Today in history
Today is Tuesday, June 19, the 170th day of 2018. There are 195 days left in the year. Highlights in history on this date:
1669 — Michal Korybut Wisniowiecki is elected King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania, becoming known as Michael I.
1816 — Battle of Seven Oaks between the North West Company and the Hudson’s Bay Company, near Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.
1819 —SS Savannah arrives in Liverpool, after making the first Atlantic crossing by a steamship, although it also carried sails.
1829 — Sir Robert Peel introduces an Act of Parliament which establishes the London Metropolitan Police.
1846 — The first offically recognised baseball game occurs when the New York Nines defeat the New York Knickerbockers 231, in four innings, at Hoboken, New Jersey.
1862 — The United States Congress prohibits
slavery in US territories.
1875 — The first sod is turned for the Kaitangata
railway by Sir J.L.C. Richardson.
1897 — Death of Charles Cunningham Boycott, an estate manager in Ireland who refused to reduce rents during a severe economic crisis. In protest, the tenants stopped paying their rents and the term ‘‘boycott’’ was born.
1917 — During World War 1, King George V orders the British Royal Family to dispense with German titles and surnames and the family takes the name Windsor.
1940 — The mail steamer Niagara, carrying £2.5 Sir Robert Peel million in gold, is sunk by a German mine off Northland.
1943 — A landing craft from the troopship USS
American Legion is swamped during an amphibious landing exercise at Paekakariki, north of Wellington. Ten US navy sailors are drowned.
1953 — Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, convicted of nuclear espionage for the Soviet Union, are executed in the US.
1958 — A 14bedroomed private hotel at Cheviot,
North Canterbury, is destroyed by fire.
1959 — The upper storey of Queenstown’s White Star Hotel is gutted by fire. It is the sixth major tourist hotel in the South Island to fall victim to fire since 1950.
1961 — The first evidence proving the existence of Pontius Pilate is found when a slab with his name on it is discovered at an Italian dig at Caesarea in Israel.
1963 — Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova returns to Earth after spending nearly three days as the first woman in space.
— The Otago Harbour Board’s container terminal at Port Chalmers is opened; at Wellington, becomes the first container ship to be loaded at a New Zealand port.
1973 — The Court of Appeal rules Maori may not take claims for customary ownership of the seabed and foreshore to the Maori Land Court.
1987 — Sixyearold Teresa Cormack is abducted, raped and murdered in Napier. The crime is not solved until 15 years later.
1999 — Britain’s Prince Edward marries publicrelations executive Sophie RhysJones in a ceremony at Windsor Castle.
2003 — The Court of Appeal rules in favour of
Maori, allowing them to take claims for customary ownership of the seabed and foreshore to the Maori Land Court.
2010 — The All Blacks defeat Wales 429 in the last
test at Carisbrook.
2013 — Wild weather continues to wreak havoc
throughout the South Island. Milton is hardest hit, with flooding, and heavy snow falls in inland areas. Wellington is battered by the strongest winds recorded in 40 years.
2017 — New Zealand racers Brendon Hartley and Earl Bamber drive Porsche to victory at the 24 Hours Le Mans race, along with German teammate Timo Bernhard. The pair join New Zealand motorsport legends Bruce McLaren and Chris Amon, who won the event in 1966.
Today’s birthdays:
James I, monarch of England and Scotland (15661625); Vic Cavanagh (Young Vic), New Zealand rugby union administrator (19091980); Rod Coleman, New Zealand Grand Prix motorcycle road racer (1926); Gena Rowlands (born Virginia Cathryn Rowlands), US actress (1930); Salman Rushdie, AngloIndian writer (1947); Mary (Kathleen) Turner,
US actress (1954); Paula Abdul, US singer (1962); Sadie Frost, English actressfashion designer (1965); Richard Ussher, New Zealand multisport athlete (1976); Moss Burmester, New Zealand Olympic and Commonwealth Games swimmer (1981);
Casey Williams, New Zealand netball international (1985).