earlier, James Mackenzie escapes from custody at Lyttelton. After a third escape and recapture he will be granted a full pardon and his sentence will be overturned eight months later, due to flaws in his trial.
1862 — A large crowd packs a public meeting in Dunedin’s Princess Theatre to consider selfgovernance of the South Island.
1865 — Jefferson Davis, president of the US Confederacy, is captured by Union forces in Irwinville, Georgia.
1869 — The first transcontinental US railway is completed when the Union Pacific and Central Pacific lines are joined at Promontory, Utah.
1878 — The Mataura Ensign, now The Ensign is first published in Gore by Joseph Mackay who owned the Bruce Herald in Milton at the time.
1924 — J. Edgar Hoover is appointed director of the
US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
1925 — Prime Minister William Massey dies of cancer. He is the third New Zealand prime minister to die while still in office.
1932 — During the height of the Great Depression, 3000 relief workers from Wellington vote to strike rather than be moved to country camps. Later in the day, 5000 relief workers gather at Parliament, but the Minister of Public Works and former prime minister Gordon Coates refuses to address the men, prompting vandalism in the central city.
1933 — In Berlin, 25,000 books are thrown into a
bonfire in the first Nazi bookburning.
1940 — Germany invades the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Belgium; British prime minister Neville Chamberlain resigns and Winston Churchill forms a government.
1941 — Hitler’s deputy, Rudolf Hess, parachutes into Scotland in an apparent attempt to negotiate a peace deal; he is arrested and imprisoned.
1949 — Siam changes its name to Thailand.
1955 — A helicopter is used for the first time to transfer a patient to hospital, from Waiheke
Island to Auckland.
1960 — The All Blacks depart for a tour of South Africa despite protests demanding Maori players be included in the team; the US nuclearpowered submarine completes an 84day submerged voyage around the world.
1978 — Princess Margaret of Britain and the
Earl of Snowdon announce they are divorcing after 18 years of marriage.
1992 — Peruvian police storm a prison cell block held by mutineering prisoners from the Shining Path guerrilla movement, killing at least 28.
1993 — More than 200 workers are killed when fire destroys a toy factory in Nakhon Pathom province, Thailand.
1994 — Media tycoon Silvio Berlusconi takes office as Italy’s prime minister at the head of a coalition government; Nelson Mandela is inaugurated as the first black president of South Africa.
1995 — An elevator carrying goldminers plunges to the bottom of a mine shaft near Orkney, South Africa, crushing as many as 100 to death. 1996 — New Zealand climbers Rob Hall and Andy Harris and six others die in a blizzard on Mt Everest.
2007—The Otago Corrections Facility opens at
Milburn.
Today’s birthdays:
Sir Thomas Lipton, English merchantsportsman (18501931); Sir Charles Statham, former New Zealand politician (18751946); Fred Astaire, US danceractor (18991987); Donovan, Scottish pop singer (1946); Barbara Cox, former NZ football representative (1947); Miuccia Prada, Italian fashion designer (1949); Chris Kuggeleijn, former NZ cricketer (1956); Bono, Irish singer (1960); Kim Nye, former NZ football representative (1961); Blyth Tait, New Zealand equestrian representative (1961); Linda Evangelista, Canadian supermodel (1965); Belinda Charteris, former NZ netball representative (1972); Craig Hall, NZ actor (1974); Zarnia Cogle, former NZ football representative (1976); Madeleine Sami, NZ actress/musician (1980).
Thought for today:
Nothing recedes like success. — Walter Winchell, American columnist and broadcaster (18971972).
ODT and agencies