Today in history
Today is Monday, June 18, the 169th day of 2018. There are 196 days left in the year. Highlights in history on this date:
1429 — English forces, retreating after the siege of Orleans, are attacked and defeated by French forces under Joan of Arc and Duc D’Alencon at the Battle of Patay.
1583 — The first life insurance policy is taken out
in London.
1812 — The United States declares war on Britain because of restrictions imposed on shipping during the Napoleonic Wars.
1815 — The British under the Duke of Wellington and the Prussians under Gerhard von Blucher defeat France’s Napoleon Bonaparte at Waterloo. 1817 — The first Waterloo Bridge over the River
Thames is opened.
1862 — New Zealand’s first telegraph line, between
Christchurch and Lyttelton, is completed.
1873 — US suffragist Susan Brownell Anthony is fined $US100 for attempting to vote in the 1872 presidential election.
1895 — Minnie Dean’s murder trial begins in Invercargill. Branded the ‘‘Winton baby farmer’’, she is defended by Dunedin barrister
Alfred Hanlon. Three days later she is found guilty after the jury deliberated for just 30 minutes. She was executed in the Invercargill jail less than two months later and is the only woman to have been hanged in New Zealand. Minnie’s husband, Charles, was arrested with her in 1895, but all charges against him were subsequently dropped. 1900 — With the antiforeign Boxer Rebellion already under way, the dowager empress of China orders all foreigners killed.
1928 — Aviator Amelia Earhart becomes the first woman to fly across the Atlantic Ocean as she completes a flight from Newfoundland to Wales in about 21 hours.
1940 — General Charles de Gaulle makes a famous BBC broadcast from London in World War 2, declaring himself leader of the ‘‘Free French’’ and urging the people to resist Nazi occupation.
1945 — William Joyce, known as ‘‘Lord Haw Haw,’’ is charged in London with high treason for his Englishlanguage wartime broadcasts on German radio. He was hanged the following January.
1948 — Columbia Records unveils its new long1 playing phonograph record, which turns at 33 ⁄3 revolutions per minute instead of 78rpm.
1958 — Shoppers stand on food and break fittings in a rush to get openingday specials when New Zealand’s first supermarket opens in Otahuhu, Auckland.
— Air Vicemarshal Nguyen Cao Ky assumes office as premier of South Vietnam and immediately imposes censorship, closes many newspapers, and suspends civil liberties.
1975 — Prince Faisal Ibn Musaed is publicly beheaded in Riyadh for the murder of his uncle, King Faisal of Saudi Arabia.
1983 — Sally Ride becomes America’s first woman in space as she and four colleagues blast off aboard the space shuttle Challenger.
1995 — All Black wing Jonah Lomu scores four of his trademark tries as New Zealand qualifies for the Rugby World Cup final with a 4529 victory over England at Newlands in Cape Town. The tries are immortalised by the commentary of veteran New Zealand broadcaster Keith Quinn. The All Blacks were beaten 1512 by South Africa in the final; a private plane carrying the Angolan soccer team crashes in Luanda, killing 48.
1996 — Benjamin Netanyahu is sworn in as Israel’s youngest prime minister at the head of a rightwing coalition government.
— One of the most reviled figures of the century, the fugitive Cambodian Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot, surrenders to former comrades. 2010 — Popular student pub the Gardens Tavern is bought by the University of Otago and later transformed into a study centre.
Today’s birthdays:
George Mallory, English mountaineer (18861924); Anastasia, daughter of Russian Tsar Nicholas II (19011918); Colin Moyle, New Zealand politician (1929); Denis (Denny) Hulme, New Zealand racecar driver (19361992); Paul McCartney, British singer/songwriter (1942); Thabo Mbeki, former South African president (1942); Linda Thorson, Canadian actress (1947);
Isabella Rosselini, Italianborn modelactress (1952); Vivienne Robertson, New Zealand international footballer (1955); Alison Moyet, British singer (1961); Simon Dallow, New Zealand journalist/television personality (1964); Nathan Morris, US singer (1971); Rowan Milburn, New Zealand international cricketer (1977); Jason Segel, American actor (1980);
Anna Thompson, New Zealand international netballer (1986).